This site is called The Sheepdog's Kennel because it was created to inform you about my software publishing effort called "Sheepdog Software". By the way... the eponymous sheepdog is the breed better known in the US as a border collie. (Called sheepdogs in the UK).
The "company" title is a bit of harmless (I hope!) pretension. It isn't incorporated; doesn't have employees. After twenty years of teaching, I have a number of programs that are of general use, and I have been marketing them as shareware.My programs are not revolutionary. They will not make your child the next one to get a Ph.D. by the age of eleven. They do work. They do exercise worthwhile skills. They run on IBM type pc's.. even old, limited ones. They don't (usually) require Windows.
I don't believe in 'bloat-ware'. I try to keep my programs on a diet. They 'lack' 'frills'... just lots of meat, or at least not too much of your disc space taken up!
(Having said that, I should add that some of my freeware does include advertising. Apologies if you consider that 'fat')
My policy of keeping programs trim does mean that teachers and parents will sometimes have to help motivate children to use the programs. For example, my program to help children learn 3+4=7, 7+2=9, etc, doesn't have pretty pictures, wiz-bang sound effects and so on. THE PROGRAM may be 'boring'... but it is a sound basis for exercising adding skills. It does a number of things which cannot easily be done other ways, most notably it gives a time limit for answering. Parents or teachers can easily encourage the children with interest in the child's progress as measured by the program, or a competition.
The programs are tools, to be used by craftsmen and women. They seldom produce their best results if, like the TV, they are switched on and the children dumped in front of them.
Wot!! No graphics on the web-page!?!? I don't know about you, but I
have better things to do than wait for things to download to my
machine, so while I admire good design skills, when demonstrated,I
prefer pages that are mean and lean and download quickly.
I'm afraid that some of my pages entail graphics for banner ads
or tracking ode.... but I promise to keep graphics to a minimum. I also
refrain from spyware.
I am always on the lookout for good programs for use in
schools or homes with 8-13 year olds. Do realize that I mean MY idea of "Good"... see above. Ideally, the program should run from floppy. It
should be shareware. It should cost less than $50 to register. None of
those are hard and fast requirements, but maybe they'll help you decide if I want to know about your product.
