Yeah it's a little on the large side, but, what an award. It just screams success. I'm not going to give this award to just anyone, I have a long list of annoying rules. I want to be picky and I'm only going to choose the best of the best.

I have a bunch of rules for this award. Originally I listed them out, but it was too confusing, especially for me. So here's what I did, I set up the different types of pages I'd like to see and what I don't want to see on that page.

The sites don't have to be about stained glass. And me signing your guestbook (regardless what I might say in it), won't guarantee you an award. Nor having your page on my links list.

Currently you have to ask for the award, if the future I may hand them out to lucky people people.

Listed are some of the types of sites I'd like to see. As I go along and see what comes my way, I'll put info for those types of pages as well.

INFORMATION PAGES

Any page that contains useful information. For example, I was once looking for cat information; a cat hangs around my house, I pet him, he rubs me. I wanted to see if he was marking me, or took a liking me. Yes he was marking me, rubbing, not peeing. Basically it's information people could use.

Let's say you have a site about dogs: your site has information for caring, feeding, petting, playing, etc. That would be useful and helpful.

Another person has a site about dogs: the page is about some guy and their dog spot. I don't care about spot, no one else does either. No award.

My page, for example, is a good example of a tips page, for stained glass. Taking out the time to write up information for free public use, with nothing truly to gain from it.

Do you collect stamps and love to tell people about it? Well, I don't really care. But if you have information on how to collect stamps, and take care of them, and how to collect them yourself, that's different.

Basically, what are you offering the public? Anything useful? Anything usable?

GRAPHICS PAGES

I like graphics, good one's though. I've seen a lot of good graphic collections online, some original some not. I don't mind seeing the little sign on the bottom of people's pages that state that I have to put their graphic on my page if I use their graphics. That's only fair, the graphics really belong to them. I've seen in the past some pages that have the sign, but graphics were literally Window icons.

Categories:

Clipart: The clip art should be original, and usable. They should look professional to some degree. There can't be any strings attached, mainly no cash involved. I won't be handing out awards to people who are selling their CD, and those are their samples (unless there are a lot of samples). I would hand it out to people who took the time to gather or make the graphics for free.

Photo Clipart: Photo clipart is any clipart picture that was cut out from a photo. The pictures should be clear, and well trimmed. For example if you see a really cool cake in a magazine, and scan it for your page, that's fine. But the cake should be removed from it's background and shouldn't have half of a fork in the shot. So all I have to do is, select the cake, place it on the table, and Moltar, Zorak and I can eat it.

Textures: These don't have to be hand made. I do like photo type backgrounds (taken from a photo). All the textures should be truly repeatable, meaning they should be a seamless tile. I've seen a lot of textures that you can see the "invisible boundary" between the repeats. If there hand made, they should look nice. I don't count clipart backgrounds as true textures. A clipart background is a simple faded graphic placed on a colored square. To me, it's un-usable both for a texture, and a webpage (very distracting to look at).

Photographs: You don't have to be a professional. They can be vacation photo's. I'm always on the look out for good photo's. The photo's I like to see are landscapes, animals, balloons, flowers, old cars, and good puffy clouds. I use these for my art. The pictures themselves should be clear, have good contrast, and be of something interesting. The pictures shouldn't be grainy, blurred, or off color. I don't want to see the grand canyon, with your family in the way. Nor pictures of you and your dog. I'd like to see photo's you might see in a magazine, a calendar, or a puzzle, and not in a photo album in someone's living.

If you examine the links on page 5, those are the types of graphics I would deem as good.

FUN FACT PAGES

Do you have trivia pages? Useless but interesting information? Lemme take a look at it, it could win.

LINKS PAGES

I rather not get links pages. It doesn't involve much brain work for you. The page would have to have good links. Example: phone books, medicine, maps, etc. And not just a bunch of random links to who knows where. The links must all be go somewhere, as in they all have to connect to where you say they will connect. It's your responsibility to keep the links accurate and up to date. Check them out every so often, and change, add, and delete them as necessary. I check mine on whenever I update,which is about every 2-3 months. Also a description of each link would be very helpful.

MP3 AND MIDI PAGES

I like midi and MP3. I know there are groups out there who consider an MP3 illegal. I don't. In any case, it's preferred to have direct links from your page. Not links going to other sites (most of which are down anyway). The music should be divided up by either artist, or type of music.

Awards will be giving if the music selections are complete. Bonuses would include showing the size and maybe a brief description. I want to see a good collection not 5 or 6, but a whole bunch.

BASIC GUIDELINES

All the pages must meet the following requirements:

1. They all must be readable. The font size should be large enough to read easily. The background can't be too distracting or dark.
2. It should be easy to navigate. Java shouldn't be required to navigate through the site. And I don't want to click on a page with out a way to get back from where I came.
3. All the internal links have to go somewhere. They shouldn't ever be bad. Though I do understand if your server messes up. I also don't want to see half of the links going to "under construction" pages.
4. It should have most of the external links working. They should always be kept updated.
5. All the pictures on the site, should connect, and I shouldn't get broken pictures. On that not the pictures shouldn't be gigantic. In other words the graphic can't be 10" x 20" shrunk down to the size of a stamp using internal size codes. The file will take for ever to download. Also the graphic should be either a GIF or a JPG file, those are the only types a of formats that browsers can understand.
6. All of the spelling should be correct and most of punctuation. My E-mail has tons of errors (if you've ever seen it), enough to make any English teacher cringe, cry or die. Capitalization, and periods are a good idea. And the English has to make sense, it shouldn't sound like an old Kung-Fu movie.
7. It has to be written in English. Or at least near enough to English. I can only read in English, it can be written in other languages, but there should be a choice.

1. Any profanity, curse words and such.
2. No nudie pictures or other possible X-rated things.
3. They must not have anything to do with bigotry, or hating other people. I don't mind cat hating pages though. I don't want to ever see any pages against a particular race, except maybe for the human race.
4. I don't want to see any page written by a cat, dog or baby. As in "Hi my name is Petey Puppy", "and my life has been really ruff". Don't want to see it.

They really shouldn't have:

1. I really don't like built in midi. It's hard to watch TV, or talk on the phone when it pops up. Some people don't have sound cards and it's annoying to have that box pop up stating that it couldn't find the sound card. And for people who do have a sound card, it might be old, and not sound at all good. And besides I could care less for your version of yankee doodle dandy. At the very least the midi should have an off switch.
2. Animated graphics used to excess. I don't mind a few animated graphics. Some are cute, some I even save. But too many are very distracting. The only exception would be if that was what your page was about. And the animations should be, in some way, relevant to your page. A dancing snow cone has nothing to do with flowers. And a rotating skull has nothing to do with violins. A subtle animation is ok, or if it runs once and stops.
3. Built in Shock wave can be fun, but for slow connections it takes forever to download it. In most case they pointless. a lot of times it will ask you for a plug in, which is just plain annoying.
4. Scrolling bars at the bottom of the screen. It's distracting, it won't let me see what pages are loading. I don't like them. They are just one other annoying Java applet. It's never needed, there isn't any point to them. On the bright side though, they are slowly being phased out.

I won't necessarily respond to you if you ask for the award. I'll look at the page and it will go into a sub folder. If you win I'll let you know. I'll hold onto all entries probably for about a year. I'll check back and see if you've improved the site.

I don't want to receive a page that has nothing on it. Nor a page that says that it's going to have something on it. I'm not giving out the award just for fun and anyone. It's being used as a tool to get the best of the best pages.

After receiving the award, the graphic has to be up, from your site (not connecting to mine). And a connecting link going back to my site.

Also when you E-mail me, (if you remember), to let me know how you found me. Though that isn't important to win. It also doesn't hurt to sign my guestbook.

WINNERS

8-29-01 Boldt Castle: A Virtual Tour - Located in 1000 islands region of northern NY State. The site contains over 350 pages of information, stories and history of the castle, and the famous tragic love story that started it all. It also has thirteen photo albums with over 200 pictures in them, showing some of the pictures he took at Heart Island. They also have a fun facts and trivia page, an interactive forum for people to ask questions and discuss topics.

2-2-99 ShadowyMist - This site features a few tutorial's on Paint Shop Pro. As well as presets for Blade Pro. There is also some free homemade "shiny" graphics that you can use. The site is professional to look at, and easy to navigate.

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Started on 9-22-98