I think for the first time in over 10 years (yes, I’ve had websites for over 10 years!), I’ve finally got a website that I actually like, and is functional, and does more than just sit there doing nothing, apart from being a dead page on the Internet.

My first ever website was back in 1997, when I was at college, and, was hosted on geocities, which now yahoo have killed off, or, should we be more polite and say retired. 

Remembering what that was like brings me out in a cold sweat. HTML 3.2, tables, 1 or 2 images, and Times New Roman font everywhere. It was in the days, of Animated “Under Construction” gifs, and the wonder that was <blink> and <marquee> tags. It was a hash of a website, and it’s a shame but I don’t have a backup or a copy of it, otherwise I’d actually host it somewhere for people to laugh at. I also remember, that on geocities, you couldn’t actually create a folder for anything, so all your files just got dumped into one folder. Also, they gave you a username as such, with their wonderful naming and numbering conventions of websites, such as SunsetStrip/SomethingRandom/0123 (no, that wasn’t my site, I wish I could remember the SomthingRandom to see if it still lurking around, but I’d think it is deleted never to return!)

So, my time on the internet started back then, and when at University, I registered a few domain names, and some of which I still own today, but again don’t really use. I was, and still am, into music, and eventually made some random “fan sites” for a few bands. Some of the sites did reasonably well, one even had over 1000 members at one point. I wish I still had that site, as it was rather good. Again, I delete things when they don’t do anything, maybe that is for the best, so I can’t get all embarrassed about how bad my web design skills were back then, (and probably still are!).

In the near future, I’m going to round up most of the domains that I still own, and I think I’ll eventually point them here, that is once I’m 100% happy with what I can do, and how I can scale this website using wordpress. 

So, that is then, and this is now. I think that web design itself now, is actually more complex, so I’m quite pleased, that I’ve plodded along, attempting to keep up to date with things, but I regret not learning useful tools totally, like javascript, and moving onto jQuery which I’m hearing so many good things about, but I’m content with what I know now, and especially looking forward to CSS3 which hopefully will make things even easier. I just wish that I had the knowledge back then to create a google, or a youtube, or even facebook (however much I actually despise that site, it would be nice to be “Oprah Rich”*, if I had thought of that. Seriously though, I’m content as I am.

Onto this site, and how it came about.

About a week ago, I noticed that I had registered this domain name, and had done nothing with it, I think it occured to me randomly while trying to sleep, that I registered something, but couldn’t remember what, and I must do something with it. I’ve actually got the co.uk and the .com versions, and instead of being lazy and pointing it to my other website,  I thought I’d have a stab at using wordpress.

I’ve always avoided having a blog, mainly because I always thought I wouldn’t have anything to talk/blog about. But, with boredom ensuing in the office, enjoying the random tweeting going on, and actually reading other peoples blogs, I realized that I don’t actually need to have anything to blog about, I can just waffle away to myself, without a care in the world, and hope, just hope that someone is going to read it, and I might get a nice comment or two (once I activate that feature, and incorporate it into the design!)

I’ve always been one to think that I wanted to make the website myself, with the content management system, with everything created by me, for me. But time just is never on my side. Thankfully though, due to the lack of work at work, and that they have

1. Taken me down to a 4 day week
2. That I’ve still not got enough work to fill a 4 day week.

I’ve actually got a bit of time to spend making a website for myself. The even better thing about it, is that while I’m sitting in the office, I’m actually getting paid, not just to work, which consists of being on hand in case of any IT emergency/phone call/e-mail from a sales person who doesn’t know how to copy and paste, or has forgotten where the big green start button is on the photocopier, (don’t worry, that will be another blog post soon!), but I could actually create my own personal website, in works time. Please don’t tell them though, as I maybe should “find” work to be doing, which seems rather alien to me.

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