I’m John Rappold, Webmaster and Online Application Developer for SCOCA. I was a music teacher for 19 years. I first got into computers in 1986 with a Commodore 64, and then moved to the Amiga platform, where I became hooked on MIDI and AmigaBasic. While working with the Amiga i reviewed MIDI software for Amiga Times Magazine (a Canadian Publication), and one of my freeware software apps (“Midiplayer”) was reviewed by another Amiga publication: “Amazing Computing” (they liked it).
I got my first Windows box about 1993 and got on the internet for the first time around 1994, telnetting and gophering into systems via our school district’s link through SCOCA using a dumb terminal. Cool stuff. I’m told that the web site I created for Dawson-Bryant Local Schools was the first school district site in the SCOCA region.
I’ve been at SCOCA since 1998 and I’ve given many web training classes around the area as well as several presentations at the annual Ohio eTech (formerly Schoolnet) Conference. I mostly work in PHP and MySQL. I also shoot video and photography for SCOCA. My Video NLE is Sony Vegas and my graphics apps are Paint Shop Pro, Fireworks and Photoshop.
Sometime in the mid-1970s, I was given a Minolta SLR, and I shot of lot of color slides. I also loved shooting Kodak PanX Black and White Film, developing it with reversal chemicals , and mounting my own slides.
Around the same time I got started in Super 8 film with an Elmo Camera that shot sound and used 200 foot cartridges. Expensive.
My SLR was stolen and Super 8 died, so I was out of my hobby for about 10 years. In 2002, I purchased my first digital camera, and not long after that my first digital camcorder. I love it.
