Chief Wise's Home Page on Tripod


Tripod offers free web-site hosting with CGI support.

As I was starting to learn about creating web pages, I would read about CGI (Common Gateway Interface) programs but could only dream of doing any. Normally, in order to implement CGI you need to have the webmaster load and enable your code. Since poorly written CGI programs can create gaping security holes, most webmasters will not allow that. Some services, such as AOL, allow you to use their own CGI programs, but they never quite do what you want (eg, the visitor counter only worked for the main page and I could not get it to work for individual pages).

In my Perl/CGI class, our instructor introduced us to Tripod. Tripod has designed its system to be protected against poorly written CGI programs. Thus, you can write a CGI program, upload it via FTP, and test it out. Tripod's safeguards slow the response down a bit, but at least you get to learn CGI programming by doing it. And Tripod offers tutorials and sample scripts.

To learn more or to get a Tripod Account, go to http://www.tripod.com.


Are you studying Spanish? Download a free study aid!

SPANVERB is a complete tool to help the Spanish student learn and practice the simple (ie, single-word) conjugated forms of any regular or irregular verb.

I tried it and it worked well for me, so I obtained the author's permission to distribute it for free.


I have worked professionally as a software engineer since 1982 and with MS-DOS and Windows systems since 1987. I arrived at my profession almost by accident through a kind of an odd path of foreign language study, followed by Air Force training in electronic computer systems repair, followed by the earning of a BS Computer Science while on active duty, all of which do tie together, believe it or not. I have tried continually to broaden my knowledge and experience, which is quite necessary in the software field. My current areas of study are network programming, COM, Windows Script Host, UNIX, Spanish, and piano.

A few years ago I started studying HTML and created this site as a Lehrstück, a practice piece to help me learn and practice web programming techniques and with which to experiment. However, content took over very quickly and superceded experimentation. Still, as time allows, I will want to play with different techniques. Needless to say, this site will forever be under construction.


My interests are eclectic and rarely tap into the popular culture, most of which I refer to as being "after my time." The following are a few of my areas of interest. This area will be under construction for some time, as I work to bring up the various link pages:


First uploaded on 1997 June 10.
Last updated on 2001 November 03.

E-Mail Address: dwise1@aol.com.