ASSOCIATES (vol. 2, no. 2, November 1995) - associates.ucr.edu

Table of Contents

                          LIBRARY LIFE:
                 A COLUMN OF ECLECTIC RAMBLINGS

                               by

                          Katie Buller
                    Senior Library Assistant
            School of Library and Information Studies
                 University of Wisconsin-Madison
                     ktbuller@macc.wisc.edu

Learning something new everyday is an occupational hazard.

And applying what you learn at work to frizzle-brained projects
at home is also a hazard.  I'm now married to my home pc, but my
work pc is becoming the "other love" of my life, despite its
antiquated hard drive, wrinkly keyboard and otherwise dull
exterior. You see..I HAVE LEARNED HTML!!

That's Hyper Text Markup Language to you unschooled masses out
there who haven't been enlightened yet.  This is the language you
use when you design World Wide Web home pages.  Let me give you
an example:

     Typical moronic web page WITHOUT HTML:  Hello there.

     Typical moronic web page WITH HTML:  
Hello there

Get the difference?  I knew you could.

How did I learn this golden tongue?  I went to a workshop.
That's W-O-R-K-S-H-O-P to the unschooled masses again.  An
all-day affair where we learned about not only HTML, but
transparent GIFS, page design and where the coffee machines at
the UW-Whitewater Library building are.  I also found out that
A) not all microcomputer labs are the same and B) what works at
that lab won't work at my house.

This is a given.  Nothing I learn at a workshop will ever work at
home.  Period.  And NOTHING I learned at the workshop will
even REMOTELY work on my desk PC at work because I'm using a 286.

Yes, that's right, a 286..another name for the dreaded PS/2.  It
doesn't even have WINDOWS, except for that big window where the
numbers and letters that I type show up.  You know, the one that
shoots radiation at you?

Designing a web page is a project for people who are absolutely
self-absorbed at all times.  Only someone who inhabits solely his
or her own brain constantly could possibly sit still for having
to decide whether to save a .GIF file as type 87a or type 89a.  I
mean, what's a .GIF file anyway!?  Well, as it turns out it's
some kind of file format for saving graphics like artwork and
photos, but frankly I always thought GIF was a type of peanut
butter.  You remember.  Annette?  Peanut butter?  Happy round
kids with high cholesterol counts and acne from their shoulders
on up?  And it does make a difference whether you save it as 87a
or 89a.  If you save it as 89a, then you can make it
"transparent".  But if it's transparent, HOW CAN YOU SEE IT ON
YOUR WEB PAGE?  The logic of these HTML designers boggles the
mind.

HTML also lets you steal.  Yes, you can steal from someone else's
page by telling HTML where to find it, and making it look like
it's on YOUR page.  How original!  You don't even have to buy a
mask, dark clothes or a power suit.  You just type in the magic
words, and presto, you're Robert Wagner in "It Takes a Thief",
only you're wearing a muu muu instead of a tux, sitting in an
uncomfortable chair, drinking tepid coffee and yelling at the
cat.  Try picturing Robert Wagner in a muu muu.  On second
thought, don't.

The World Wide Web was supposed to be the ultimate on the
information superhighway (any bad jokes about roadkill can be
inserted here), but instead it has proliferated into the most
useless garbage imaginable.  Since I always try to go with the
flow, I have done my best to contribute to the stinkpile, and
tried to keep "Mirsky's Worst of the Web" in mind as I designed
my drivel.  So, for your edification, I have put up (so far):

the MS MOO Home Page:  http://www.cris.com/~msmoo/msmoo1.html

the Kevin Sorbo Fan Home Page:
http://www.cris.com/~msmoo/sorbo/sorbo1.html

the Duncan Regehr Fan Home Page:
http://www.cris.com/~msmoo/regehr/regehr1.html

the Absolutely Unofficial Unendorsed Paul Revere and the Raiders
Home Page:
http://www.cris.com/~msmoo/revere/prr.html

the Jimmy Yeary Home Page:
http://www.cris.com/~msmoo/yeary/yeary1.html

and, strangely enough, something useful...
the Bird-related Internet Resource List
Home Page: http://www.cris.com/~msmoo/birdlist/birdlist.html

So, you say you haven't heard of most of these people?  And you
don't know what birds are?  You're not alone, but my home pages
are.  So, just so that I can monitor the traffic, I'll eventually
add a COUNTER program to each of them, and be able to assess just
how astoundingly popular they become.  And just to make sure, I
have sent my URLs (that's what these things are called) to every
Web search engine that's out there!  Yep, check on Webcrawler, it
will eventually be there.  Apollo already has it, as does New
Riders' Yellow Pages and Lycos.  Pretty soon they may even show
up on the newsstand at your local market, if there's a way I can
send my URLs to it!  They'll be right there with "Man Grows Dog's
Head Out of Ear" and "Roseanne Has Alien's Baby".

By the way,  I meant to make the MS MOO Home Page a fan home
page, but MS MOO, being the shy, retiring, delicate soul she is,
wouldn't hear of it.