BlackBeltVB.com Site Information

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Created by Matt Hart.
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Taemoo & Taeki by Jang, Kwangseok.Used by consent.
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The Adventures of Taeki and Master Taemoo.

Copyright

Copyright © 2003 by Matt Hart
All Rights Reserved Worldwide.
BlackBeltVB is TM Matt Hart.

HOWs, WHYs & WHEREFOREs Where do I start? Probably the old FidoNet. For those of you too young to remember, FidoNet was a message "echo" system for local dial-up bulletin boards - sort of like today's email lists, only more complex and much slower. I first started helping people learn QuickBASIC on FidoNet channels. Of course, even before that, I helped myself by creating sample applications in order to learn programming techniques. A few of my samples appeared on BBS systems around the country and on CompuServe. Once I (finally) signed up on CompuServe with a permanent account, I started helping folks on the MSBASIC Forum. I didn't stick around for long periods - just helped off and on for several years. After WUGNET took over that forum and renamed it BASLAN, they gave me free access. Once Visual Basic was released, I jumped in wholeheartedly and have been actively programming in VB since version 1.0. Some of the samples on my site are actually saved in .MAK rather than .VBP format - they were probably first created in VB1, VB2, or VB3. They are now saved using VB4/32. As I kept learning, I kept building samples. Sometimes I would create something that already had a Microsoft Knowledge Base solution. Once I even created a sample that apparently had the same title as an MSKB article and was blasted by some of the ops on IRC's #VisualBasic channel, although even a cursory glance at the code itself showed that the two were different. I finally put up a single page on Webczar.com with my VB samples - originally around 40. It was fairly popular from the start, with about 300 downloads per day. The site continued to grow as I created more samples, often in response to questions I received. The single page design grew cumbersome so I registered my own domain and put up a new VB help site on it. I re-categorized the samples, added FAQ and Articles pages, plus created a nice API index page to all the samples. I also wrote a JavaScript search function, but it was a bit flaky, usually working and sometimes not working. I also tried adding banners, but I doubted I would ever get enough click-throughs, so I abandoned them. I did receive a commission on a few books sold through Amazon.com, but not enough to really support the site. After one of my UserControls appeared on Planet Source Code with the copyright notices stripped, my ire was raised and I decided to create a new subscription site. Sure, the Web is all about information dissemination, and most people want it for free. I'd been providing free, almost instant help from my other site via email for years. Sometimes I'm helping some kid understand control arrays, but, more often than not, I'd be assisting a corporate developer or a professional consultant. Many of these had even come to rely upon my ability to solve their problems for free. So, BlackBeltVB.com was born. I still provide the same samples that most people are downloading for free, but the more sophisticated UserControls and my republished Visual Developer Magazine articles are only available for people who help me maintain the site. There is also a forum (e-mail group) where knowledgeable BlackBeltVB members (and myself) are often available. All questions should be sent to this forum (BlackBeltVB eGroups.com email list on Yahoo!). Why "BlackBeltVB"? Well, I'm a TaeKwon-Do student (Black Belt), and I've published several articles in the Visual Basic Programmer's Journal Black Belt Programming column. Everyone understands that "black belt" equates to "advanced", and many of the examples on my site are on advanced VB. Plus Taekwon.net was gracious enough to allow me to use their Taeki cartoon characters as my site logo. (Thanks again, Taekwon.net!!) Thanks to Yahoo.com for the email list (forum) software. I hope you think the extras I provide are valuable enough to pay the small subscription fee. If not, I hope you enjoy the freebies available here at BlackBeltVB.com, and thanks for visiting!		COPYRIGHT AND DISCLAIMER All source code on this site is Copyright 2003 by Matt Hart unless otherwise noted. You may use the source code in the "FAQ", "Code","Articles", and "Newsletter" sections for personal or business use in a non-source code binary executable. You may use the code in the "UserControls" section in a non-source code binary executable, but you may not create a reuseable component (control) based on the UserControl code that is substantially the same as the UserControl. All other redistributions, including: posting on a Web page linking ZIP from a Web page posting on an FTP site posting on a BBS copying to an archive, (such as a CD-ROM source code collection) are prohibited without express written consent from Matt Hart or the indicated copyright holder. The material on this site is provided as-is with no warranty, express or implied. I do my best to insure that everything works as it should, but it is the user's responsibility to insure that it meets their needs and does no harm to their systems. If you find a problem, please let me know and I will fix it if possible, note the problem in the source comments if it cannot be fixed, or remove the sample.
Copyright © 2003 by Matt E. Hart, All Rights Reserved Worldwide. Nothing on this web site may be reproduced, in any form, without express written consent.