About
About Thinkzo
Thinkzo Systems, a vision whose origins began in 1988, is devoted to
solving problems through good, cost effective solutions.
Thinkzo Systems offers product solutions both commercially and free
through this website, and services ranging from website design, website
accessibility review, custom software development and JAWS screen reader
scripting.
So what sets Thinkzo Systems apart from other software vendors,
consultants or solution providers?
First, as a sole proprietor, I handle my business. I don't have business
costs associated with employees to pass along to customers, nor do I need to
worry constantly about an employee handling your business right. You get the
individual attention you deserve. You aren't just a number to me or another
client or customer. That's because I have a vision for doing business with
people, a vision that says people basically just want to be treated right, to
not be left hanging, to not pay through the nose for something just because
I'm the only one who can provide what they need. That may be the way most
people do business, but it's not the right way. It's possible to have a
successful business and be able to lay one's head on the pillow at night
knowing we both got what we wanted out of the deal.
Second, I have an established track record of providing good, solid
solutions. There are several reasons for this. I try to do as much planning
and preperation as possible. Sometimes I'll even start a project just to
check something out. Often that helps me in my planning and thought process.
I constantly watch money. In my life at least, I've always had more time than
money, so I often invent my own solutions rather than spend hundereds of
dollars buying something that's a quick fix. I set high standards for myself
and, as a result, I want to see that I'm as satisfied with the end result as
the customer or client is. If something simply doesn't seem to be working
I'll often find some other way to do it. I like things done right because
that's the way I want to be treated by others. The end result of this
attention to detail and my own determination has been a product that causes
few, if any, problems for the client or customer. Not only is this good
advertising for me, I don't end up spending time fixing something that
shouldn't be broken in the first place.
The above two paragraphs state the way I want to do business and the way I
want to produce my business. I've seen firsthand that these are reasonable
and profitable goals. If every successful business person who had ever been
told otherwise had given up on their vision, a lot of good products and
services wouldn't exist. My own life experiences are a testament to successs
and setbacks. I'm not going to keep those experiences to myself just because
a few people say or feel otherwise - those experiences are part of me and are
what drive the good things about my vision for a successful business. They're
not something to be hidden or obscured just because they're different or
unusual.
When I conceived the logo for Thinkzo Systems, my focus was on thinking
and solving problems, thus the lightbulb symbol. It wasn't until later that I
considered some deeper meanings. The purple colors turn out to be very
meaningful on an intellectual and spiritual level. The lightbulb itself
represents the willingness and determination to take thoughts and ideas and
use them to make something good happen despite claims by others that it's
impossible.
So, you see, there's definitely something more here than I originally
intended. This effort really is a labor of love for me. I love working with
computers and I love solving problems. Thinkzo Systems is more than just
another company, it's a vision of something better.
Thank you for reading about my vision that is Thinkzo Systems, and I hope
to do business with you soon.
-Greg Epley
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About Me
 Hi,
my name is Greg Epley, and I'd like to thank you for taking some time to read
about me. It's not an easy thing for me to write about myself, so please
excuse me if I seem to ramble.
One caution, before you continue reading. This section is about me. It's
one place I can provide some personal information, thoughts and feelings. It
is, however, just a snapshot of the person I am. It's not intended to offend
or defame anyone or any agency, other business or organization. I see things
from my own perspective based on experiences I've had in life and there's no
changing that, because one can't make decisions in life without drawing on
one's own life experiences. Now, with that little bit of disclaimer and
understanding out of the way, read on.
I was born in 1964 in the small town of Lexington, North Carolina. I've
always been intensely curious and creative. As a child I liked to take my
toys, and other things, apart to see how they worked, then I'd attempt to put
them back together. Sometimes successfully, sometimes not, but it was always
a learning experience nonetheless. I also liked to draw and doodle and was
quite good at it.
I hold an A.A.S. degree in Business Computer Programming and a B.A. in
Computer Information Systems. I started working with computers in 1982 and
quickly discovered I had a knack for working with them. I also discovered the
ability to bridge the gap between people and computers. Having a liberal arts
background, rather than the more traditional science background, gives me a
more people-oriented view of the computer. Computers are basically nothing
without people to run them, so it's very important to me that people be able
to easily work with computers.
What do I mean by a more people-oriented view of the computer? It means
I'm able to bridge the gap, to create a "user friendly" interface
to the technical "stuff" the computer needs to do. There are a lot
of extremely intelligent, technically capable computer professionals out
there in the world. The problem is, most of them fail miserably when it comes
to understanding the user side of what they're doing. That's where I come
into the picture.
Working with computers since 1982 has given me a broad range of
experience. It would probably take me an entire web page to even begin to
detail this experience, so instead I'll try to summarize with the following
list:
- Programming, or developing software, since
1982. A partial list of programming languages include BASIC, COBOL,
Fortran, Pascal and Modula-2, a little C/C++ and an assortment of
scripting languages.
- Website Design since 1995. I write my own
HTML, which is the language of web pages, unlike many web designers who
use visual design tools that do most of the work for them.
- Web Technologies since 1999. Like most other
technologies I've been very successful at, I taught myself Javascript,
CGI/Perl, and may be adding web-based databases to this list soon.
- JAWS Screen Reader Scripting since 2001. Also
like many of the technologies I've been involved with over the years, I
taught myself the JAWS screen reader scripting out of necessity.
I won't claim to have all the answers, nor am I capable of solving every
problem. I do my part and I do it well. I solve what problems I can and move
on. I don't keep plugging away on the same project over a long period of
time, producing updates and patches to fix things that shouldn't have been
broken in the first place. That's a complacent attitude, and a lazy way of
doing things. It's great to be good at one thing and do it well, but it's
also important to lend expertise in as many ways as possible.
As an individual consultant or solution provider, common sense tells one
that I can't be all things to all people. I can only solve just so many
problems at once. I can't be as many places or involved in as many solutions
as a team of people can. What I can do is know my limitations, treat each
customer or client as an individual, not as a number, solve the problem at a
reasonable cost, then move on to the next problem. This, as opposed to the
other approach, where promises are made and often not kept, costs run high
over time fixing problems that should never have existed or been fixed in a
timely manner, and being treated like just another customer or client, as a
number.
I'm a person who has to be satisfied with their work. While it's important
to me that the customer or client be happy with the solution I provide, I
need to be happy with it too. Typically this goes well beyond what the client
or customer is happy with. As a result, I can't in good conscience charge a
customer or client for work above and beyond the level they're satisfied
with. If I find I need to do more work to make myself happy with the project,
I do so because I love what I'm doing, and what I'm doing is a reflection of
who I am as a person.
This may seem like an odd way of looking at things from a business
perspective, but it's the way I feel and it's the way I want to be treated by
other business people. It's just the way I'm wired and there's no changing
that. When I see a software that's poorly developed, regardless of its cost, that's
a poor reflection of the person(s) who developed it. Maybe that's not fair,
maybe the person(s) who developed it lacked enough control of the situation,
and then again maybe they're just lazy or not good at what they do.
Everybody makes mistakes and I'm no exception. Nobody is perfect.
Sometimes people just give up to easily. it's easier to give up, to go along
with the crowd, to participate in a dishonest practice, than it is to do the
right thing, often at personal cost. I'm not saying all these things to be
self righteous, I say them to try to point out how and why I'm not like
everybody else who does this type of work. I'm not a rubber stamp. I do
things my own way and don't even bother to tolerate those who would try to
lead me otherwise astray. They're entitled to their opinion, so long as they
don't try to bend or twist mine into something it's not.
I like most anything science fixtion related: Star Trek, Star Wars,
Indiana Jones, Close Encounters, Buck Rogers, Greatest American Hero,
Battlestar Galactica, Back to the Future - just to name a few. Favorites
sci-fi authors are Ray Bradbury and Arthur C. Clarke. I enjoy a variety of
music, from classical to country to rock. Favorite foods are about anything
Mexican or Italian, plus about anything chocolate - and not that white stuff
either - chocolate should be, well, "chocolate"! Oh, and an
occasional PB&J sandwich, no matter how old I am, is always good.
I'm going a little off topic perhaps by what I'm about to tell you, but I
also believe that it's the variety of personal experiences one has in life
that shapes that person. To tell these things about myself is not
egotistical, taken in good measure, but rather gives others a more complete
picture.
I was born being extremely nearsighted. No doctor has been able to pin
down exactly why, although they do know it wasn't a birth defect. It was just
one of those things that sometimes happens. As a result, I was two years old
before I ever really saw any of my family clearly. Persons with this extreme nearsightedness
are subject to have various eye problems throughout their life and I was no
exception.
I won't bore you with all the details, but I've had more than my share of
eye problems. At age 12 I went completely blind in my left eye, due to a
total retina detachment which was not operable at the time. At age 17, I
nearly lost the sight in my right eye due to partial retina detachment, but
doctors were able to repair this damage and restore most of my sight. In fact
the doctor who did the majority of the surgery said it was medically
impossible for me to be able to see as well as I could after that surgery,
based on the condition of the retina, which was not only torn but full of
holes.
Early glaucoma often develops as a result of the extensive retina surgery
and, sure enough, two to three years afterward I developed the first signs of
glaucoma in the right eye. This was treatable with eye drops until 1992. The
1992 surgery corrected this problem, but added the complication of developing
early cataracts as a result.
By early 2000, the cataract on my right eye had become serious enough to
require additional surgery. The 2000 surgery introduced a glaucoma implant
and brought about the hope that, with the cataract surgery, I would now be
able to see quite well even when not wearing any thick glasses or contact
lenses. Unfortunately, this was not meant to be. By the fall of 2000, it was
discovered that epithelial cells, which are part of the white of the eye, had
managed to get inside the eye during the cataract surgery.
About a day after what was to be a routine surgical procedure to determine
the extent of damage and treatment, several hemorages occurred in the right
eye, filling it with blood. My eye pressure shot up to over 30, which is
extremely dangerous, and I had the worst pain in the right side of my head,
leading down into my neck and shoulder. Over the years, I've developed a
fairly good resistance to pain, so it's significant when the pain is bad
enough for me to notice it. Ultrasound also revealed that the retina was
partially detached.
The doctors discussed more surgery to siphon off the blood and repair the
retina, but it was unanimously decided by all concerned that this was just
too risky considering what the eye had already been put through over the
years. It took six months for my body to absorb all the blood naturally, and
allow the doctors to directly see the extent of the damage.
By January 2001, it was confirmed that I was blind. I had some minimal
sight, enough left to use the light from the TV, windows, doors or other
lighting to get some sense of orientation. Because the replacement lens from
the cataract surgery was still in place, I had some usable vision for
determining large enough print, but it was exhausting to try to use it for
very long at a time. I had made a special point of keeping my employer up to
date during the whole process, but found out later in 2001 that I had been
terminated after six months of leave.
By the time I found out about my termination, I had been through a lot
physically and emotionally and just wasn't up to fighting them on the issue.
It's easy for others to say I should have done so, but none of the people who
have told me this were going through it. It's easier to judge others in
hindsight, than to try to deal with such situations yourself at the time.
Anyone who doesn't agree with me on that, I tend to find, hasn't ever been
through any serious setbacks in their life. Based on everything I've been
through in my life, I also tend to find it true that what others often
consider "serious setback" in their life is a matter of
perspective. What they would consider "serious setback" is often
very minor to me. Some people can have a minor ache or pain and one would
think they're on their deathbed. Some can have one bad thing happen to them
and one would think the world was closing in on them. It's all a matter of
perspective.
Unfortunately, this isn't the end of the story. By October 2001, leaks
began to form in the eye chamber as a result of the invading cells. Emergency
surgery was performed to try to cut out the invading cells, which were now
essentially a cancer, and repair the leaks. That was the last time I ever
really saw anything well enough for it to be of any use to me. By December
2001, it was evident that more leaks were forming and I was out of options to
maintain what little I had. In February 2002, I underwent a radical and rare
procedure involving a very large corneal transplant. Additionally, doctors
removed the lens, iris, pupil, glaucoma implant and a portion of the white of
the eye all around the center.
This was an effort to try to remove all the invading cells to try to save
the orb of the eye, as well as maintain what little bit of the retina
remained. By April 2002, there were signs of another leak forming. The cornea
specialist did emergency surgery to repair the leak, and I was told this was
all that could be done. There was nothing left to cut out without removing
the whole eye. By June of 2002, this most recent procedure seemed to have
done the trick. The eye pressure wasn't up to par but no leaks or other
complications appeared to be forming.
Things were still touch and go over the next several months. By December
2002, two retina specialists had independently confirmed that the retina in
the right eye was now totally detached. There was still some sense of light
perception but that was expected to be gone eventually. There is no specific
timeframe in such a case, no way to even approximately predict how long the
retina will continue to function and transmit signals along the optic nerve
to the brain.
As of this writing, March 2004, there's still some occasional light
perception, but it's apparent to me this is slowly dissipating. At this
point, there is really nothing that can be done that wouldn't cause a repeat
of much of the same situation I've already been through. It's generally felt
that everything was done that could be done based on current medical
technology. A lot of people have commented to me that they could just do an eye
transplant. What many people call an eye transplant is nothing more than a
corneal transplant. There's no such technology as transplanting an entire
eye. There's work in that area and many others, but all of this is many years
away from being able to help anyone right now.
I don't mention all this so people will feel sorry for me, or feel pity
for me. I'd prefer instead that you admire everything I've been through and
appreciate what I have and will yet accomplish despite these setbacks. The
website you're visiting right now was built by a blind person. All the
colors, the logo, the content, the layout - all were conceived by me. I
taught my wife enough Adobe Photoshop to draw the logo I had in my head, and
I did everything else you see here. Obviously I can't create the graphics
myself, but I know how to help others help me create what I need.
One thing I've always seemed to have a good sense of is perspective, of
being able to empathize a situation. Let me give you an example. One of the
jobs I had after college graduation was teaching computer courses at the
local community college I once attended as a student. Going in, I swore to
myself that I wasn't going to forget what it was like to be a student. I got
a chance to be on both sides of the desk, so to speak. All to often, people
forget what it was like to be on the other side of the desk of life. It's
easy to do. It's far easier to adopt what others on the same side of the desk
as you are doing. In the process, you lose some or all of the person you were
meant to be. You become like everybody else. You have your side of the desk,
that's it, it's your way or your side and everybody else is wrong about
whatever.
I've unfortunately also encountered a significant number of people who are
supposed to be helping other people that seem to have lost this empathy, or
haven't had a significant number of unchosen setbacks in their life to
empathize. I guess I've just had the great misfortune to always end up
encountering a predominant number of people in service agencies who seem to
want to force me through the same old assembly line as everyone else. After
becoming blind, there was a significant amount of pressure placed on me to go
away from my home and family to a blind school. The purpose was to learn
everyday living skills as a blind person.
If you want to be successful at anything in life, you must learn to teach
yourself. So, I taught myself how to determine my toothbrush from my wife's,
how to get toothpaste on a toothbrush, to wash my hair in the shower, comb
and style my hair, pour hot or cold liquids in most any type of container,
determine whether I had the sour cream and onion or barbecue potato chips,
the sealed package of turkey or ham, or how to use most of the functions of
my cellphone. Those are just a few examples. No one ever bothered to
interview me to find out what I knew how to do. Instead, the predominant
attitude is let's just send me off somewhere and we've done our job.
I'm not perfect at using a white cane and probably never will be. As a
general rule, I give everybody the benefit of the doubt. I try not to go in
to see a doctor or a counselor with certain expectations because those
expectations are usually off or completely wrong. As a result, I've had very
few bad initial encounters. I'll probably never be very good with a white
cane or other mobility issues though, as a result of having a bad first
encounter with an orientation and mobility specialist. I found out later,
both from my wife and my mother, that the specialist kept looking over at
them as if to validate I was answering his questions truthfully. And I'm
supposed to implicitly and blindly trust this person to teach me orientation
and mobility skills? I have to look back on it humorously now and suggest
that he might do so by taking me for a stroll on the freeway. It's not that I
won't give people a second chance, but if you spook me enough you can hardly
expect me to respect or trust you. "Fool me once, shame on you' fool me
twice, shame on me."
Partly as a result of my many setbacks in life, I wasn't lucky enough to
find the love of my life - my wife Lisa - until the age of 35. We had roughly
a year together as a married couple before I went blind. Most people take
their marriage experience for granted. They lose their spouse after many
years of marriage, but often it's forgotten that they had those many years
without any serious, life changing setbacks. Other married couples fight over
petty differences despite the love they claim they once had for each other.
The other side of this coin shows the people who never got the chance to
find that special person, or people who were given the sad news that their
spouse was killed in a car accident just days or hours before the wedding.
Despite the fact that my wife and I never had that "normal" married
life for very long, there's a reason we were brought together. It was not
luck or chance or fortunate happenstance. It's something more that has kept
Lisa by my side through these dismal setbacks. Lisa isn't the only spouse who
has ever stood by their spouse when things got bad, but she's in a minority
of those who have.
Fortunately there are good people around me that accept where I'm at in my
ongoing struggle to learn to live as a blind person. People who don't push me
beyond what they know I'm comfortable with. A very common practice I've
encountered is for rehabilitation specialists or counselors to intentionally
try to anger people into action. That isn't an acceptable first tactic with
me. What it does is drive me to teach myself, which is generally what works
best anyway. I hate going to seminars, watching some person at the front
turning transperencies that duplicate the book I have in front of me. I say,
just give me the book and whatever and leave me be. Likewise, why should I
have to sit and be lectured on living skills I already have. Who's to say I
might not teach them something instead? I've been known to do that in the
past. Why would I suddenly be in the dark about it?
So what if I'm new at all this. At one time, I didn't know how to use a
screen reader, or create a website, or get toothpaste on a toothbrush
without sight, or get around very well without sight, yet I taught myself how
to do those things because I was ready to do them. I was tired of having to
get my wife to put toothpaste on the toothbrush for me. It would have cost
money I didn't have to go to a class to get instructions on how to use a
screen reader. I wanted to add to my skills and be able to design websites,
and I didn't have the time or money to waste on attending a class, where they
won't necessarily go at the pace I can. It has been my experience in life
that some people need to be helped to do things that I teach myself to do. I
don't know why that is, I only know that it is. I don't think it's because
I'm smarter than they are. Maybe it just gives me a sense of accomplishment
to know I did it myself.
Whatever people may choose to think or feel about me, or anyone I hold
dear to my heart, or anything I hold sacred, I try to always remember that no
one can take these things away from me unless I allow them to. Whatever
convictions I have as a person, whether in business or personal life, mean
something, and since I know they're good convictions, I know I'm doing the right
thing. Success in business or in life seems to be more about money and what
the world thinks, than it is about people. You can't take that money with
you, but you can take that people-side of life with you. So what if a
so-called successful person lives in a mansion, or has a house on the coast
and in the mountains, or basically wants for nothing, or got to have an
experience I'll never have because I won't do business the way they did. They
won't get to take that mansion or those cars with them when they leave this
earth, and who's to say they won't regret those seemingly wonderful
experiences in the afterlife, having seen they did so at others' expense.
Long story short, as I write this in March 2004, my wife Lisa and I now
live in her small hometown of Wabasso, Minnesota. Life has taken some good
turns for us since we made the difficult decision to move. We struggled long
and hard in North Carolina and tried to make things work there, but
eventually it was clear to me we were meant to move on. This is, of course,
not the whole story - for that I'd need a book. Perhaps reading this has
inspired you in some way, perhaps it has given you some insight into me as a
person. I hope it has done either or both, and thank you for taking the time
to read about me.
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About the Website
Since I can't know what you've read so far on this website, I must first
tell you that I'm a blind computer professional. I had about 18 years as a
sighted computer professional and, as of this writing in 2004, not quite 4 as
a blind computer professional. So I'm still fairly new at the latter.
Of course it's important that I conceived and built this website as a
blind person. That means something good. It's impressive. A lot of people who
can see can't design a good website or can't program a computer. The fact
that I can do it sighted, and now blind, is an accomplishment to be proud of.
I'm not going to keep that some big, deep. dark secret just because it may
happen to make some people uncomfortable. Bringing it up doesn't mean I'm
dwelling on it - it means it's a part of me now, not something to be swept
under the proverbial rug because it makes society uncomfortable, or makes
them draw certain conclusions about me as a person.
One of the things that sets me apart from most web designers is that I
actually write the HTML. HTML, which stands for Hyper Text Markup
Language, is the language that web pages are written in. The bulk of
website developers use visual design tools that do most of the work for
them, so when you employ someone who does that they're mostly making an easy
buck off you. By writing my own HTML, I control everything rather than a
piece of software controlling me.
Now, the downside of actually writing the HTML is that it can take longer
to produce a page. That's true, but then fast isn't always better, and fast
is what most consultants or solution providers churn out. Fast also
frequently means mistakes. I'm not talking about how fast the page loads, I'm
referring to the production or time required to develop the pages for the
site. The visual or WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) tools often force
or utilize design methods that make it difficult to make pages look
consistent under different circumstances. I tend to stick to plain, simple
basic HTML. I don't do "flashy". Flashy doesn't work well for blind
or low vision customers, so while you attract the sighted customer, you're
turning off the blind and low vision customers. Granted, the latter are a minority,
but they have money to spend on your products and services too, and if you
turn them off with your website, they'll just go find someone else to do
their business with.
I taught my wife enough Adobe Photoshop to help draw the Thinkzo Systems
logo. She has also been instrumental in helping me develop the look I had in
my head for the entire site. Being creative and artistic for the 35 years I
was sighted, gives me at least some sense of color and style that I realize
many blind persons never get the chance to have, and I'm grateful for that.
It was very important to me, in developing this website, to splash a certain
style or color around.
The color choices throughout the site are significant on a personal level.
These various colors have come to have a great deal of meaning and so it
seemed appropriate to try to use them.
- The various shades of purple have differing meanings:
spirituality, nobility of purpose, endurance and responsibility.
- Green represents sharing, balance,
adaptability, harmony, reconciliation and a need for healing.
- Peach is a similar, complimentary meaning to
the green, and represents empathy or harmony.
- Gold represents spiritual healing, mental
activity, intellect and ability to rationalize.
- White, found in the
lightbulb of the logo and the background of all pages, represents
perfection, hope, faith, confidence and enlightenment.
- Black has a more
negative meaning, and is only used to contrast with the prominent use of
white and other colors, although it can possibly represent my often
prominent, prevailing, simplistic impression of things as either good or
bad. Nevertheless, black is used here simply as a good complimentary
color to use against all the others.
I've mentioned, in the About Thinkzo section
above, a little about the Thinkzo logo. It was important to me to find some
use of color but also of shape or symbol that represented what was important
to me about the whole business concept of the company, the image, that I
wanted to present. The lightbulb with the exclamation symbol inside it not
only represents thoughts or ideas, it also represents the determination it
often takes to accomplish something good despite being told it's impossible
or foolish.
So where did I come up with such a weird name like Thinkzo? Well,
"think" is obvious here. It didn't make much sense to revolve the
company around "vision" or "seeing" since I'm blind, and
at the same time I didn't want to do what a lot of blind entrepreneurs do and
put "blind" or anything like that in the name. So what's with the
"zo" tacked on the end? Before I try to answer that, ask yourself
some questions. Is it unusual? Do you remember unusual things? If you
answered 'yes' to both of those questions, then the name has done it's job,
because the point here is to stand out from the rest of the crowd, to get you
to identify with the name. Unusual does that. So "zo" doesn't mean
anything, other than, you have to admit, it's kind of a cool, snazzy add-on.
It's also getting more and more difficult to find good, available domain
names to use, so sometimes one has to put a twist on words to find a happy
medium.
The site has been designed with a cascading style sheet (CSS) that handles
the consistent look and feel of the pages. This greatly reduces the size and
complexity of the style attributes in the pages and makes it much easier to
quickly change the look of the entire site by changing the content in one
file. Some browsers, including Microsoft Internet Explorer, allow a user to
override the style attributes of web pages by supplying their own cascading
style sheet. This comes in particularly handy for persons with various vision
problems, as some persons have trouble with certain combinations of colors.
The two big drawbacks to cascading style sheets are that not all browsers
support them, and a designer loses more control over the look and feel of a
website since users can bypass the cascading style sheet the author
intended.
If you resize the browser window, you may notice that the site does a good
job of resizing the content to flow within the window without creating a
horizontal scroll bar. You should also notice that the content doesn't flow
right up to the edges of the window on all four sides, and that content isn't
jammed into other content. These may seem like minor design considerations,
but I've seen sites built for large corporations by professional web
designers that didn't take such seemingly minor considerations into account.
The result is a site that, on the surface, looks good but can end up looking
radically different on computers with various screen resolutions, browsers or
computer platforms (PC vs. Macintosh, for example).
You won't notice a significant amount of graphical images on this site,
but that doesn't mean my client websites will lack in graphics. It simply
means that a lot of graphics aren't appropriate or necessary for this site.
Obviously a blind website developer can't produce the graphics alone. That's
a challenge I will face so long as I lack sufficient eyesight to do the work
myself. Eventually I expect to provide links on the site to samples of my
work, but I want to show off "real" sites, not ficticious ones.
This site should run on any browser capable of interpreting the standards
required by Microsoft Internet Explorer version 4.0 or above, or Netscape
Navigator version 4.0 or above. Browsers must also support cascading style
sheets (for the style attributes) and Javascript. This site should be
resolution independent as low as 800 pixels by 600 pixels, and may work at
lower resolutions. Most current computers sold since 1995 easily support the
800 by 600 resolution by default.
There are also a number of technologies working behind the scenes here.
The web based forms, date display and random quote display all use Javascript
to varying degrees. As of this writing, March 2004, web based form processing
and random quote generation are both handled by CGI (Common Gateway
Interface) scripts. The web based form processing is handled by a Formmail
script I modified especially for this website to maintain the look and feel,
since the original script deviated too much in that area. You can find out
more about the SFEBanner script used to produce the random quotes at the top
of each page using the provided link. I collected the various quotations
displayed from various sources, and I'll add to those over time.
The site also uses a variety of custom CGI scripts I developed to handle
frequent tasks. For example, the navigation menu across the top of pages is
generated during a page load, such that the menu knows what page is being
displayed and so prints the corresponding menu item as plain text rather than
as a link. So, for example, when the Support page is being displayed, the
Support menu item appears as plain text rather than a link, as it doesn't
make sense to show the Support menu item as a link when you're already
looking at the Support page. A minor thing, perhaps, but it's the small
things that add up to make a big difference to me. Two more custom CGI
scripts I developed deal with content display based on the selected style
sheet. One of these scripts is responsible for ensuring that the graphical
Thinkzo text beside the logo appears in the correct color, such as black text
on the default style sheet, or white text on the low vision style sheet. The
other script is responsible for displaying graphical content along with a
text link for the default style sheet, or a text link alone for the low
vision style sheet. This is necessary because some of the graphics simply
don't look good on the low vision style sheet, or would require modifications
I didn't feel were acceptable.
I hope I've answered any questions you might have had about the site.
Feedback is always nice to have, good or bad, so I'd appreciate a kind word
or a constructive criticism if and when you have the time. You can send me
feedback on the website by filling out the
Webmaster Form.
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