What follows is a semi-brief, somewhat irrational glimsp into our thoughts on the internet..namely web design... If that kind of stuff interests you...read on.

The web is a neat place. It gives anyone with computer skills the ability to become a publisher. So all of the sudden, we can all subject the masses to whatever we want, in whatever form we want. That's what this section is about... form. It's also about function, because in websites, function should always follows form. After all, how can you make a website function if you can't figure out how because of bad form. Good form is hard to define, because it is related to quality, which is pretty much impossible to define. But we can discuss what we think makes up good form...that's what this section attempts to do...sorta. This information has been included to answer questions like: How does this website work? What was your motivation? Why did you do it like that? If we all have the ability to publish information, maybe we should start exchanging ideas about how to most effectively publish information. The future of the internet depends on it.

Fact #1. Websites are easy to build nowadays. You can select from one of thousands of WYSIWYG html editors and spit out pages in minutes. We don't believe in those types of editors, and every one of the pages you see here was written in notepad or a programmers editor (pfe32). You may wonder why it matters, and in most cases it probably doesn't.. but to us, it's like driving a car and not knowing how the engine works... we just can't do it. There will always be things that you want a little different that the editor gives you. With plain html and things like style sheets, you can pretty much get whatever you want...don't let WYSIWYG editors destroy your creativity.

Fact #2. People like Java. We hate it. This site contains NO java of any kind. That's right..none. If you know anything about web development, you may think that's a little weird...and compared to John Doe's website, your right. We've given up nifty things like mouseover effects and cool drop down menus in exchange for speed and robustness. It's a good trade :) (Ya, ya.. I know, the average mouseover effect is so small that it doesn't add substantial download time, and any browser from the past few years can handle that type of Java.. but if we're going to ban Java, we've got to ban it all!) --update 6/16/02 We're sort of sorry to admit that this site now has a tiny amount of javascript. We had ideas to improve the user's experience on the site, and we simply couldn't do what we wanted without it. You probably won't notice (unless you have a browser from 1993..) but we felt guilty not updating this :) Anyway, JavaScript is downloaded to your computer, compiled there, and then executed. As developer's, we don't know what condition your computer and browser are in. Without that knowledge, we don't feel safe letting our programs compile there. Enter server side languages.. namely PHP. If your wondering how this site does its magic, it's all php. Php is a *FREE* open source programming language that runs on unix/windows/whatever. The programs are compiled on the server, not your computer. That means it's faster for you, and a lot more predictable for us. Maybe you've heard of Microsoft's ASP, Java's JSP or Macromedia's CFM? Well PHP is the same type of thing, only it's free and arguably better. And we can't forget cgi/perl...or can we? Perl is just weird, and cgi has kinda been left behind because it was slower than php, asp, etc. This is because when you executed a cgi (common gateway interface) it caused the server to 'fork', which is like opening a new program in Windows. The newer programs like php and asp could be compiled by a module of the webserver program (that was already running). It's obviously faster to open a document in an already open Microsoft Word, than it is to open Microsoft Word and then open a document. Now cgi scripts can be compiled by a module in webserver programs too.. but the new languages like php and asp are so much easier to understand, that most people have abandoned cgi/perl. We may have digressed a little, but it's important to understand what happens to your program when it's accessed over the internet. Slow or buggy browser dependent code can obviously have a negative impact on your site's form.

Fact #3. People like pictures. Pictures are pretty, but rarely are they what bring you back to a website. We know from our own experience that it's data that keeps us interested. Based on that, we've tried to limit our graphics so that the pages load fast and you get to what you came for, the reviews and product information. Unfortunately, the majority of web surfers still use a dial up connection. We test all our pages with a dial up connection to make sure they don't take forever. Hopefully pages that load fast and provide good data will help you out and keep you coming back.

Fact #4. Data Rules. Like we just said, data is what keeps people coming back. Since we told you a little about php, we thought we should mention our database program, mysql. Oh ya, it's free too. We like free stuff, especially when they work as good as php and mysql. So anyway, in case you haven't noticed, this site is one big database. Most interesting sites are (ebay, amazon, i-club etc..). The database contains all the products and all the reviews. This type of site could be done without a database, but it would quickly become a nightmare to maintain or make changes. Proper setup of a database can make life really nice as a web site maintainer. For example, we setup the polls using a database. To change questions, we simple add a new entry into the poll database. This entry contains the questions and the responses as fields. And that's it..we're done. We've written the code so the most recent question will display on the main page, and the other (past) questions stay in the database so you can view old polls. There's no editing html files and setting up new stuff. Databases are good, let them be your friend.

To learn more, check out www.php.net, and www.mysql.com. And read Phillip Greenspun's book (it's online).