content
All of the content here was written by me. The only exception is the writing piece Theory, which was written by L.H. Darlow. You cannot use any of my content without my prior consent. All of the views expressed here are entirely my own, or are at least written in the role of Devil's Advocate. I don't mean to offend anybody, and apologise if I have done so. Please understand that, just like you, I have the right to freedom of speech, and the right to have my opinion aired. It's like that, and that's the way it is.
code
The entire site is hand coded. I've worked very hard on it, and am very proud of it. If you'd like to know how something was done, don't hesitate to ask. However, I do ask that you get permission before using any of my code.
syndication
There are two feeds for the news section: an RDF feed, and an ATOM feed. Both feeds have been validated.
images
As with the code, I made most of the images, simply with fonts and patterns. Any images that were used and not made by me are thought to be freeware, and were used with such thoughts in mind. If the owners of these images have a problem, let me know and I'll remove them immediately. You may not use my images on your site without my prior consent.
domain & hosting
bencosgrave.com was purchased in 2000, and the site moved to its current host in september of 2001. Originally, the site was hosted by iHug, who were my ISP at the time. After iHug, I switched ISP's to Paradise.net, who I still use today.
Unfortunately, Paradise.net do not offer any kind of scripting support, and to advance the site to a database-driven model, it was moved to a server at Otago Polytech. The site had an Active Server Pages frontend, and a Microsoft Access 2000 backend. This was great while I was a student, but when I graduated, I lost access to the Polytech server. Additionally, my PHP expertise was beginning to far outweigh my ASP experience.
So I moved the site to paid hosting, care of Prohosting, who are easily the cheapest, and offer a great range of services at a cheap price.
technology
The site has a MySQL database-driven backend, and the frontend HTML is generated by hand-coded PHP scripts. The PHP output is W3C-validated XHTML 1.1, and the output is presented using W3C-validated CSS. The news section does not use any third-party blogging software. The entire site has been coded by me, using a text editor.
The thumbnails in the pics section are automatically generated by PHP when an album is created, usig PHP's built-in image library.
programs
The programs used to bring bencosgrave.com to you are:
linking
If you would like to exchange links with me, just send me a message, and I will decide if your site would be appropriate to link to. Sites containing any views which are pornographic, racist, violent, or involve the promotion of skateboarding, will not be considered appropriate.
