About...

This page contains details about:

The author of this website
Copyright and the use of photos or text
Website technicalities
Privacy
Disclosure

THE AUTHOR

The author reclining … in a cold and bleak place

I am a slightly larger than average male person living in Perth, the capital city of Western Australia. I previously worked in information technology but now am a student of library and information services, and occasionally have facial hair. My interests include photography, travel, hiking, writing (novel in progress), reading, bleak weather, fiddling with computers, and eating bakery products. I am a Christian which, contrary to common belief, does not preclude one from having a sense of humour and diverse interests! A motto I live by is "Why be normal when you can be yourself", which describes my attempts to be the person God made me to be, rather than what popular culture expects a "normal" person to be.

COPYRIGHT AND THE USE OF PHOTOS OR TEXT

Unless otherwise indicated, all written and photographic content on this website is my own copyrighted work. I don’t mind people using material for personal non-commercial purposes (eg wallpaper, school assignments, quoting text in blogs/forums, etc) on the condition that nothing is altered and that I am acknowleded as the original author.

Attributing authorship can be done by linking to this website and/or quoting "Graham Barker" or "www.grahambarker.com" (which links to here). Not altering anything includes not removing or cropping out the watermark on photos! Contact me if you want to clarify anything - fair and reasonable requests will probably be agreed to. For commercial use, please contact me (hi-res images can be supplied).

WEBSITE TECHNICALITIES

This is a personal website which exists as a hobby and a form of self-expression, for the amusement and edification (perhaps) of both myself and others who may share some of my interests. I have a day job, so it doesn't get updated as often as I'd like.

All pages except the blog are "hand made" using plain text editors. I currently use Editpad Pro, a brilliant program which I use for nearly everything involving text. The blog section runs Wordpress, using the style and format of the rest of the website rather than a typical Wordpress theme. I dictate much of the content using speech recognition software - Dragon naturally Speaking - to minimise my use of the evil mouse and keyboard. For image editing, Paint Shop Pro 6 has served me so well I've never been tempted to upgrade to anything new and expensive.

Since 1999 this website has been hosted by WestHost, an economical yet reliable hosting company I can happily recommend. Since 2006 I've been running Google Ads in the hope that the advertising income would cover my website costs. It does ... just.

I believe content, functionality, clear navigation and quick download times are more important than flashy graphics or trendy cool looks, and so this website reflects my preference for simplicity and minimalism. Hand-coding allows file sizes to be kept smaller, and I've designed the pages to display adequately in ALL browsers - viewing a website should not depend on having a particular browser, a fast connection, or the latest version of anything. See the Viewable With Any Browser campaign page for more information on why this is important.

PRIVACY

I do not use cookies or any form of visitor tracking on this website. Like most web servers, mine keeps visitor statistics, but I only use this to record visitor numbers to various pages.

An e-mail address is required in order to add comments to the blog, but I do not keep records of these or use them for any other purpose. I once ran an online survey about navel fluff in which I asked respondants for their e-mail address - I intended using these for notification of survey results (only), but this never occurred.

DISCLOSURE