Paul Mauser Studios was founded in May of 2004.
After 3 years (!) of being out of work in the software industry, and in the meantime being passed by on the technology curve, it was time to do something else. I looked around, and saw that the tremendous collection of tools and equipment I'd amassed, and the huge workshop space I'd been living over and planning to make use of for years had been sitting, woefully underutilized.
It then dawned on me what else I could do. I LOVE designing and making stuff. Why not try to make some money at it? Do what you love, they say, and I've definitely fallen out of love with programming.
It's been tough getting established. With unemployment benefits and my savings exhausted, I've had to dip into my retirement funds to carry me over, but with luck, I'll be bringing in enough soon to keep the roof over my head and food on the table.
Hey, Every startup begins with a period of starvation....
Actually, I'm off to a good start, with my first project being a piece that will be produced and sold through the number one BDSM gear retailer.
Very astute, you must know me. It's a short and boring story. My first Internet account back in 1990 (yes, I predate the web) needed a name of 8 letters or less. I'm a big fan of the Mauser C-96 "Broomhandle" pistol. Told you it was a boring story. But I've been Mauser on the net ever since. I also use Mauser as a "Scene Name" in the BDSM community. Thus, when I decided to go into business producing high-end bondage furniture, it was natural that I'd put Mauser in the name. I chose Studios because I'm also interested in producing art. But Mauser Studios just didn't sound right. Paul Mauser was the name of the man who invented the "Broomhandle", thus "Paul Mauser Studios".
"Paul's not here, man. I'm Mauser, can I help you?" I think it might be amusing to have a non-entity I can blame things on.:-)
Just a Usage note if you're going to write about me. I'm Mauser, the business is Paul Mauser Studios. There is no Paul.
I didn't. In fact, I can't draw without a drafting machine or graph paper. But I have a great imagination, and an interest in mechanical design. You'll see once I do my first rolling ball sculpture. I've invented a new "Marble Pump" mechanism that hasn't been seen before that will be the centerpiece.
You know, "Marble Coaster", "Marble track"... those things that a marble or a giant ball bearing roll down, and go through various mechanisms and do fun things. They're a staple of Science museums. Do some searches, there's some neat stuff out there. (Maybe someday I'll even get to do one with a bowling ball).
Alas no, not interested, and Hell no. But you know, it really wouldn't be a bad thing to have someone in the household with a steady income while I get this studio off the ground. Interested women who say, want to help me develop the fucking machine, are welcome to use the contact address.
But enough personal information, that's not what THIS site is for.
It's really, really simple. I think anyone who uses JavaScript for this is suffering from a lack of imagination. It's two layers of frames. One frame has the top area and the copyright statement, and in the top area, I load another frame set. Framesets are actually really small files that bring in two other files (In theory they could have just one, but old versions of Netscape choke on them, and it served my purpose to have the copyright info always on screen), so I have one for each menu item that will need to change the menu, and a different version of the menu for each open submenu. When just the content needs to change, the link changes the "mainArea" in the inner frameset. When both the menu and the main area need to change, I load a new frameset into the "TopArea" in the outer frameset, which has the different menu and the selected mainArea page. It's actually not THAT hard to maintain, if you understand it.
I believe in very simple HTML. Why use a script or plug-in to do something HTML already does for you? It almost always goes wrong. I also don't believe in browser-specific HTML. Explorer is evil, for no other reason than the fact that it tolerates bad HTML, and thus lots of sites do bad HTML with unclosed tables and such. The webmaster checks the page with Explorer, says it's Okay, and uploads the damaged file. And every other Browser has to imitate Explorer's mistakes or else it's considered "incompatible" when it's really Explorer that is wrong. Thus Microsoft has effectively re-written the HTML standard to make table closing optional, and nobody (except me, with my ancient browser) can tell it's fucked up. (I also get to see all those XML Microsoft Office Namespace tags that get embedded in HTML people edit with Word and crap. View source sometime and observe the bandwidth stealing junk.)