1. Freelance computer and electronics services.   Web design and services, Email system support.   

   Windows 95/98 troubleshooting, upgrades, support and installations;  
   Office, Word, other MS support services.  Cable running.  Hard disk and
   file system maintenance, repair.  Website building, design, updating, 
   and modifications.  Pentium PCs and laptops.  Network analysis, rewiring. 
   Modem card servicing and configuration; PCMCIA cards.  Apple Powerbook 
   hardware servicing.  Tech support by email, by telephone, and in person.  
   Email account configuration; sending images in emails.  Procurement 
   consultation.  Computer virus detection, system cleaning, & education. 
   Electronic watch repair.  Printers and drivers.  Employment counseling,
   advice on resume posting online.    And, a 100% approval rating from all clients to date! 

          First-time rates for computer services:  $ 35 per hour - plus sales price of parts if any needed - as of July 31, 2001. (Superseding 9/01/00 rate of $30.00/hr.)  
                                                                  [Subject to limitations.  Exact fee charged subject to negotiation, as appropriate 
                                                                     for equipment serviced and other circumstances.  Some services cheaper, and 
                                                                     any advanced programming above the level of HTML-only Web Design starts at $35
                                                                     per hour as of September 1 2000.
          - Inquiries on rates/terms welcome! (-Tech support questions will be charged for!)  by email to hess1@bigfoot.com          Please note that all price quotes are good for only up to 3 months after the estimate of   
                                                                     rate is communicated to the customer.  Prices as stated here are subject to change 
                                                                     without advance notice. ]

• A sample (the As, out of A-to-Z, in) the Short Guide to Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series, A-Z. Original. Found only here. To look things up or just browse through.
• My 'HitchHiker's Guide' page.
• The SF Surrealism page;  Out-of-these-worlds comedy, satire, whimsy, spoofs: ( "What, no awesome pictures?" - No, no pictures yet. )
  • Episode #2 of 'Start Truck'.
  • 'Discovery, No Longer Terrible' (-the sequel and ending to 'Battleship Discovery The Terrible'.)
  • 'Really Brilliant Reviews of the movie 2001'.
• Great Endings from Science Fiction.
• Dan Simmons' Hyperion / Endymion series - a critical examination.
• Lovecraftiana? The Ancestry of Cthulhu Mythos gibberish, a rummage sale from primeval pre-Lovecraft eras, of possible precedents for H.P. Lovecraft's bizarre & uncanny use of nonsense syllables.
  
  
•    - Reviews, of Science Fiction books and videos:
  • 'Komarr', by Lois McMaster Bujold.
  • 'A Civil Campaign',  A Comedy of Biology and Manners', by Lois McMaster Bujold.
  • Updated:  'Darwinia', by Robert Charles Wilson.
  • 'Bios', by Robert Charles Wilson.
  • New:  'Nebula Awards Showcase 2000'   (edited by Gregory Benford).
  • New:  'Cold Allies', by Patricia Anthony.
  • New:   "At the screening of 'Forbidden Planet' on the Washington D.C. National Mall" - an extensive movie review.
  • B movies, laughably bad stuff:
    •   "The 12 typical flaws of Bad B-movies", with examples.
    • New in July 2001:  'MST3K Presents "Mitchell"'.

      - Serious...
• A poem series in ~58 parts. Index / aesthetics / announcement.
• Faust's death, from Goethe's drama:  the original,  & an English / "Americanish" translation.
•  Angel Choir over the dead Faust's soul, with my English translation.
•  "Greatness is more than a choice", poem in three parts.
•  ( Short poem, no title)

      - Very un-serious...
• 'The Fate of the Glorious Devil', with an elegiac addition.
• New:  The Snorer.   - after Edgar Allan Poe, with apologies.

      - Essays on the subject...
• An essay: How many different possible poems are there?
• New:  Edgar Allan Poe's 'Lenore' - the meaning, in my interpretation, of a bitter passage from the poem.

      - Excerpts from the masters...
• Some dramatic wisdom from Robert Browning.
• A favorite from William Butler Yeats' beloved works.
• ...a study-by-subject of Yeats' poems, subject: the moon.  (Two web pages.)  
• Translation of Heinrich Heine's Die Herbstwind;   my English, from the original German.

      - JavaScript...
• New:  'XBMgraphics' - a JavaScript sketch program using the old X-bitmap format ( now universally implemented, but not in MS Explorer < 5, which may not render your work but will generate the graphic file code properly - Navigator > 3 renders this format A-OK ).    Create your own thumbnails right here! (in monochrome) 100% free, see page code for freeware / shareware terms.
  - Also New:  'XBMgraphics in 16 x 16 pixel format demo/freeware/shareware.
  
• 'Stopwatch Online'
  
• UpSky Window Manager - for high-powered web surfing / multiaccess.
  
• What JavaScript version do you have? Find what JavaScript version is running (if enabled) on your browser.
• New:   A JavaScript backward-compatibility patch method for the 'do' function, which was first found in JavaScript version 1.2 . . .

      - HTML, Web Design...
• Skill certification at Master level recently won by Russell Hess ( the Webmaster ). See link, section 1.
                   
• Past versions & revisions of websites I've built:
  • The "Original UpSky" of 2/12/98, shortly after I began building it.
  • The UpSky2 of 8/26/98.
  • The UpSky2 of 11/18/98.
  • The UpSky2 of 4/27/99.
• How to build a good Website - UpSky is award-winning, see Awards List.

      - Browsers & the Web...
• 'A proposed new feature for Web browsers'.
  

Astronomer Royal data list (biographical sketches & info summary), in honor of the Royal Greenwich Observatory's closing on Oct. 31 1998 ...R.I.P.	Tsiolkovsky's epitaph.
Sky View Wunderground.com	'A critic of the Constitution of the United States' - an essay on Constitutionalism, privacy, rights, and maybe more). - UpSky's Astronomer Royals page got listed at OpenHere in the category Professional - Astronomy - History. (March 23 2000.)

• JavaScript Online Scientific Calculator.
  
• Statistics about bicycling uniforms and helmets.

• Chestnuts: the chestnut tree, microwave cooking them, a new look at their eating-quality, and a needed improvement in their storage and marketing, et cetera.
  
• A recipe that won't save the world in this new millennium: Caesar's Beans Squared.

X. All the rest;   Miscellanea:

• Music by composers influenced by 20th-Century Fasicsm. (-in RealAudio and WAV)
• More Great Endings
• Many I.Q. tests and quizzes
• Speculation on 'Negative Intelligence Quotient' and proposal for a new sort of IQ test
• Ingenious Gentleman's Sayings.
• A place to find odd or weird pages, which has listed 'UpSky'.
•  About the Zapruder film of President Kennedy's assassination... New Oct 13, 2000. -completed Aug 2001.

Tell the Webmaster! ...not your life history, but all suggestions and comments are welcome.  Email link to <hess1@bigfoot.com>.
( . . . you are guaranteed not to be put on a mailing list nor subjected to email ads - except my signature block of course. )

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This website's twin: 9 of the above categories with different content, at 'UpSky'.

(In case you wonder, "What happened to 5 (or 6, 7, 8) ?" - - see F.A.Q.)
               ( "Initial italics:    Why?" )

UpSky2 being updated... August 4 & ~ 15 & 21, 2001 ... also July 24 & 30 2001.   ( - Frequently updated also, in 2000, and in 1999.)


Since August 1998, UpSky2 has had visitors.
FastCounter by LinkExchange

(local counter, in development, May 1 2000.)

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Awards:

The Knowledge Is Power Award, for 'UpSky', May 1999.

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                  'Icarus', down to earth - Less exalted and more negative :    Satire! Beating dead horses! Blabbermouths! Pizza...! Outrages against...! Contests with a new prize...! A cure for hair problems...! ...and more! (Updated, June 2000.)

Block Sender List Club at UpSky2.

   - You too can
FIGHT SPAMateurs* !!

A Nightmare Scenario

The logical end result of the current Spam junk-e-mail scene, is email services resembling current systems for transmitting secure data:      To send to someone will require not only the right email address [ analogous to a 'public key' ], but also the correct Subject line code [ as a 'private key' analogue ].
...Email systems would be, in this nightmare scenario, designed to filter out all email with subject lines not equal to ( for instance ) "iD:Qs0196s24QQz3". (...more about this possible future...)

     [ . . .Watch this space, more to come soon . . . Links to be activated:

            Maxims against spam      Spam hater's glossary

            Block Sender List, category 1 - ground for inclusion

            A definition of what exactly constitutes true spam of the most offensive varieties encountered. ]


* ( - a "Spamateur" is what you get when you cross a spammer with something amateurish - not pretty. )

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