"Self Publishing is Self Advertising" -- this "self publishing is self advertising" meme is one that I have in fact long followed.  I started self publishing my electronics and computer hardware/software ideas using my second hand [i.e. inexpensive] IBM pre-Selectric  film ribbon electric typewriter to create hard copy offset master images for my 1974-1975 publication that I called  Experimenter's Computer Systems .  I eventually called this a  "magazine" although it was really just a hard copy newsletter sans advertising.  After a year or so, I had eventually sold 200 to 300 subscriptions to electronics hobbyists through classified advertisements in a newsstand  magazine of the time called Popular Electronics and its smaller competitor Radio Electronics.  Both magazines essentially faded and disappeared by the 1980's as the personal computer revolution took hold.

Circa May 1975, publishing this newsletter style publication led directly to meeting the Peterborough NH magazine publishing businessperson, Virginia,  with whom I started BYTE during the summer of that year.  In retrospect, this "Self Publishing is Self Advertising" meme thus first lead me to the BYTE magazine business in 1975 at the dawn of integrated circuit based personal computers. 

After leaving BYTE, putting this idea implicitly into practice again lead me to start my  Bar Code News magazine  business at the end of 1981.  At the end of 1980,  I spent many months following up on earlier research into the field of bar code technology and writing a 500 page report with two co-authors who were personal engineering/computer field contacts from prior years.

AN ASIDE:  I encountered the term "meme"  for the first time in a Susan Blackmore's eminently readable and idea filled 1999 book  The Meme Machine,   As she describes in her book, the concept of a "meme"   -- loosely, an idea based or cultural "gene" akin to a tune one occasionally finds repeating over and over in one's head -- was first used by by the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in the last chapter of his earlier book on biological evolution,  "The Selfish Gene".   I recommend both books to all curious readers who have not yet encountered them...  Now in our new millennium of the current era of humanity,  the Internet/World Wide Web has become the way to carry out my "self publishing is self advertising" meme in a much more cost effective manner than using the snail methods of 3 decades ago. 

I am like every other member of our homo economicus species, always on the lookout for opportunities that may become available to use my talents with other individuals or entities in new mutually rewarding ways.   I have at long last started placing a few images and writings on my newly formed WWW node. I have been planning this step for several years ever since I first wrote a simple page in 2002 -- see "ramblings" elsewhere on on my site.   I had to put this activity on the proverbial "back burner"  while finishing up my past magazine publishing business endeavors in New Hampshire and moving to our present Western New York abode. 

As I start creating this site in April 2006,  my initial thoughts for content were several: 

• thoughts about my personal contributions to the history of our modern computer era. 

• philosophy (the ideas of open source software that are the great accomplishments of many at the end of the 20th century.) 

• various favorite sites on the WWW.

• the concrete details of the CAD aided and non CAD-planned projects I do in my woodworking shop in our basement. 

• perhaps some commentary and/or recordings about my continuing  personal progress as a quite amateur pianist. 

• reviews of books I have read,  generally in areas close to science and technology...  recent fascinations have been books on climate, paleontology and the recent paleo history of our homo line(s) of primates over the last 100,000 years or so.

• commentary about the quirks of and my reactions to software tools I am using to create my WWW site.

• "Carl's Kitchen" write ups of  my proven recipes for quick dinners in our modern kitchen

• whatever else I may choose to write about... 

My site will no doubt be changing quite frequently over the course of the next few months   :-)>     [I last previously updated this section of my site circa  2006/05/02@17:00 EDT many versions after first writing it 2006/04/28@16:15 EDT.  ] 

Please excuse my embarrassing copy errors that remain here and there on the site... when I find them in an off line editing mode, I fix them :-)>

More Details About Creating My Site...

I first publicly announced existence of my nascent WWW site to an annual meeting of my longtime microprocessor hardware/software engineering peers.  This is a three day  workshop gathering of same at the state of California's "Asilomar Conference Center"  in Pacific Grove near Monterey, California every April.  This year, my 10 minute talk was at about 21:00 local time, at an all night session beginning after dinner on April 20, 2006  --  the day after my 58th birthday. 

I have attended nearly every instance of this meeting of largely Silicon Valley engineering/software cogniscenti since the second time it took place (April 1976) at California's Asilomar Conference Center in Pacific Grove .  I was first invited to attend after my BYTE magazine started its nearly quarter century trajectory through the history of personal computing with the first September 1975 BYTE issue. 

Starting in 2004 my wife Jean has been attending and participating in this meeting with me  at this workshop. -- 2004 was the first instance after Jean  and I married each other at "The Century Club" on East Avenue in Rochester on November 1, 2003.    [ Now I also accompany her whenever possible to her scientific meetings around the world.  We travelled together to Jean & colleagues' meeting in Kyoto Japan in July 2004, and Anapolis Maryland in 2005.  Though like reading Nature and Science every week, I do not participate in the scientific sessions other than as a rapt reader/listener.  We went to another such scientific meeting of hers last year in Florida instead of this California computer meeting of mine. ]

This "www.helmers.com" domain was formerly owned by a company that was called, Helmers Publishing Inc. in New Hampshire.  I founded that company after selling my interest in BYTE magazine in 1979.  I lived in New Hampshire (mostly in Peterborough) from the start of BYTE in 1975 until moving all my "stuff" to our present western NY abode with many round trip drives from 2003 to 2005.   The "stuff"  I moved in my automobile trips included many boxes of books, tools, etc that would fit my car.  I of course used a professional moving company to move my household furniture, table saw, and large shop tools on October 21, 2003.  A couple of days later on October 25, 2003 I had a specialized piano moving company to move my Tricentennial Steinway...]

But now that I have transferred all my interests in my former company to my former co-owners,  they have also agreed to change that company's name.   As part of our March 2006 mutual agreement, ownership of the www.helmers.com internet domain registry has been transferred to me.  Under our agreement, my former company will maintain the official www.helmers.com site in a new slim outer form for a while to train its customers about its new name and site,  also so that its few dozen employees can still receive "employee-ID@helmers.com" email on its computers from its ISP during the transition time.  I will still receive my personal "carl@helmers.com"  e-mail through that company while developing my own WWW material for my own ISP's site.

The new transition years  www.helmers.com site when it is activated will have two active hyperlink buttons and some text guiding either choice of one such button this personal site of mine, or the other button for the new site of my former company.  After the transition time, circa spring 2008,   www.helmers.com will link directly to my site at my ISP.   So if you got to this site  and are reading this text, you may have linked from that  new temporary transition www.helmers.com  site if you did not get the link information some other way.  [I might have personally handed you my new business card, or sent you an e-mail message,  or told you where to look on the WWW in a phone call, or any other means consistent with the physical universe and laws of nature as we humans understand them.]

 Carl Helmers' late 20th century high tech magazines  

After founding BYTE magazine in May 1975, by October 1975 I  moved  from a rented house in Winchester MA north of Boston to a first rented house in Peterborough NH.  In the ensuing years I prospected for, acquired and edited BYTE articles, wrote nearly all the monthly BYTE editorials.  I partially owned BYTE from 1975 to 1979.   Once or twice during those early years of BYTE I wrote an article myself. 

I left the BYTE/McGraw-Hill organization at the end of 1980 following that company's acquisition of the BYTE  magazine business from myself and my majority equity associate Virginia L in July 1979. As author and copyright holder of my BYTE articles and editorials, I may scan one or two of my favorites  into my WWW site and provide some current twenty-first century commentary on how the personal computer field  has in fact evolved.

I followed my BYTE success by going on to create Bar Code News magazine at the end of 1981.  In 1987 as the market changed, we renamed this publication ID Systems magazine.  Then in August 2001 following the infamous "dot com" economic bust of 2000 or so, we renamed it again as Supply Chain Systems magazine. 

I dreamed up the idea of Sensors magazine at the end of March 1983 after seeing the cover and supporting article -- on silicon micromachining technology --  of the April 1983 Scientific American magazine.  Instant "eureka" led to a summer and fall of hard work followed by our launch of Sensors magazine with its January 1984 issue.   My self, my co-owner and employees developed Sensors magazine and its associated Sensors Expo trade show for well over a decade,  initially subsidized by a the 1980's success of Bar Code News...    I sold my Sensors magazine business to another publishing firm in 1999. 

My several years of publications research looking for a mathematics oriented advertising supported computer magazine ultimately led to our launch of Desktop Engineering magazine in 1995.  To my knowledge, this is the only magazine still owned by and published by the New Hampshire publishing company formerly known as Helmers Publishing, Inc. [as of our March 2006 agreement to separate our interests.]  

Since I am a long time physics and astronomy "buff" circa 1993 to 1998, I founded, edited & published SETIQuest, a nominally quarterly publication for the still nascent field of bio-astronomy.  By '98 after much financial and editorial effort, I was unable to find enough business to support SETIQuest's continued publication -- not every  entreprenurial publishing idea in life "works" as well as one might wish :-)>  .

Further Notes About  Carl Helmers

In March, 2006, myself and longtime business associates in New Hampshire agreed to separate our endeavors.   After I moved to western New York state in 2003,  to interact with my company in person rather than via electronic or snail mail means, required me to make a 13 hour round trip two day drive (and stay a night or two in a Peterborough NH hotel.)   This could not last in practice due to travel time and out of pocket costs. 

As part of our separation agreement, the "www.helmers.com" internet domain's registration ihas been transferred to my ownership so that I can continue using  my long time eponymous "carl@helmers.com" e-mail "e-dress" ad infinitum.  In the future, travel to the Apple Hill Center for Chamber music for the Squeak "Learning Lab" and my annual piano lesson with Eric Stumacher will be my most likely reasons to visit my remaining friends in Peterborough, New Hampshire.

As before when I left BYTE Publications, Inc. in 1980,  I am now [April 2006]  commercially unaffiliated in modern high tech computer and publishing worlds.   I of course am willing and quite able to generate new ideas and apply my scientific/engineering, editorial, marketing and general publication experience to another high technology enterprise in new affiliation(s) that may develop in the future.  I am under no formal "non compete" or other contractual hangovers from my now past affiliation with my former company.

As part of our separation agreement, the "www.helmers.com" internet domain's registration is about to be transferred to my ownership so that I can continue to use  my long time eponymous "carl@helmers.com" e-mail e-dress ad infinitum.  In the future, travel to the Apple Hill Center for Chamber music for the Squeak "Learning Lab" and my annual piano lesson with one of Apple Hill's founders,  pianist and executive director  Eric Stumacher will be my most likely reasons to visit my remaining friends in Peterborough, New Hampshire.

I of course am willing and quite able to generate ideas and apply my scientific/engineering, editorial, marketing and general publication experience to another high technology enterprise in new affiliation(s) that may develop in the future.   If the opportunity and rewards are appropriate, I am available to contribute my "work for hire" to future projects.

Carl Helmers and Jean Bidlack

I enjoy a very happy married life with my wife  [November 1, 2003 +++]  Prof. Jean Bidlack PhD.  Jean is Professor of Pharmacology and Physiology at my alma mater the University of Rochester's  Medical School where she earned her BioPhysics PhD in 1979  [to academics, this means she "defended" her thesis that year -- it was officially awarded in 1980 at the next available commencement ceremony after the University of Rochester bureaucracy realized her achievement. ]

Jean is a genuine "brain scientist" doing state of the art research on the pharmacological properties of neurons and their opiate receptors in mammalian brains.

The circumstances that led to my meeting  Jean and ultimately marrying her and moving to the Rochester NY area are simple:  We met in the Spring of 2002 when she was chair of the University of Rochester Faculty Senate -- our paths first crossed as a result of some activities I attended that year as a University of Rochester alumnus. 

My Recent Move to Rochester / Monroe County New York

For about a decade prior to meeting Jean in 2002 that I  annually drove from my then abode in southwest New Hampshire to the Rochester NY area in order to participate in a dean's advisory panel of the University of Rochester's School of Engineering and Applied Science -- and incidentally stay a few days with my brother Peter [U of R 1975 BSEE] and his wife Sarah.  Eventually, in 2000, I  my 30th re-union at the University of Rochester took place.  Naturally,  it came to pass the the U of R's "development" office sniffed a prospect.  So shortly thereafter I became a member of the University of Rochester's "Trustee's Alumni Council of the College" [TACC.]   On a TACC trip in May 2002,  Jean and I crossed paths at that year's commencement ceremonies as her Faculty Senate Chair position required. On a later TACC trip in the fall we sat down for lunch in the U of R's "Meliora" faculty club dining area -- and ended up talking for several hours.  The rest is history.

My undergraduate degree from the University of Rochester is a  "B.S. Physics, with Distinction."   I graduated in the class of 1970.   As I like to recall -- subject to check -- my GPA placed me third out of the twenty physics classmates after four years of attrition from well over 100 advanced physics section classmates in the fall of 1966.   We freshman physics men and a few women were sweating through textbooks such as Taylor and Wheeler's  "Spacetime Physics" and the three volume Feynman Lectures that were on our list of recommended books.  We bought all three of Richard Feynman's epic series, but only used portions of volume 1 in freshman year.)  My fellow physics graduate of 1970 with the highest GPA received his "with highest distinction" physics degree as well as a second math degree "with distinction."   As I found at our thirtieth reunion when I next crossed paths with him he went on to UC Berkely and a distinguished physics career that led to a Nobel prize in physics for work in the 1980's and his present position as head of a major federal research laboratory.

I earned my physics degree during a youthful phase of my life when I was able to "leap tall integrals with a single bound"   [Pun intended.]    My   math skills have no doubt exponentially decayed  a bit from over 3 decades lack of recent practice yet though I fondly continue to engage in some of the word play the field of study can generate  :-)>.   

These days,   I am more comfortable [if not personally entangled as much] with the broad philosophical concepts of quantum mechanics, relativity and the importance of both physical and biological evolution of the Universe as we humans are coming to know it.   My conceptual  comfort is more than I ever had at a time when I was attempting to learn details of exotica such as relativistic 4-vectors, tensors, matrix mathematics and Hermitian operators...   No longer routinely doing the calculations as part of coursework certainly relaxes the mind...

I still personally keep track of goings on in the variety of science fields by reading [AKA mostly skimming] the weekly hard copy journals Nature  and Science  [and Nature's daily changing WWW site.]  I also read the weekly "Science News on steroids" consumer publication New Scientist in hard copy form.  For the last year or so,  I no longer read my high school through adult life favorite and longtime "fearless Fosdick of publications,"  the monthly Scientific American.  In my editorial opinion,  since most of its stories occur several months earlier in the Nature ,  Science,  and New Scientist  publications I currently read Scientific American, no longer excites me as much as it once did when I spent many a high school lunch hour reading it in the library rather than [my opinion at the time] mindlessly socializing with peers in the cafeteria...   [ "fearless Fosdick" was the model of the perfect gumshoe/detective in Al Capp's  "L'l Abner" newspaper comic strip character of my grade school youth.]

I am in great health.   I have kept my BMI in the vicinity of 25 to 26 for the past decade or so.  Since about '85 for regular exercise, I have engaged in lap swimming  in morning sessions several days days a week.  Several years in the 1990's I logged a total of over 300 miles lap  swimming.  Now that my routines are again steady,  this year (2006) I may achieve 200 miles again.

I currently swim 2 miles a session,  with a mask  to keep water out of my eyes.   At about 05:30 on mornings when I swim, these days I await with perhaps a half a dozen other local lap swimmers and dozens of exercise machine afficianados in the  lobby of the facility we use.   I swim my first mile mile typically in 33 to 35 continuous minutes measured with my wristwatch's stopwatch subroutine.  Of course I "cheat" to go so fast,  thanks to my use of fins on my feet...  I do my second mile as four 1/4-mile heats, each preceded by a few minutes rest.

I practice selected ragtime and classical piano pieces daily on my personal year 2000 splurge, my "TriCentennial" Steinway A-frame baby grand piano, limited edition [#3 out of 300 Steinway said they would build at the time I purchased it from the Boston MA Steinway dealer...]     I also occasionally sight read new and formerly practiced pieces. 

Jean's similar preferences in music are a strong bond between us... Jean enjoys listening to my daily piano work.  We both enjoy going to concerts of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO) in Rochester's  Eastman Theater as well as occasional University of Rochester Eastman School of Music chamber music concerts and recitals in the U of R Eastman School of Music's Kilbourne Hall facility next door to the Eastman Theater.   [  We prefer to obtain last minute contiguously seated tickets at various spots in the Eastman Theater, rather than the unchanging seat locations that come with series tickets.  :-)>    ]

The University of Rochester had no Computer Science department or CS degree programs when I was a student from 1966 to 1970.  So in parallel with my formal BS Physics studies, in that era before the personal computer,  I had informal "on the job" mainframe computer science education as a programmer in part time and summer jobs helping pay for my college education. 

My family comes from the town of Florham Park, New Jersey.  I was very lucky in December 1965 when a local New Jersey company, Sandoz Pharmaceuticals of East Hanover NJ, as a community outreach program offered a Fortran II programming course to the advanced placement math and science students of my public high school.    My Hanover Park High School is located a mile down the road in East Hanover NJ from the Sandoz complex that overlooks the wide wetland valley where NJ's Morristown Airport is located in my home town of Florham Park.   [Late in the last century,  the Swiss parent company of the U.S. Sandoz subsidiary in Hanover NJ merged with its Swiss competitor Ciba (which also had at least one U.S. subsidiary in nearby Summit NJ) to form what is now a new joint company called Novartis.] 

The fact that this course occurred is is thanks to my advanced placement high school math teacher, Richard Kuntz, and Sandoz's data processing director of the time, Paul McGillicuddy.   The two had met each other in the summer of 1965 at another local New Jersey company's community outreach program, a Fortran course at AT&T Bell Laboratories, Whippany NJ.   Paul McGillicuddy's favorite motto when programming was an often uttered "K.I.S.S." the acronym for "Keep It Simple, Stupid."  Ever since throughout life, I have kept this meme at the back of my mind where it applies to much more than just writing programs!