User:Gaines

Gaines first "plugged in" with a 1200 baud modem to local BBSs around Columbia, SC. His handle was "White Dawg". He soon started his own WWIV based BBS named "The Dawg House" and later upgraded to Wildcat! BBS. Gaines began his online gaming experience on the early BBSs playing Legend of the Red Dragon and Food Fight.

As AOL became popular, Gaines established a presence on the internet. AOL hosted a RPG in the form of a text-based MUD which was revolutionary in that the hundreds of players could connect and interact at the same time (something that was not possible with early BBSs). He created a Geocities website (also called "The Dawg House") was one of the first to sign up for a groundbreaking instant messaging service named ICQ.

In August of 2001, Gaines created a blog on a new service called Xanga. He also took part in a number of Yahoo! Groups and miscellaneous forums. Several graphical online RPGs came out including Ultima Online and Lineage. Gaines both played and helped administer servers for these games. He later moved on to Star Wars Galaxies (characters Laban and Zadok) and World of Warcraft.

Gaines is proficient in Classic ASP, ASP.NET, VB.NET, C#, T-SQL, HTML, JavaScript and XML. He has also worked with Java, Visual Basic, C++, COBOL, Pascal, BASIC and a handful of other obscure languages.

Gaines started his career as a COBOL programmer working on utility monitoring and management systems. He then became a Microsoft Business Solutions consultant and worked with such companies as Gibson Guitars, HCA and Cardinal Healthcare. More recently, Gaines took charge of the IT efforts at a real estate and mortgage data broker.

His web publishing efforts have primarily focused in the area of Pocket PC cellphones, however he has also created communities surrounding aquatic life, Harley motorcycles, and dancing. See below for a complete list of websites.