Way back in the year 2001, when I was 17 years old, I put together my first website. I think I was compelled by a desire to “have a place of my own” on the internets. At times it was exciting to learn the ins and outs of Microsoft Frontpage, and at others I wanted to scream. Eventually I got my fancy new website uploaded to a free tripod.com account, and began my first venture into the world wide web. It was exhilarating to know that everything that I posted on the internet could be read by anyone, and everyone, in the world.Recently, as I migrated my website over to the wordpress platform, I began reflecting on the how my website has changed over the years. Fortunately, thanks to the wonders of the Internet Archive, I can go back and see exactly what it was like in the beginning, and how the website has evolved since then.
2001-2002
This is the beginning: a Frontpage template, and a few random pictures and links. The archive of the site is missing a lot of the graphics, but you can get a pretty good feel for the site. At this point my main goal was to just put something on the web, the content was an afterthought.
2002-2003
In 2002 I ditched Frontpage, and began delving more into the HTML. I stole a template from Chris Pirillo, made some alterations, and basically began my first blog. I learned some photo editing and flash to make it all even COOLER. Unfortunately, much of that has been lost and no longer appears in the archive. I began posting regularly on my blog, with topics mostly focused on current events. Most of these posts have now been added to this website once again, and I am surprised to find how opinionated many of my posts were, and how my opinions have changed since that time. For example, I realized how I used to just hate Apple, but have since been sucked into Steve Jobs’ “Reality Distortion Field”.
2004-2007
This signaled to return to a simpler design, modeled after (read: copied from) apple.com. I did it, as I recall, to mock all my Apple-loving friends, but later I just thought it was a really nice, simple interface (yes, that is the point). I recognized that my main customer at this point was just my family, so my focus eventually changed to just posting pictures and videos that I thought they would enjoy… I mean YOU would enjoy. This included a lot of youtube videos that I found to be interesting for one reason or another.
2007
2007 was a freshening up of the interface based on cascading style sheets. This had to happen because Apple FINALLY updated their website, and I didn’t want mine to look old!
2007-2008
That takes us all the way to the present. Later in 2007 I took the plunge and moved over to wordpress as my content management system (CMS). Most of my posts now are family related, or funny videos. Actually, I should say most of my posts are Andrew related, since he seems to have become the primary focus of my life (and website) now.