Why Make a Donation?

I've put a lot of hard work into my HercGUI (and CTCI-W32) over the past year or two, and, if I can believe my ISP's periodic web quota reports, hundreds of people -- (just like you) -- are downloading it each month (approximately).

And what have I gotten out of all my effort?

Well ... I've received lots of praise and thanks from many very nice people (which is really cool and very much appreciated), but other than that, simply not enough  (not to put too fine a point on it).

Oh sure, I've received some donations from a few very kind souls (who decided completely on their own to send me some money or some [much needed] computer equipment), but, quite honestly, it hasn't been enough.  :(

I've received thus far, in the approximately two years I've been working on HercGUI, a grand total of about $1,400 or so in monetary donations, and about the same in equipment, so figure it out: $1400 / 24 = $58.33 + an 800MHz PIII system, a 550MHz Athlon, a very nice 19" monitor and a few miscellaneous items.

Hardly enough to make ends meet.

(Besides, you can't eat computer equipment and the electric company doesn't accept computer equipment as payment, nor does the landlord accept it as payment for rent.)

Now I don't precisely know why I'm still unemployed, but unfortunately I still am, and we (my wife and my daughter and I) need to pay rent and buy food. We basically need to just survive.

But we're only barely managing to do that right now, and unless the situation changes, we're not even going to be able to do that anymore.

I lost my job as a contractor at Microsoft back in July of 1998 and since then my wife was supporting us (me, my daughter and I).

Notice I used the word was.   (past tense)

As if my being unemployed isn't bad enough, now so is my wife. The company she was working for (Snelling and Snelling -- an employment agency franchise of all the ironic places) -- joined the ranks of the many other casualties of the dot.com slump back in January of this year by going bankrupt.

Belly up. Kaput. No more.   :(

So now, except for my daughter who's working part time making minimum wage, there's no one in the family working.

We're collecting a grand total of $312 week in Unemployment Compensation (and that's about to run out and once it does I honestly have no frickin' clue what we're going to do), but quite frankly that's hardly enough to pay rent, let alone buy food and pay the electric bill (although we're currently working with an outreach organization (a charity) to have them help us pay our electric bill since we've just received a shut-off notice).

Sad, isn't it?   :`(

Anyway, this is where you come in. You can help us to stay alive (literally!) by making a generous donation to help us pay the rent and buy food, which then let's me continue to work on HercGUI and CTCI-W32 (and Hercules itself whenever I can) to make it even better than it already is . . . for you.

There's still a lot more that can be done with it (and I've already got what I think are a few pretty cool ideas that I'm trying to work on), so if you have an idea of your own or a request for a feature, just shoot me an email and I'll see what I can do.

But make that donation first before you do, okay?   ;-)

Please?

Thanks.   :)

Here's the link again:

When you click on it, you'll be taken to a secure PayPal donation web page where you can enter your donation amount. If you've never used PayPal before and thus do not yet have a PayPal account you'll need to first open an account with them. Yes, I know that's a pain, but it's completely free and doesn't cost you a dime. Anyone can send money to anyone else through PayPal and it doesn't cost a thing (unless you make a really huge donation, but I'm not expecting that from you! I only need a few bucks here and there from most of the people using my program, but I don't expect my users to take out a second mortgage on their home to support me or anything. I just need a few bucks).

If, after everything I've just told you, you still don't want to make a donation, then I'll understand.

Maybe.

I mean if you're like me then I'd certainly understand why you can't afford to.

But if you're currently working and making a decent living, why in the world wouldn't you want to help out a fellow mainframer keep going until he can get back on his feet again??

My Promise to You

I hereby promise to update this page as my situation changes and donations come in (or not), and if you're one of those people who needs proof, (just to be sure I'm not making all this shit up just to "get rich" somehow), I stand by ready and willing to work with you in providing whatever evidence you might need to satisfy yourself that what I've said above is absolutely true.