[ Tools ]

You may have noticed that my website resembles a quaint relic from the mid-1990s. That's because it is!

My site focuses on content. I'm not a graphic artist. It's all I can do to keep the information updated. I have no time to worry about whether the colors and graphics are in fashion. Nevertheless, you may be interested in the hardware, software, and books that were most useful in building this site. Links will lead you to the vendors and publishers.

Computers: Various Windows PCs and Macintoshes. The original site was created in the mid-1990s with a custom-built Intel Pentium 200MHz system running Windows 95, and an Apple Macintosh Performa 636CD with a Motorola 68LC040 66MHz processor running Mac OS 7.6.1 and Mac OS 8. It's proof that you don't need the latest whiz-bang computer to build a website.

BareBones Software's BBEdit freeware text editor for Mac: www.barebones.com

Helios Software's TextPad shareware text editor for Windows: www.textpad.com

Adobe PageMill 2.0 HTML editor, Mac version. Not a current product. Much better web-design programs are available today, but I still prefer to write my HTML manually with a text editor.

Symantec/WebGain Visual Cafe Java development tool, Windows version. Not a current product. I've used several Java dev tools that vanished from the market. These days I usually just write my code with a text editor and compile it from the command line.

Metrowerks CodeWarrior Another Java dev tool, Mac version. Not a current product.

Netscape Navigator web browser, Mac and Windows versions. Not a current product. These days, on Windows I use Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, and Mozilla SeaMonkey. On the Mac, I use Apple Safari and Mozilla Firefox. On Linux, I use Mozilla Firefox and open-source Chromium. On Chrome OS, I use Chrome. SeaMonkey includes an HTML Composer that's sometimes useful, although it creates ugly HTML. Info: www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey

Adobe Photoshop image editor, Windows and Mac versions. Info: www.adobe.com

Apple ClarisWorks 3.0/4.0 integrated software package, Mac and Windows versions. Not a current product. Now I use Microsoft Office (Windows, Mac) or Libre Office (Linux).

Hooked on Java by Arthur Van Hoff, Sami Shaio, & Orca Starbuck (Addison-Wesley, 1996, out of print).

The Java Tutorial by Mary Campione & Kathy Walrath (Addison-Wesley, 1996, out of print).

Talk Java to Me by Harry McIntosh (Waite Group Press, 1996, out of print). What a great little reference book! Too bad it wasn't updated.

Java Programming Explorer by Neil Bartlett, Alex Leslie, & Steve Simkin (Coriolis Group Books, 1996, out of print). This was my first Java book.

Web Publisher's Construction Kit by David Fox & Troy Downing (Waite Group Press, 1996, out of print).

HTML Web Magic by Ardith Ibanez & Natalie Zee (Hayden Books, 1997, out of print).

JavaScript Primer Plus by Gabriel Torok, Jeffrey Payne, and Matt Weisfeld (Waite Group, 1996, out of print).

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