Tech Stuff
As a webmaster, I've had to create and adapt a number of various programs over the course of my career. I'll qualify that
by saying that I neither consider myself nor do I want to be a programmer (English major, hello!). But I've picked up a few
things in JavaScript, Perl, and even a little ASP over the years as a matter of necessity. These are all programs that I've
found useful and have implemented on various sites upon which I've worked.
I've also had to train colleagues in basic HTML and CSS. As part of the training, I developed online tutorials to help
them understand the concepts necessary to create and maintain Web pages. I've included the tutorials on this site for archival
purposes. You can also view an online portfolio of my web work.
Basic Web Tutorials
Javascript Financial Calculators
Javascript Other
PERL
- Fluid Dynamics Search Engine (version 1.1, 1997)
- This is a PERL search engine script that—although technically somewhat obsolete—is probably the best one-file
search engine I've found. It doesn't require indexing, it doesn't require a database, and it's very easy to set up and
maintain. I made a tweak or two to the code to make it easier to customize. It might not have the greatest features, but
the simplicity of it is a great strength.
- Mailer Feedback Script
- I came up with this originally as a way of understanding how to e-mail form results using PERL. I've fooled around with
a number of tweaks over time, but the basics of the script is that it takes the input, e-mails it to a designated sendee,
and has an option to send an autoresponse to the sender telling 'em whatever you want to tell them. It's the script I
use on both this site and the Shakespeare Resource Center.
- Marc's Character Emporium
- Yeah, laugh, like you never played a minute of Dungeons and Dragons in your life. This is the third iteration of a program
I wrote back in the 80s to learn randomization in Basic. I still had the programming printout, and I was just learning
Perl, so I used this program conversion as a kind of test. It turned out okay, although I think the randomization routine
still needs a little work and it seems to generate far fewer hit points on average than what it should.
- Shakespearean Glossary
- For the Shakespeare Resource Center, I repurposed a small phone directory script I found and modified it to serve as
a searchable glossary for Shakespearean terms. This is the second iteration of the CGI; there are still tweaks I'd like
to make in the search process, but it does the job.
- Survey Script
- Based on a number of things I've had to throw together at one time or another. This script parses a multiple question
survey in which all answers are required and e-mails them to the administrator. There is also an option to write to a
pipe-delimited flat-file database on the server that appends the results as they come in.
