about matterplay

In September 1994 I was invited to a computer-robotics company where a friend worked as an engineer. His voice was very excited as he talked about this new "public network" that was fairly unknown compared to the popular BBS networks. We sat down at a Sun SPARC system where my friend brought up X-Windows then started a program called Mosaic.

What I then saw made my neurons fire. Here it was, a real whole-world network. He showed me that he could access computers at various universities and businesses around the US and the world. I asked him if I could do that at home, he said sure all I needed was a service provider and a web browser.

The first night I was connected at home I was searching for something about programming and after only about 15 seconds a screen appeared. I looked up at the and saw the location of the host computer had .se in the address. I just accessed a computer at the University of Sweden. I was so excited I spent the whole night connecting to different computers looking at the abundance of information available to the public.

I then started playing with HTML and web pages. Back then if I had a question like "can I put a link in a drop down menu?" I'd call a programmer at Netscape or email Jerry Yang at Yahoo. I also saw the World Wide Web as a phenomena ready to happen. One day while talking with friends whose families owned wineries I was asked if the Web was something businesses could use to market their products. I explained that it was inexpensive but it was also passive. But that conversation is what started me on the track to be a web site creator.

About two weeks later I went to purchase a laptop so I could do presentations to businesses showing them the potential of the web. The person who I bought it from said they knew someone that was looking for help in setting up a website. A week later, I had interviewed with the owner and was hired to set up their web site. That job led to another web site job, then another.

A couple months later I started matterplay and began creating websites for businesses and individuals. Because the Web's technology has grown as fast as the Web itself I found I couldn't learn all the programs so I started hiring others when needed. I have been fortunate to find very talented people for graphic design, database construction, cgi, perl, Java, and multimedia to make great websites. If you want us to help you with your Web goals, feel free to email me today.

staff

Robert Templar, Programmer
Robert brings a talent that I can only envy. The ability to get a machine (computer) to do something. He uses JAVA, Perl, C++, and PHP to create magic on web sites.

Josh Bortman, Database & Graphics
Josh creates databases and web sites. His projects include; XML, DHTML, FileMaker, mySQL, Lasso, Dreamweaver, Flash, GoLive and Photoshop.

Margaret Foard, Editor/Writer
Margaret has edited magazines, books, and web sites. She writes for a number of science fiction and technology publications.

Donald Ferrel, Designer
Donald has excelled at creating effective visual communications with the limited tools available for web designers. He has done work for many top web sites.

Michael McDonnell, President, Developer
Michael has worked on web sites since 1994 and before that BBS's (Bulletin Board Systems). His abilities include HTML, DHTML, XML, Photoshop, GoLive, Dreamweaver, Flash, and a variety of databases.

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