Technology

After getting a bachelors degree from ETSU in 1994 with a hefty school loan balance, Richie was forced to guide part-time while he worked in the IT market until 2001. His first job out of college was with Microsoft. After that, he worked for several corporations including Texas Instruments, GTE, Bank One, Allstate, and Staubach. During that time, he did database programming and internet applications. In 2002, he got his school loans paid off and took a huge pay cut to get back into guiding full-time.
He continued to keep up with the technology and do database and website work while guiding full-time. He has been entering his stats after every trip since 2004 into his database. With his database and fishing experience, he was able to create the Insider BASSlog on Bassmasters' website. In 2006, he created the corporation GuideNow, inc. and made his database public to all guides (www.fishingguidenow.com).

In order to do this ebook, he had to purchase and learn a variety of programs. The database is stored in SQL Server. Coldfusion is the program used to access the database and return results to your browser. Dreamweaver is the program used to edit the browser files. To make the Flash videos, he used Adobe Flash and Illustrator. To create the live charts, he used Flex Builder with Coldfusion components to access the SQL Server. To edit the pictures and images used for Flash files, he used Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop.
Most of those programs have very steep learning curves, so Richie has spent countless hours learning those programs in order to be able to create such a book. The programs alone retail for over $3000, not including the cost of high powered computer with the speed, memory, and hard drive space to accomplish such a task. So, Richie has made some big sacrifices just to make this book possible.