[Ryan Watkins - vamp@vamp.org]

So, this page used to be my requisite "This is me, and I've got a homepage page", with the basic set of links and a couple lines of how I worked as a student sysadmin in college, went out to lots of clubs and generally fucked around. Now I've been thru six jobs since then, helped found a successful startup and sold it, and my soul to work for Microsoft, moved to Manhattan and DC, and lived the life of leisure for a few years. I'm currently in Brooklyn. A lot has changed. More required now than just adding a new sentence on to the old paragraph of what I do.

I used to call myself a Webmaster, which became a valid Occupation option when you fill out those forms. Eighteen years ago nobody got it. A billboard that just reads "http://www.bankofamerica.com/" is no longer a novelty. Its certainly been a wild ride.

So what did I do?

Long ago (well, over 25 years ago, but thats like four million 'Web-Years'), I worked at Academic Computing Services (ACS) at Cal State Long Beach, spent a good portion of my time surfing the net, reading usenet, exploring the WWW, and playing with Unix stuff, unless of course, I was sleeping or out at a club. I installed MacMosaic 1.0 in the student labs, ran NCSA http on my NeXT cube which eventually turned into ...

... a job as Sysadmin and HTML hack at On Ramp, Inc. where I learned to cash in on this web mania. I watched Oak turn into Java, and built commercial sites. Most, if not all of those projects listed below are dead and gone. Part of the web graveyard. In March 1995 I left On Ramp for greener pastures - along with most of the talented technical staff (meaning I no longer work for Madam Furry ). This turned into a position as ...

... local HTML Hacker at Dimension X. I spent a good amount of my time writing sites in 3 days ("but its gotta be a killer site .."), dealing with ad agencies that just didn't get it, running the network and the like. Much changed, I got the title of "Director of Web Technology" and did lots of webmaster work. That's all dead now too. Scott's gone, and Chris no longer sleeps curled up to a RAID drive under his desk. We grew from 7 people in a couple corner offices to just over 50 when we were acquired by Microsoft . Then ...

... I went to work for bill. I did development for the MS web team on the DirectX and Java sites, evangelism for Chromeffects, demo production for DirectX Media, and finally did work for MSN doing HTML/Javascript application UI development on MSN Explorer. Dimension X has been relegated to a minor footnote in history - both Liquid Motion, and the product it begat, Vizact are axed, and the couple remaining developers worked in the Office group. Karl went off to another startup, and then another startup, and even took a couple old DimX'ers w/ him. Then ...

... I took a year long 'Leave of Absence' and moved to New York. After that year I spent my time studing photography, involved in personal projects, enjoying the city, visiting museums, traveling and generally slacking without a full time job. Its good work if you can get it.

After that I traveled thru a variety of places.
MLB.com. Thumbplay. Fox Mobile. Softcard. Mastercard.

[Business Card]

I have a guest book (who didnt in '96? maybe I need a web ring link too ..) and some of my favorite quotes.



Some of the web Areas I've Strung Together ...

The Dark Side

My personal playground that includes, among other things, The Gothic Home Page (formerly) at gothic, the Siouxsie And The Banshees Home Page, and various other things. Named Catch of the Day for June 21st, 1995, as well as "Worthy" site by the Seeress of the web. The Gothic Home Page was selected for Hotwired NetSurf column, a "From the Depths of the Web" site, as well as being featured Internet World (some time ago, and again Nov. '95), .NET (Jul. '95), Swing magazine (Apr. '95), and rated among the top 5% of all sites on the Internet by Point Survey. The Gothic Image Database was selected as an Infoseek Select site. I'm so cool.

Academic Computing Services - CSULB

I used to work as a System Admin at CSU Long Beach, and I built the initial campus server and content. It looks nothing like it used to, but some of the old material lingers around here and there.

The Digital Collage


I was the original curator for The Digital Collage virtual gallery, a gallery of work produced by students and faculty in the labs on campus at Cal State Long Beach. This project was left in the capable hands of Aaron Remick.

Flat Field Records

I created and installed Flat Field Records online presence, by creating a WWW space and an automated mailing list. This is some of my first commercial web work.


Web Work for Dimension X ....

Dimension X

I was Webmaster at Dimension X 'till its acquistion, and I built and maintain the company site. Went thru numerous redesigns and new logos and though, its not as cool as the old black X site, it was fun. Oh well. Rated among the top 5% of all sites by Point Survey, and PC Mag's "Site of the Week"

"Who Shot Mr. Burns"

Created for FOX Broadcasting for The Simpsons. "Oh, just a couple pages, that should be easy. (pause) But it has to be a killer site... blow them away.." You don't even want to know how quickly the initial couple pages were created. Picked as Tabatha's Groovy Site of the Day, The Internet Advertising Site of the Day, Hotwired's NetSurf on June 24th, rated by Point Communications as one of the top 5% of the sites on the net and their Hall of Fame, TVNET's "Top of The Ratings", Dynamite Site of the Nite on July 25th, Starting Point's 'Featured Hotsite' on August 7th, Seeress Vision for August 8th, a Laporte Web Pick of the Week for August 5th, c|net's "Best of the Web" , a GNN Best Of The Net 1995 Nominee, and tagged by Yahoo with a [*], which indicates they think the site has good presentation/content for the respective topic area. Woosh! 'nuf awards for ya?

ImagiNation Network

Now dead. AT&T's ImagiNation Network with info on the network, and links to download the software. Cute graphics. Ever done a web site with an ad agency? This one was done with Foote, Cone and Belding, and is now maintained by AT&T.

Sun Microsystems - Network Business Advantage

I don't know why I'm bothering to list this one. Someone at Sun stripped out almost every image, got some wrong when re-arranging it (note the wrong size HEIGHT AND WIDTH attributes), and removed the Java applets in the pages that did way cool zoom animations. Apparently unclear on the concept. But I did write the basic HTML. Actually wrote the HTML "blind" ... but that's yet another horrible story.

Fish Of Death Records

Now dead. Dan Stevens did most of the work, and I helped clean it up, added a few images and helped a bit on some of the layout. This site is now maintained and run by a fan.

Meat Loaf

Pain. Agony. REALLY long hours on little sleep. But it turned out pretty good. Scott did a Java based http game server from scratch, and the guys from Wild Brain did a good bit of the art and MCA provided gobs of material. I'm much happier now that the server push from the main screen is gone. Its even a pretty cool site if you don't like Meat Loaf, and its nice and dark like I like 'em. Went up literally at the 11th hour. Picked for the Seeress Vision for September 20th.

Now dead as well. The web content is just so temporary.

GT Bicycles

Getting into the habit of cranking out sites rather quickly. There is a good bit of material here in the catalog and there should be news updates and such coming a lot. Looks pretty cool, though we're working on a redesign.
This one disappeared when they decided they didn't want to pay their bill.

Monopoly

Bright and happy, but actually turned out to be a rather decent looking site. Nitpicked over the details forever, but finally got it out there. The animations in the game are way cool, now all we need is a java version of the game. Also rated among the top 5% of all sites by Point Survey.

Walt Disney Home Video

Kind cool to work on Disney material, and there was plenty of it. The schedule seemed to continually slip, and while I was convinced it simply wasn't going to get done in time, we actually made it and it looks better than I thought. Plenty of help from Joshua Bell and most of the DNX crew on this one.

Web Sites I did for On Ramp, Inc....

BMG's Classical World

I built the first incarnation of this site, which has since been redone and is no longer hosted by On Ramp. Its one of my favorite creations, and it was named "NCSA's Pick of the Week" for March 13, 1995, and declared one of the top Arts/Entertainment web sites by Point Communications. I think its a good commercial use of the net that doesn't just attempt to sell you something on glitz, hype and advertising. Its a great site to learn about classical music for both beginners and experts. Much of the credit also goes to Robert Bourne for the vision, the time and making this all happen.

NEC RISCstation 2000

A couple pages of product information on the RISCstation 2000 by NEC whipped up in an afternoon. This machine screams, but it also has to run MS Windows NT. *sigh* Now removed.

Models, Inc.

The homepage for Fox's show, Models Inc. Includes an daily gossip on upcoming episodes, reviews, character bios, photo gallery, and bulletin board. Pretty chicks get lots of hits. The show was later "not renewed" and neither was the site.

Hit Radio Veronica

um.... its not my fault... really. Ever try to do a site in a foreign language you don't know?

StarTrek Conference Calling Cards

My first project at On Ramp, when I sold out and started using Net$cape specific tags. Long dead I presume, though OnRamp seems to limp along ...

Oasis

My second major project for On Ramp, the creation of a web site for the Sony band, Oasis. Kinda like the Beatles, part II, or so someone at Sony thinks. Also interesting to note that they took the time to strip out all the comments that indicate I authored the pages. Thanks guys.

Universal Studios - Cartoon Studios

I worked on the Exosquad pages, and created most of the Monster Force, Problem Child and Beethoven areas. Looks like its been removed and taken back by Universal.

The 37th Annual Grammy Awards

I created a few of the pages and graphics, as well as the crude search engine to plow thru the nomination database. Another transient site.


rlw / vamp@vamp.org