We used a variety of hardware and software in creating this site.  Some of this software is available on the web for free usage, while other software must be purchased.

One of the first programs we used was Microsoft Word 97.  In Word, we wrote all 400 of the articles on this site.  We also ran the spelling and grammar check in Word, used the built-in thesaurus, edited the articles ourselves, and then had our coach Vikas edit all of the articles a second time.  Below is a screen shot of an article we wrote in Word and the readability statistics that the program produced. 

Other software that we used early on includes Microsoft Bookshelf 1999 and Microsoft Encarta Research Organizer.  We used both of these programs, as well as Internet Explorer, to do research on the environment.

To communicate, our team used mainly ICQ and Microsoft Outlook Express.  We exchanged emails daily, often utilizing Outlook Express' excellent HTML email features.  ICQ was also a huge help and we often used it to hold team chats.  In the end, we exchanged thousands of messages, so having two pieces of efficient software was very important. 

The next major area of software that we used was software that helped us to create the web site itself.  In addition to NetObjects Fusion 4.0, we used many other programs to handle other tasks related to site design, graphic design, and programming.

Our main graphic design tool was Adobe Photoshop.  We used it for large tasks like the site title banner, which required combining and blending layers of many different photographs.  The program was also extremely useful for quicker tasks, such as creating the text headings that appear on each section page.

In addition to these major programs, we used a great deal of other software as well.  Many other programs were used for programming, design, and various other tasks that arose in the process of creating the site.

We each had computers that we used, though many of them were quite different from one another.  Other hardware we used includes a digital camera, digital recording device, scanner, and video capture card.

This project was created by Caroline, David, Michael, Mindy, Neil, and Vikas for the ThinkQuest Internet contest in 1999.  Please read our copyright information or contact us (link disabled) if you have questions about this site.