timgentle.com - about us

Welcome to latest version of timgentle.com, the fifth generation of an online legacy that began in 2001.

How time flies, I am now married and living with my lovely wife Kylie in Lancaster in country Victoria. In 2005 we left Todmorden Cattle Station in Central Australia and travelled to London, via Asia. In London we lived and work for over a year. We then headed home in late 2006 to tie the knot and finished off moving to the country to start our new lives as newlyweds.

I’m now a Dairy-hand/web-designer and Kylie is Office Administrator/Receptionist at a local Real-estate agency in Kyabram www.ljwalker.com.au (a website we built). We recently purchased our first home and spend most of our free time looking after Kylie’s chickens and servicing our web-clients.

timgentle.com has lapsed a little over the past 6 months, but it has never been to far from our minds. I have kept snapping away on the camera and Kylie has kept improving her web-coding skills. All those photos will now be pieced together to create the latest stories.

The TGTV Story

I always like to keep a running record of how timgentle.com has progressed over the years. Interestingly the latest version of timgentle.com has been somewhat simplified, whereas the previous version ‘TGTV IV’ was the most extensive version ever.

TGTV V 2007…current

TGTV V was secretly launched on 18 th August 2007. timgentle.com still houses all of the past stories that make up the TGTV journey. We welcome back HMTL, but introduce PHP. The timgentle.com gallery is by far the best it has ever looked. It allows you to navigate your own way through the stories and features larger photos and slide show functionality.

Another major change is that Spinnaker Multimedia www.spinnaker.com.au has been phased out and merged into timgentle.com. We now service our clients via timgentle.com banner. You can view all the websites we have created by visiting the web-solution section.

There’s a hidden forum www.forum.timgentle.com which I utilise presently for my Diploma in Agriculture at Dookie NCDEA.

For our chicken breed hobby, we have created www.poultryprincess.com.

timgentle.com can now boost having over 5000 images for you to enjoy.

TGTV IV 2005 – 2007

TGTV VI was an ASP database driven website, with embedded flash elements and an online shopping cart. We utilised Oxford Street, an off the shelf online shopping cart package. It offered browsers secure logins and the ability to purchase TGTV calendars online.

We also utilised the shopping cart facility in what would have been the most popular story to emerge from TGTV. The ‘ Let’s build this hut together’ story covered my fundraising effort to build MgMglay a new hut and shop in Thailand. Thanks to the generous support of family and friends we managed to raise $AUS2175 which allowed us to actually build a hut and shop for MgMgLay. I am about to send digital camera over to him so he can take a few photos and email them back for me to show everyone… watch this space.

TGTV III 2004-2005

TGTV III was also an ASP driven website. We utilised an off the shelf ASP package called Your Virtual Store. The software has all the functionality built in and allows you to customise the look. It allowed us to jump from a static html website to a website with dynamic navigation and search functionality. Also, who can forget the TGTV Buttshot competition that drew great attention.

TGTV III 2004-2005

After completing my Masters in Multimedia I was very keen to jump straight into the 'dot.com' world and see what it had to offer. I knew the best way to learn was to register my own domain name. So I registered www.timgentle.com and created my own website.

I was keen to have a website design that was unlike anything else I had seen before, but it also had to be simple to use. After some initial sketches and concepts, I came up with a website design that used a traditional TV. The TV would house all my stories and photos as though someone was watching a TV show. I knew that even the most novice user would be able to use my website; because people had been using TV’s to view information for years!

In August 2001, with the help of Brett Poole www.syntactical.com & www.squizz.com.au, TGTV (www.timgentle.com) was officially launched and the first story to go online was “South East Asia farewell” . I remember launching the website whilst I was travelling in China. In particular I remember putting the final touches on the story whilst I was in an internet café in Xiahe. There were these two Tibetan Monks sitting on a computer next to me asking me how to “cut & paste”.
After some positive feedback on TGTV from family and friends back home, and also from other travellers who I have met along the way, I decided that TGTV was here to stay.

TGTV II really did path the way to where TGTV is today. There was plenty of time spent updating travel stories from a laptop in hostels throughout Asia. TGTVII was carried through to when Kylie and I landed ourselves a job at Todmorden Cattle Station in Central Australia. Religiously we would snap away and add regular stories for family and friends to view.

TGTV1 - TG's first website, hard coded Jan 2001

My first website design was created in Yahoo’s Geocities www.geocities.com/timgentle and in fact it’s still online. If you are thinking of creating your own website and don’t have any web design experience, try using Yahoo Geocities for starters. It is free and there are heaps of online tools and expert advice to guide you through setting up a webpage.

Global Pursuit

timgentle.com’s continues to offer stories from across the globe, including Australia, UK, America, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, China, Tibet, Nepal, India and now the first European adventure to Rome, Italy.

We have tried to include plenty of travel tips, links to accommodation, attractions, local guides, references, maps etc.

A few Memorable stories

I decided to keep this photo on TGTV’s history, not that it is now the driving force for what I do, but the fact that is was the driving force for what I did. This image has some what faded in my mind, however, timgentle.com client base has grown to over 20 and you just never know.

For those that haven’t seen this photo before it is of me standing in front of a billboard in a subway in Shanghai, China (2001). I uploaded it straight away to TGTV and made it the opening photo for Channel 2, which was my 'Business Channel'. I soon made the concept of the photo one of my life’s missions. That is, 'to be able to run my own business from anywhere in the world' and each day I chip away at this dream…. classic!

I watch with amazement as my wife Kylie's web design skills grow everyday. In fact they nearly surpass mine… I say nearly because that gives me some comfort. If the truth be known, she know more about webdesign than me, although I do help her out her out of a pickle every now and then. I think it would be true to say we are a good team. As the time clicks over 10:30pm on Saturday night, she sits next to me design the templates for this current version of TGTV V, whilst I humbly type away in word.

TGTV V is slick, simple and has elements that even surprise me.

TGTV into the future

TGTV www.timgentle.com is here to stay. One of my dreams a few years back was to feature our first home, well we can tick that box. My future dreams for TGTV is to feature our kids. I want to be able to show my children how their Dad and Mum lived their lives. I even dabble in the idea of a coffee table book or a movie...