TroyForge

Let's Code Something!

For Hire - Internet Promotion Services

When someone says, "I want a programming language in which I need only say what I want done," give him a lollipop. - Alan Perlis

I do some freelance web design and internet promotion work these days for small, usually locally owned businesses, individuals and organizations. You might be surprised at how affordable it can be to get your small business an established internet presence and drive customers to your site. Most of my clients' websites cost $29.95 per month. Not only does that cover hosting and domain but I even build and maintain a website as well as help promote my clients' businesses by posting ads for them with links to their site in promotional places online that are appropriate for their particular business. But this involves ABSOLUTELY NO SPAMMING! Like most people who have had their email boxes bombarded with junk, I hate spammers with a passion.

With my service, all you have to do is email me the information you want to get out there and I do all the rest. You don't have to learn a lot of coding and how to build your own website. You don't have to learn about search engine optimization techniques. You don't have to spend all of your time online posting ads and promoting your website. You let me do all of that for you so you can concentrate on running your business or organization. For a lot of businesses if I manage to rustle you up one or two new customers per month it's worth $29.95 right? But based on feedback I've received I generally get much better results than that. Knowing one's way around the internet, how to get effective search engine rankings, where to post ads that get seen, get results and don't make people mad at you for posting inappropriately has it's benefits. Put my experience to work for you! I don't do contracts, or ask for any long term commitments. You pay month to month and if I get you results and you're happy then you keep paying me. If it isn't working out for you and you're not getting what you wanted out of the arrangement then cancel any time you want and stop paying me. It's just that simple. It's bound to be worth $29.95 to at least try me for a month and see what happens. Heck, buying a domain alone for a year costs half that amount.

See Some Current Projects below for some examples of sites I've recently been involved with. If you would like to chat fire up your favorite e-mail thingy and get in touch with me at troy1of2 [at] gmail [dot] com. Psssst! Don't tell the spammers. ;-) Or give me a call at (817) 307-0804

Speaking of getting in touch with me. You can find me almost any place I hang my hat on the internet just by looking up Troy1of2. Want to contact me on Yahoo! IM? Troy1of2. How about AIM? Troy1of2. Myspace? Troy1of2 ICQ? Well, there I'm 347840 but I also use the handle Troy1of2 there. Of course you can also e-mail me on Yahoo! by using troy1of2 [at] the usual place.

Some Current Projects

Eagle Solar Screens A-Attractive Pools and Spas Eagle Mountain Protogrove, ADF Ancient Traditions Cultural Center North Texas Pagan Pride Day DFW Pantheons Primal Aspects Perrin Point Free School

Forums and Resources

Ubuntu Forums Google Developers Network Python Programming Langauge Ruby On Rails

Fun Stuff To Do With Computers

BrainJar: Experiments In Web Programming HTML Goodies - The Ultimate HTML Resource Jennifer Slegg - Search Engine Marketing and Optimization

There are far, far more links available in My Bookmarks

November 13, 2008 Posted by Troy | Topics: Internet Promotion

Open source

I'm a huge fan of all things Open Source, from the Ubuntu Linux OS I use to run my computer to the Firefox web browser I use to surf the net to the Bluefish and Quanta Plus web authoring systems I use to work on my websites. For low cost (usually no cost), high security, and NO VENDOR LOCK IN Open Source software is the best.

November 13, 2008 Posted by Troy | Topics: Open Source, Get Firefox and Why.

You've been.....Thunderstruck!

What's this all about you might ask? Well, it's a rather long story actually. You see, I've always had a fascination with computers and the many things you can do with them. How they can be programmed to be anything you want them to be or operate pretty much anything you might want. When I was about 15 years old I got my very first computer. It was a brand new Commodore Vic-20 with a dataset storage attachment. Oh it was awesome to me at the time. My best friend Layne and I spent hours and hours over the summer PEEKing and POKEing to create our very own flight simulator program called Messerschmitts and Mustangs as well as an Artificial Intelligence chatting program called Basement Man (Don't Ask).

I took computer maintenance courses in High School where we used TRS-80 machines with 5 1/4 inch floppies and even received an Ann Brannon Award for my work in that class over the course of three years. After High School I went to I.T.T. Technical Institute in Arlington but after six months dropped out of the course with the intention of continuing my formal training at a later time but life kind of took over and I never did. I did, however land a decent job working for American Airlines. For the first 13 months it wasn't so good, I was literally sweeping the floors and driving scrubbing machines in the terminals at D/FW Airport. Later I upgraded into a Utility position which paid better and gave me an opportunity to learn more things. In 1996 the department I was working in got contracted out but I was able to test into a new position as a Plant Maintenance Man (Originally in Automotive Maintenance but later in Facilities Maintenance). Which is where I have pretty much been ever since. There's more about that on my Let's Fix It! page.

It's not so much what I was doing while working at American Airlines that pertains to this story as it was what I've been doing on my off time for all those years while I've worked there. From 1992 to 1995 I ran a small, 4 line BBS called The Earth Club. For those of you who don't know, BBS's are what most computer enthusiasts used to get online, share files, play games, send and receive messages and such before the internet became so readily available. Mine was on a network called FidoNet as well as having a UseNet gateway to carry newsgroup messages from a local internet provider. If I recall correctly my FidoNet address was 1:130/507. Around 1995 I got my first dialup shell access account with a local internet provider. Whoah! It didn't take me long to see that with the amount of files available through FTP, the shear volume of content available on the WWW, IRC chat, full UseNet news feeds and tons of online MUDs to play games on that the days of little mom and pop BBSs were over. So I started learning HTML and later javascript and later still Java and a few other things along the way and eventually had a decent little side business building what I was calling at the time brochure websites for small local businesses to get them on the internet and provide them with a presence through which to contact new customers. It was working out pretty well for me until, oh, about 2001. Like so many dot coms that went bust that year things really slid downhill for my little enterprise as well and most of my customers simply went out of business and dissappeared.

But, these days, things seem to be looking up again...

- Troy Young