From the Desk of Michael Lang


This page ain't much, but it suits me.


No stinkin' flamin' allowed in these here parts.

I've been surfin' the net since Summer of '88 when I got my first Internet account as a student at Georgia Tech. Nevertheless, this page is brand spankin' new. No attempts were made to ensure the laws of spelling, English, nor Political Correctness were followed. So don't go hollerin' about how bad it is! Thank you for your cooperation. Much obliged. Enjoy your visit.

Who am I?

For those of you who don't know, I make my living as a computer software engineer, a rather nice, if fancy term for programmer. I've been tinkering with computers since '84 and finally picked up my Information and Computer Science degree from Georgia Tech in Sept '94. Yes, its true that I know 15 or so languages, just quit buggin' me about it, after all, I only use 4 of 'em on a regular basis. Anyways, after co-oping with IBM for 9 quarters and a brief (er...2 and a half years) stint with the Ga Tech Business Office, I decided that working for somebody else just wasn't all it's cracked up to be.

So...I have my own company, or more accurately, I share ownership with my brother, Gary. We are a two man team set on changing the way Commercial Appraisers do their jobs. People are always asking me what the heck an appraiser is. They are simply the folks who examine properties and buildings and tell the banks and other lending institutions how much that piece of real estate is worth.

What I do when I'm not programming

Aside from business, I'm a self confessed tennis nut. Currently I play every Saturday in ALTA (Atlanta Lawn Tennis Association) at A1-Men/A1-Mixed. ALTA has over 70,000 members and is just one of the reasons non-members can't find a court in all Atlanta to play on Saturday mornings. Happily we made City Finals in the mens two seasons in a row. Sadly, We just missed winning the City Championship two seasons in a row. Now we're playing A-1 and man, it's tough! Hard to believe we were A-6 just three seasons ago. Although I've more or less given up volleyball to save my ankles and knees, I am still an enthusiast of the sport, though I never did quite learn how to pass consistently. I've won four or five tournaments and have played as high as class A in USVBA, though BB outdoors doubles and triples was my usual niche.

Phi Kappa Theta Fraternity.

I'm also a brother of the Phi Kappa Theta fraternity. I had long held a rather dim view of Greeks until a couple good friends convinced me while vacationing in Florida that wasn't like the other fraternities. I admit I was sceptical of ever joining a fraternity right up until the night I rushed. I'll be darned if they weren't lying in wait for me with the bid already printed and all. Well, by and by, I accepted and soon joined the Gamma Tau chapter and had a great Senior year, only to graduate too soon. I gotta tell ya, I'm quite envious of them boys, who now have a brand spankin' new house and most likely enjoying every minute of it, too. Well, there's always grad school...

All you Phi Kaps out there, be sure and drop me a line!

mwlang@mindspring.com

Gamma Tau Chapter at Georgia Tech

"For all the right reasons."

Delphi? Its Pascal on steroids. Gotta love it!

It took me precisely two hours to realize I'd never see the insides of my Visual Basic encoder again. If you program for a living and you haven't looked at Delphi, yet...you don't know whatcha missing. If you ain't got it, get it. If you don't want it, get a life. If you have it, you can have a life, too.

Tennis Anyone?

Well, being a tennis nut, I've collected a few worthy sites to visit and placed them here for your convenience. Some are stores, some are sites devoted to the sport. This ain't a comprehensive list, but it oughta get you started.

So you wanna do your own Web Page? Look here.

Some people tell me I'm nuts not using one of those cool HTML editors to create my Web pages. I guess its true what they say..."Old habits die hard." But, I learned how to get around on the internet long before all the new fancy stuff associated with WWW came along. Yes, indeed, good ole vi is my editor of choice. Does anybody remember Archie, Gopher, or even Veronica? What about the days of knowing just about every ftp site address worth it's salt by heart. Man, those were the days.

Worse yet, you had wade through a bunch of USENET news groups until something popped up that interested you and then you promptly logged on to the indicated ftp site and started downloading a bunch of 00_index files to see what's available. Nevermind the process to actually get the files all the way down to your computer (and at 2400 baud, at that).

Nowadays, you just hop onto a Web browser, go to Yahoo or Lycos, type a few search words and bam! With luck, you're staring at the information you wanted. If you wanna come back to it, you just save a bookmark to that page. No more memorizing big long addresses like infant2.sphs.indiana.edu/pub/doom to get the latest Doom (by Id Software) wad levels.

Well, for those who wanna hop on the World Wide Web bandwagon, check out these sites for tips on creating, designing, and exposing your own web pages to the whole wide world.

Last modified Jan 18, 1996
Michael Lang
mwlang@mindspring.com

Click here to see my resume if for some strange reason you're interested in hiring me.

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