Note: This site is currently "Under construction". I'm migrating to a new version of my site building software. Lots of things are in a state of disrepair as a result (for example, footnote links aren't working). It's all part of the process of building in public. Most things should still be readable though.

Fifteen Years Building This Website

Today, this site is _officially_ fifteen years old.

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

That page was hand built in language from Microsoft called Active Server Pages (aka ASP). 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 easily take your site off "Wordpress.com" and put it somewhere else if you decide you and to.

  • 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.