About the Washington, DC Registry

The Washington, D.C. Home Page Registry takes advantage of many of the advanced features of the Netscape Navigator browser, including frames, Java, JavaScript, tables, backgrounds, client-side imagemapping, animated GIFs, VRML, and more. If you are using another browser, you may not see some of these features. To view this and other sites at their best, we suggest that you Download Netscape Now!

As for your monitor size, we have tried to design the Registry so that it still looks good on 14 and 15 inch monitors with a 640 by 480 display. You will need a video card capable of at least 256 color resolution at a minimum, but the Registry will look much better at higher resolutions such as 16 million colors (for example, the "watermark" background only shows up at 65,000 colors or higher). As for operating systems, the Registry is designed on a Windows 95 computer, and some features (such as Washington, D.C. Chat) require Java, so you may not be able to access them on a Windows 3.1 computer. We also recommend that you have a sound card on your computer. In general, the Registry is designed to be a highly interactive, multimedia web site, so it uses a lot of computer processing power.

Yes, and we highly recommend it. If you're using the AOL browser, this site and many other sites will not appear the way that they were designed to, because the AOL browser is missing many key features.

The D.C. Registry has received numerous awards and honors, including the following.

We recently made the front page of the print edition of the Washington Post (July 1, 1996).

Read what the Washington Post had to say about us on June 23, 1996. That paper also featured us on July 23, 1996.

Here's what I. J. Hudson of NBC Channel 4 (WRC) had to say about the Registry:

In an earlier column, we mentioned a great site for Metro area homepages,.Well, we found another one that specializes in personal homepages, while giving you links to the other stuff as well. I spent a little time browsing thru the personal homepages, and found it v-e-r-y interesting. Some of them are X-rated; many more are merely PG or even less. But it gives you an idea of just how personal the net can be. A place where you can express yourself and be happy with what you have created - and really don't care if anyone else sees your homepage - creation is enough.

All of the Registry's main sections are linked on the front page, which also includes links to many of the subpages within these sections. In addition, all of the major sections of the Registry are linked at the bottom of each page. You can click on any of these links in order to go to that section.

It's simple. If you're a Washington, DC area resident, go to our registration page by clicking on "Add Your Page" on the top navigation bar.

Yes. If you are from the Washington, D.C. area and have an e-mail address, you can still use our registration form to have your name listed as a link to your e-mail address. You also can still have a description of yourself listed next to your name. We also have made available a free home page program for Washington, DC area individuals, businesses, and organizations whereby you can fill out a form, click on "Submit", and have a home page automatically generated for you, all for free.

Yes, that's right. We would like to see everyone in the Washington, D.C. area be able to say that they have a home page, and we don't think that a lack of money or technical prowess should stand in the way. Therefore, we've created a free home pages program whereby Washington, D.C. area individuals, businesses, and organizations can fill out a form that will automatically generate a home page, complete with graphics, background information, hypertext links, and even a visitor counter, all at no charge. These pages are very simple to create, yet have big-time features.

No, but you're welcome to sign our guest book, where you can add links to your e-mail address and home page, and to participate in our bulletin boards, chat rooms, and other features.. Although our goal is to be Washington's Online Community, we welcome the participation and input of Internet users from around the world. The Internet truly is a global community, after all. In fact, some of our best features, such as our Washington, D.C. Power Brokers graphic (which was made by of Matti E. Simonaho of Sweden), have been contributed by people from around the world.

Use the same registration form that people use to submit new entries. We will update your listing based upon the new information that you submit on the registration form.

The Washington, D.C. Personal Home Page Registry began in September 1995 as a collection of several hundred personal home pages in the Washington, D.C. area. It has now grown to over 2,000 personal home pages alone. At the time, there was no other comprehensive collection of personal home pages in the D.C. area, and there still isn't. Over 100,000 people visit the Registry per month, and that number is steadily growing. Additionally, many local businesses have requested that their home pages be added to the Registry. In many cases, the line between a personal home page and a business home page is quite blurry. Thus, while the Registry still aspires to be the only comprehensive listing of personal home pages in the Washington, D.C. area, it has expanded to include all types of home pages in this area, and even Usenet newsgroups relating to this area, as well as e-mail addresses of people in the Washington, D.C. area.

Our mission is to be Washington, D.C.'s Online Community on the World Wide Web. To that end, in addition to the personal and business home page listings, we have added chat rooms, bulletin boards, personal ads, a job placement center, classified ads, free home pages, and local commentary. In the future, we will add Virtual D.C., a 3D model of the National Capitol area, and the Washington Banner Network, which lets local sites get free advertising. As we said, our mission is to create a true online community for Washington, D.C.

Just exactly what constitutes the "Washington, D.C. area" can be somewhat fuzzy at times. Generally, the Registry includes everybody from Fredericksburg, Virginia to Frederick, Maryland, and from Leesburg, Virginia to Annapolis, Maryland. It also includes people from Baltimore who register, although, thus far, we have not actively sought after and added Baltimore listings in the same manner that we have for Washington, D.C. listings.

The Registry is designed, published, and maintained by Hagen Software, Inc., a Washington, D.C. area web services provider. Hagen Software can design, implement, and even host your web site on our fast, powerful servers. We can even provide you with a virtual domain so that people reach your site at "http://www.yourname.com" instead of "http://www.someserver.com/yourname". To find out more, please visit our home page.

The Washington, D.C. Power Brokers are featured personal home pages of people in the Washington, D.C. area. Several sites are selected each month. Since we don't have time to look at everyone's page, these may not necessarily be the very best pages in Washington, D.C., but they're definitely among the best. These pages feature valuable information on the Washington, D.C. area, knock-your-socks-off graphics, technical wizardry, and/or fascinating material. This is one of the most fun features of the Registry.

Washington, D.C. Chat is the first Internet chat room devoted to the Washington, D.C. area. It's a web chat room where you can talk, live and in real time, to other Washington, D.C. area people. You'll need a Java-enhanced browser, such as Netscape 3.0 or greater, and the right operating system (it won't work on Windows 3.1, for example), but if you've got the right equipment, you're going to love it, because it helps to unlock the potential of the Internet for people to meet and communicate with one another in ways that just weren't possible before. Come check out the new Washington, D.C. Chat, one of the Registry's most exciting new features!

The Washington, D.C. Discussion Forums are 22 different bulletin boards where you can post messages on various topics relating to the D.C. area and respond to messages posted by others. These topics may include personal home pages, other Washington, D.C. web sites, restaurants, driving, things to do, or other things that affect Washington, D.C. area residents. The Discussion Forums include the ability to preview your message before posting, as well as to be notified by e-mail if someone posts a reply to your message. You can also search for today's messages or by keywords.

The Washington, D.C. Personals are the only Internet personal ads devoted to the Washington, D.C. area. Here is where you can spice up your love life or make new friends, all with people from the Washington, D.C. area. You even have the option of including a photo with your personal ad. We've just improved them so that you can now search for people based on many different criteria, including age, race, city, keywords, and much more. The best part of all is that posting an ad on the Washington, D.C. Personals is FREE!

The Washington, D.C. Job Board is Washington's online employment center. Here is where you can post help wanted ads in order to recruit the intelligent, highly educated, and computer literate people who are on the Web. If you're looking for a job in the Washington, D.C. area, this is also the place where you can post an employment wanted ad and hook up with Washington, D.C. area employers. You can also post ads advertising business or investment opportunities, education or training that you are offering, or services that you provide. With any of these ads, you can even include a photo of yourself, your office building, your product, or your company logo in your posting. As always, posting an ad in the Washington, D.C. Job Board is FREE!

The Washington, DC Registry Classifieds is where you can post your FREE classified ad under various categories such as cars for sale, real estate for sale, real estate for rent, computer equipment for sale, household items for sale, and miscellaneous items for sale. You can even announce your garage sale here.

We have been growing very rapidly recently and have many plans for the future. Some of these are outlined below. Search Washington, DC! Database We are currently working on Search Washington, DC!, our new database format for the Registry. This will be the first interactive, completely searchable database of the Washington, DC area online. You'll be able to search for people who live in a specific city in the Washington, D.C. area, or who are a certain age. You'll even be able to search for restaurants and hotels based on location, type of food or service offered, and price range. There will be many other searchable categories as well. We are finished debugging and the database script is now complete and ready to go. The only remaining task is to gradually convert our existing information into the database, which we will be doing over the next few months. Virtual D.C. We are currently working on making a VRML world, called "Virtual D.C.", in which the user could click on various Washington, D.C. attractions and obtain more information about those places or be taken to their home pages. We are working with partners on this project. Upgrade the Home Page Construction Help page We plan to substantially improve the Home Page Construction Help page with much more information and links to many more tools. D.C. Switchboard We are also working on making a centralized switchboard where Washington, D.C. area people could meet and talk to one another (in their own voices) over the Web. This would essentially be a more sophisticated version of a chat room. If you have skills in this area, we would like to talk to you. Add more listings The Registry will continue to aggressively seek out all personal home pages in the D.C. area and add them. This same approach will be taken with regard to businesses, organizations, and other such listings, so you can expect to see a very large number of such listings added to the Registry in the next few months. Advertise The Registry will continue to aggressively market itself with the goal of gaining wide recognition in the Washington, D.C. area, along with increasing numbers of visitors. To this end, we may begin advertising on other local web sites, in the newspaper, and even on radio and TV. Look for us. Get Help The Washington, D.C. Registry has been growing at a phenomenal rate recently, and we are looking for partners who can help us with various projects as well as to keep the Registry up to date. If you have skills in the areas of web database development, VRML, or online chat rooms, we would like to talk to you. Also, we are looking for people to help us verify and update our large lists of links. Finally, we would like to work with content providers who could provide news stories and other content of local interest.

Maintaining the Registry is very expensive in terms of both time and money. In addition, many of the expansion plans outlined above will require us to pay even higher monthly service fees to our internet access provider. In order to recoup these expenses, as well as to justify the large amount of time spent on maintaining the Registry, we have advertisers. As you may have noticed, a small advertising banner at the top of each page links to the advertiser's home page. Although advertiser graphics at some sites can be a nuisance, they are necessary in order for these services to remain free. We believe that the Registry provides a valuable service by providing an online community for Washington, D.C. and by allowing people to find others with similar interests as well as the schools, businesses, or organizations that they need. As you may have noticed, all of our features are FREE. As a result, we hope that the Registry's users will not mind the advertiser graphics. In fact, we hope that you will support the advertisers that help to make the Registry possible. Thanks for visiting, and we hope you will keep coming back often to see the newest Washington, D.C. Power Brokers, and to check up on the personal ads, classified ads, job board, and Discussion Forums, which receive new postings daily. If you have a home page, we hope you will register it and download the Registry's button. Thank you!


DC Registry \| Classifieds \| Web Hosting \| Cars \| Jobs \| Personals \| Real Estate \| Discussions

DC Auction\|DC Chat\|DC Power Brokers\|DC Banner Network\|Add Your Site\|Free Home Pages\|Guest Book\|About Us