Fifteen (plus) Years Building This Website
Today, this site is officially fifteen years old.
TODO: Restore image here: {{% img src=“screengrab-20150713—1032-01b.png” %}}
Crazy as that seems, it’s actually even older. I started it in the late ’90s. The records database doesn’t go back that far. So, I don’t know exactly when. I tried using the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine to figure it out. No help there. The first snapshot wasn’t until July 18, 2001.
I still get a kick out of that iteration of the home page. It refreshed every four seconds. Each time presenting a bunch of “all work and no play makes jack a dull boy.” sentences in different layouts. An ode to The Shining.
TODO: Restore image here: {{/ img src=“screengrab-20150713—1133-01a.png” /}}
That page was hand built in language from Microsoft called ASP (for Active Server Pages). Every time someone loaded it, the server would pick a random selection from the dozen or so different “all work…” layouts and display it. Nothing fancy. Just a fun little experiment.
In September 2005 I started blogging at Blogger.com. Within two months I decided I was going to keep at it and migrated everything here. The brief post I wrote about the move had this line:
I like the idea of having my stuff be mine and not under someone else’s control.
Could’ve used some editorial help on that one but the sentiment holds. After a decade and a half working on a personal site, I can highly recommend it for everyone. And, thanks to the march of technology, it’s easy for anyone to do it for free.
If you’re not a tech person, go to Wordpress.com and click the “Create Website” button. You’ll be up and running in a few minutes. Over time, you’ll be much happier working on your own thing than something in someone else’s social network.
Notes
- Wordpress is “Open Source Software”. That means you can take your site off “Wordpress.com” and put it somewhere else.
- Wordpress is a great choice for tech folks too. It gets you up and running and is easy to migrate away from if you find another platform to use later.
2015
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