We do not take paid advertising on our site. However, we would appreciate it if visitors took a moment to visit sites for projects of our own to see if there's anything there that might interest them. Bash Down the Door and Slice Open the Badguy! - an anthology for which Kevin wrote the humorous fantasy story, "The Order of the Crimson Tunic":

Jo Ann's Resume - HTML

• Jo Ann's Craft Stuff - Jo Ann has numerous craft projects that can be viewed here on our site.
• Our Mobile Page - A mobile phone accesible version of this site.
  • Meeting Timer - Directly download a timer for your cellphone to track wasted money in a meeting. The source code is here and here.
  • If loading your cell via a download cable, get the .JAD file here and .JAR file here
• I built the graphics on this site using The GIMP graphics manipuation tool (think of it as freeware photoshop). I pared down the graphics so it'd load very quickly with only five graphics on the whole page.
• Here is an applet that draws mazes of various shapes.
• An applet that creates a maze for an icon or decorative border. Like this...

   

   

  Listed in JavaBoutique and JARS (below). Quite cool, if I may say so myself...

General Stuff

• Risks Newsletter - The web version of the comp.risks newsgroup. A lively discussion of risks of technology in society. Great war stories.

Resources

• W. Richard Stevens was God (well, maybe Moses) on the Internet (forgive the blashpemy). If you needed to know about any internet protocol, UNIX internals, or obscure technical item, there was a pretty blue book with his name on it for you.
  • His site, with source code and other stuff including some interesting chocolate recipes.
  • TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 1 The Protocols (a.k.a. "the Stevens book") - WARNING: May disappear at any time due to copyright issues.
• Wotsit.Org - An impressive collection of file formats. Ideal when you have to write a utility to manipulate a widely used format, but don't know where to start.

Java

• Java Boutique - A wonderful resource for Java.
• Java Applet Rating Service - Another great resource.
• Java FAQ - everything you wanted to know but were afraid to ask.

Embedded

• The bible: Embedded systems magazine.
• Seminars by Jack Ganselle.  Good collection of links.

Miscellaneous Software Development Stuff

• Sick of reinventing the wheel? why not check out these code archives!
  • Sourceforge's Snippets Library - A collection of some nice code from the largest open source developer's site on the net.
  • Snippets.org
  • Aware - Searchable "attic" of source code for nearly any concievable use.
  • Trumphurst Ltd - 'Haven't played here as much as we'd like. Check it out and let us know!!

• LeonardCruz.com, Master of his domain (yeah, it's an old joke...).
• Blackrune, the SCA mercenary household where Kevin and Jo Ann (as Godfrey and Natasha) are proud (if not particularly active) members.
• Pollgreen.com - Rick Pollgreen is a former coworker of Kevin and Jo Ann's from Northrop and Rockwell-Collins. Pay him a vist, eh?

News & Content Sites

• What? You've never been to /. (er, it's pronounced slashdot)? News for nerds? Stuff that matters?
• Kevin occasionally posts as Embedded Geek. Feel free to log in and flame him - everyone else does.
• News of the Weird - Check Sheppard's weekly column is one of the best spots on the web. A "weird news" site run by a real journalist. You can also check out his daily entries.
• The Onion - Satirical newspaper, with fake stories sometimes taken at face value by the gullible. You won't know whether to be offended or simply laugh your behind off.
• memepool - Nice content site, specializing in the bizarre. Better mannered that FARK, emphasizing quality over quanity. Lots of cross posting between the two, though.

Science Fiction

• Baen's Free Library disproves TANSTAAFL (sort of).
• Del Rey Sample Chapter Archive
• Asimov's Science Fiction
• Analog Science Fiction and Fact
• Project Guttenberg - All kind of free literature on the web.
• Michael Swanwick (author of quite a lot) has set himself a microfiction challenge: write one sci-fi short story about each element in the Periodic Table. At the rate of one a week. New entries appear Fridays. (Stolen from memepool).
• All hail Locus, the trade magazine for Science Fiction and Fantasy.
• The Oxford English Dictionary's has a project to capture the roots of words in specialized fields and is begining with a pilot site for science fiction. Why not log in and tell 'em about the first time you used the word "mutant"?
  • Science Fiction
  • SF Criticism
  • SF Fandom
  • The slashdot posting I put up that bought a thousand hits in one day to this site (not much to brag about, but I'm starved for attention).

General Weirdness

• Blue Sabre Inc. - By the time there were enough kids named "Kevin" for my local toy store to stock bicycle license plates with my name, riding a bike was no longer cool (Jo Ann is still out of luck). Blue Sabre Inc. now has an online setup to customize your own!
• The House of Clocks - From Neil Gaiman's Walking Tour of the Shambles from American Fantasy Press. Be sure to "pay special attention to the sundials... know that they will be paying special attention to you."
• Lateral Science - Dangerous Victorian science experiments: artificial volcanoes that violate today's toxic waste laws, poorly grounded electrical generators, a scheme for animating the dead. What more could any boy ask for?
• The People's Webcam - Bored? Why not go here and see how witty you can be in 27 characters. Just type in something and you'll see it appear on the screen saver of a PC in someone's study in Florida. The FAQ says they look at the logs, so try to say something nice about us, OK?
• A Nerd Roadtrip - A guy rigged up a camera to the odometer on his car and set it up to take a photo every mile from NY to SF. Has to change the film every 36 miles, but... (originally found via Slashdot).
• Mapquest gone bad - As part of a PBS documentary on the Cold War, type in an address and see what a nuke would've done to your hometown.
• The Norm - Kevin just loves this comic strip. Go figure.
• NASA's Satellite Sighting Information Page - "Look, up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane!" It's a spaceship you can see with the naked eye! Too cool for words - click here and get the time and direction you can see the International Space Station, the Space Shuttle, or other object with your bare eyes. It only takes a couple of mintues to go in your backyard and take a peek, yet it feels like magic (*insert corny theme music here*).
• The Public Magic 8 Ball - Ever seen those sites where you type in a question and click to have a Magic 8 Ball answer it (like the applet I'm cooking up)? Forget 'em! This site has a real 8 ball hooked up to a webcam, set in a robotic cradle. Type in your question and the dang thing really shakes an 8 Ball!! It don't get cooler than that.
• Chicken soup for your inner geek - this page in French, German, or in Italian. We never knew "Professional Stuff" translates as "Substance Professionnelle." On the other hand, it's kind of creepy to see something you've written translate as "Kommandos Nebula, stehen bereit!" In either case, it looks so much cooler when you don't understand it, don't you think?