Castanet Communications is a multimedia communications company owned and operated by Craig Mercer (to learn more about me visit www.themercers.ca) in Victoria, B.C. Canada since 1997.

The internet was born out of a collaborative approach back in 1969 that later gave rise to things like open source software and the copyleft movement. As the internet grew, a philosophy was taking root...information should be accessible (not locked up) and that people should use that information to work together.

In 1997, when I started out, the Internet was a much smaller place than it is today with much less corporate influence. One of the benefits of this was a much stronger tendency towards community. For instance, when I was first learning HTML in the spring of 1997, I was stuck on a code problem that had me stumped. I had been learning from a guide to HTML put online for free by a guy in southern California. I thought it presumptuous of me to email him looking for help but without any other options and not expecting to get a reply I did so. A couple of hours later he emailed me back having already looked at my code and told me exactly how to fix it AND with an extra word of encouragement for good measure. It was this free flow of information that inspired me to continue in web design (HTML, CSS, PHP, MySQL etc).

Over the years the the benefits of being apart of the online community for me were many. So with the Castanet Communications website I have always tried to give back a little of those benefits in the form of technical support articles and guides. This database has been born of my many endeavours and hobbies which is why you will find game server guide articles (from my days in the LANage lan gaming group) as well as topics on how to fix your PC. My goal is, in some small way, to help others who are stuck with a problem just as I have been helped many times before.

Cheers!