About...
			Principles and Policies
			History
			Sources
			Tools Used and Specs
			Comments on Sections
			The Author

Principles and Policies

Kept Simple: Mostly Text

I started out with e-horizons in September 1999 on a AMD 486DX2-alike with RAM recently upgraded from 8MB to 20MB. Although this was a big break for me, it was still a crawler running on Windows 98. Although I now work with a Pentium III-500, I still have a soft spot for those getting old and cold in front of slow PCs. Even with fast machines, with all that net congestion, I wouldn't want to keep anyone in a suffering wait.

So I decided to keep it simple. E-horizons is mostly text, with some graphics used for the lines and borders. The entire site uses only about 1.5 MB. I do enjoy flash and graphic-heavy sites, though, when they do load quickly in the wee hours of the morning. Sometimes I even feel like coming up with some graphic-heavy stuff, although not here. This is a place for text.

Complex yet Compatible

Originally, I used HTML 3.2, then used some HTML 4.0 with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). After I downloaded SUN HotJava 3.0, Opera 4.0 beta 3, Netscape 4.7 and Netscape 6 pre-release 1, my eyes were opened to how horrible my pages looked on other browsers besides Internet Explorer 4 (IE4). I went back to using tables in addition to CSS. Then I learnt some Javascript and got it working with IE5 and Netscape 4.7. I also viewed my work on Opera, HotJava, Netscape 6 and Lynx (text-based) and found it tolerable.

There is definitely a trade-off between complexity and compatibility, but fortunately you can pick how complex your page gets before it becomes a one-browser thing. One must keep in mind that universality is one of the prime virtues of the net.

Original

I undergo identity crisis from time to time, trying to decide on a theme for my personal site. Well, it is a personal site, so it's kinda like other personal sites with a guestbook, an "all about me" section and some links. But always, I try to be original. Well, some webpages that I see do impress me (see Sources), and I do absorb a trick or two from them. But I want to keep my site distinct.

History

12 June 2000-- Edition II-b: (technology update) Dedicated to freedom. Focus changed from "outward" to "inward". Hobbies and interests sections were replaced with thoughts and haiku. Presentation was enhanced with DHTML. Much time was spent on cross-browser compatibility, taken in detail in the Tools section.

3 April 2000-- Edition II: (major revision) Finally, what had been planned since last December... E-Mail Forwards! Page after page of e-mail got formatted into individual textboxes on webpages. Borders were installed to tidy the look.

17 January 2000-- Edition I-c: (re-born late) looks like it missed the millennium party. A big disappointment, though, was that no bug struck down all the computer systems of the world. But one thing marked this day as special: this site started looking the way it does now! well, almost. it didn't have a black border yet, though, and it looked like crap on Netscape.

12 December 1999-- Edition I-b: renamed "e-horizons", where 'e' could mean 'electronic' or 'event'. The focus of the site remained the same; only content was updated.It was still hosted at polgas.

5 October 1999-- Edition I: titled "Kean's Home" for lack of creativity, the site focused on school activities and download favorites. It was incubated on a 486 SX2 on Windows 95, it was first uploaded to polgas, the server for ateneo computer engg students.

Sources

Specifications and Tools Used

During the first month of learning how to make webpages, I used good old HTML 3.2. At first I tried generating pages with Word, but the code was too messy; then, with FrontPage, which I had no complaints about, but I couldn't use it at home, because it was too bulky. I tried out Arachnophilia, which I still like, but I settled with 1st Page 2000 from www.evrsoft.com, primarily because of better syntax highlighting, and the File Explorer Sidebar, which made it real easy to open documents.

I'm mostly preference and imagination, with a splash of javascript, and lots of CSS and tables. I look about the same whether you're using IE4+ or Netscape 4.7+, with javascripts and style sheets enabled.

Comments on Sections

The Author

I've just graduated college and I'm beginning work as a software engineer. I've been downloading a lot of free software lately, and I'm slowly starting to side on general public licensing. It's interesting how some people just like to give things away. Maybe a more sophisticated animal of the same genus asks for a favor in return, things like a link to their site or a recommendation to a friend. Perhaps it is because one's software becomes an extension of one's person, so liking this software becomes liking this programmer (hyukhyukhyuk).