dave kristula - webmaster of davesite.com
Welcome to my home page. My name is Dave. I've been making web sites since 1995 (thanks to my friend Drew, who taught me how to code HTML in about five minutes).
I'm 28-years-old. In 1996, when I was 14, I started davesite.com and wrote HTML: An Interactive Tutorial for Beginners, one of the first plain english HTML tutorials on the world wide web.
At the beginning of 1997, I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma, a form of cancer. I had extensive chemotherapy, radiation, and a stem cell transplant, which are all detailed in my sometimes-funny, sometimes-sad book The Crumpled Note: A Teenager's Battle with Cancer.
I am quite cancer-free now. But while I was studying in my undergrad degree at Albright College, I co-designed "The Cancer Game" with an awesome professor, the game being one of the first visualization-oriented enter-treatments for cancer (we say it's just for fun, but I seriously think it can have a positive impact on someone's mindset).
My interest in 2010 is using cell phones for positive contributes to society. I launched aboutmycellphone.com as a side project to explore all sorts of awesome things cell-phone related. (It's VERY rough-drafted, guys).
One of my other interests is multi-touch technology (touching a screen with two or more fingers, for a more intuitive experience) and I launched a site about multi-touch that to save you some time if that's something you're interested in. (Funny how two weeks of research can fit into one web page.)
I have always had a strong interest in education, particularly Pre-K to 12, which is considered a free education in the United States (well, the K-12 part of it). I think technology can assist teachers to meet their goals, and help students learn collaboratively. If you're not familiar with the One Laptop Per Child Project or the 1:1 Computing Movement in 21st Century Education, definitely read up, if that's an interest. It's certainly a few of mine.
I do some of my computing now with a touch-screen netbook called the ASUS Eee PC T91MT.
I spent most of the month of December 2009 watching videos at (and related to) the TED Talks. If you want some great, free, thought-provoking videos for dessert (or appetizer) to your daily YouTube, start out with one of the following video talks:
- Jeff Han demos his breakthrough touchscreen
- Tod Machover and Dan Ellsey play new music
- Arthur Benjamin does "Mathemagic"
Some of My Tools:
I recently switched to Opera as my primary web browser because I enjoy the ability to sync my
bookmarks between computers (and my netbook) for free, while using very few computer resources. It runs really well in the 1GB that came built into my netbook, yet
runs spectacularly on my Windows and Mac OS computers. I switched my web browser
from Opera to Google Chrome, now that Chrome can sync my bookmarks across my Macs and
Windows PCs. Definitely worth the download.
Applications that I am familiar with include Macromedia Director, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe GoLive, Final Cut Pro, Flash, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, and most office applications. I'm extremely familiar with web design, wireless networking, and online advertising.
I perform basic computer repair on both Mac and PC computers.
I'm good at telling jokes. But the people around me often disagree with me on that.
A Christmas morning that changed my life, circa 1989-1990
business correspondence - webmaster@davesite.com
snail mail -
Dave Kristula
PO Box 13335
Reading, PA 19612-3335
Check out davesite.com. Or check out one of my web tutorials: web design tutorial, html tutorial, css tutorial, javascript tutorial.
Also, I am posting information on HTML5 as it develops.