Have you ever looked at your old websites?

[londrum]

I was having a clear out the other day and found a few backups of my old websites on CD. I found one site that was about 9 years old.

I was just wondering if anyone has ever looked at their old sites and felt a bit nostalgic...

I was lucky because i backed up the entire thing, so i was able to stick it on my laptop and load it up in all its glory. It was all table based (of course), with 4 frames. i was big on frames back then because it was easy to stick the navigation in them... one for the top and one down the side. and another one on the bottom, for luck, and the main one. anyone who had 3 frames for navigation these days would get fired.

it had a nice hover menu that loaded in at about 10 K of javascript (and all it did was change colour).

i had webring on every page. i remember being happy about that because it got me some traffic (probably about 10 people, max). and a links page with about 100 flashing banners on it that i had swapped.

it also had a guestbook on it. when was the last time you saw a site with a guestbook?

anyway... it got me all nostalgic. i'm thinking of travelling back in time to the good old days. if anyone wants to join me, i'm leaving tonight.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

One site I visit regularly

Why?
:)

[lucy24]

Because it contains information that's unavailable anywhere else. Really. It's a reference source. Got all kinds of awards when it was first rolled out.

I know other people visit the site, also for its intended purpose, because the userlist* has grown since my first visit. So far I have resisted the temptation to leave a bright-red "Kilroy was here" in 180-point type on the main page. (No hacking involved. The Man In Charge just wandered off and forgot to lock up.)


* I have never figured out whether you're supposed to be able to view the list and they just forgot to make a link, or if this is an admin-only function and they forgot the "if user is admin" line.

[wyweb]

I've looked at my old websites and they look antiquated. They look old. I mean short of the animated and scrolling stuff thety look about as 80's as they can look.

[wyweb]

Got all kinds of awards when it was first rolled out

I got awards too.

In fact there was big business in awards. It was a way to get a link back. The award awarding industry was ramping up and in full swing....

I had a bunch of them at one time too...

Awards I mean. I even got awards for crappy sites. Just because I asked for them.

Give me an award - cool.. now give me another one.. cool... Can I have three this time? Cool. Let's just do this all day long.

Then I woke up....

Awards from who?

I'll give you an award right now....

[wyweb]

Do you want an award?

You're awarded for being an award collector.

Now let me fashion a little cool graphic to make it official and we'll be done.

All you have to do is link to me, but you're used to that anyway.

We'll call this one, "The gullible" award....

Eh?

[londrum]

i remember those too. i think i had a "cool site of the day" award.

awards are still around today... they just go by different names. anyone who pays 200 quid to yahoo to get in their directory is sort of after their "award of quality".

[lucy24]

Nope. No links of any kind, except to

:: hang on while I go look ::

:: snicker ::

One on the front page from, I guess, the government of the country the site lives in-- linking to a generic 404 page. (That means really old, because they generally at least get you to a custom 404.)

And one at the bottom of the main page-- the site basically has three pages if you don't count the search results separately-- linking to the company that designed it. Right under a governmental logo that has had the same typo since March 2004, the datestamp on the image file. In fact I once found an Upload link and sent them a corrected version. Probably still sitting in an Inbox somewhere.

But the site really does contain information that is available nowhere else. And, apart from having had no updates since 2001, it works as intended.

It's a shame.

[rocknbil]

Raise your hand if you were ever a member of the HTML Writer's Guild pre 2000 (LOL . . . and thought it was quite spiffy . . . )

[wyweb]

I'll raise my hand on that one....

The graphic was cool. Very official. Very important looking.

I didn't know a thing about HTML at the time and was just winging it with regard to other aspects of web design. I mean seriously, I didn't know squat. I was making more mistakes than I was doing things right, then correcting the mistakes.

Kids don't try this at home. It's the worst possible way to learn.

I was just banging around because a dumb motorcycle accident meant I couldn't hang sheetrock anymore and I didn't know what else to do. I was sort of lost and the web gave me a new home, although it took it's time to sink in.

That Writers Guild thing... they hit me for a hand out every now and then but other than that left me alone. And they said I knew how to write HTML, this when I was barely wrapping my head around basic tags.

It's a heady thing I guess. I was a little harsh on it ealrlier but after going back on my own experiences I think I'd better come back down to earth because I was right there too. I mean hell, I was in the middle of it. Anything that could help me validate what I was trying to do got moved to the front burner.

No disrespect Lucy.. I don't know how it is with women. When a guy loses his livelyhood and has to start over from scratch, he does it in a hurry. I did anyway. I went from the top of my profession, an industry leader, to a puke who laid on his back for a year before he could even walk again... And it got big. It overcame everything. My assessment of me. My personal evaluation. My need to be recognized at being good at something - anything...

My sense of self worth was shot. My confidence, once at an all time high, was gone.... I turned work down in the 80's because I couldn't get to it, or subbed it out to someone else. Now I couldn't work at all. I was in debt up to my ass because I have a tendency to bet on the come card and she wasn't comming... (This is 5 card draw.. Not this Texas #*$! everybody plays these days.)

So yeah.. I was looking for awards too. I was even approached by sites offering me awards and doesn't THAT look good to a wounded ego? It did to mine.

Everybody had a catch though. The writers guild rocknbil mentioned was one of the best. I approached them, sure as hell I'd get shot down. 3 days later they sent me a link and authorization to use their graphic. Never asked me if I knew a single line of code or anything...

Cool. I loved it. It was validation and I was needing that. I was looking for it.

Sorry for so many words. I'm just trying to clean this up a little bit. I came down pretty hard on "awards" earlier and I had no right to, especially seeing as how I was right in the middle of it when it was going on.

My apologies.... To you especially Lucy.

[edited by: wyweb at 10:50 pm (utc) on May 16, 2011]

[tangor]

Actually (hand down) I was in the other "snotty class" of We Don't Need No Steekin' Guild... :)

But it was great fun moving from BBS to HTML, dialup to always on... taking steps, banging head, getting smarter (and dumber) at the same time.

The kids these days have no concept or experience...and any experience they learn these days come from get rich schemes that only fleece either their time or money, and real money as well in hosting services etc. and without a clue.

Yeah, I remember my old sites... and all the long years and hard knocks between then and now. And, with a nod and wink to progress, how much better it is now CODE WISE than it was back then. And sigh over the monstrosity of monetization schemes, of which there are many, mostly Wild West, few w with any long tradition or ordinary Adam Smith criteria.

But then again, as that Kenny Rogers tune goes:

You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em,
Know when to walk away and know when to run.
You never count your money when you're sittin' at the table.
There'll be time enough for countin' when the dealin's done.

[lucy24]

But it was great fun moving from BBS to HTML, dialup to always on... taking steps, banging head, getting smarter (and dumber) at the same time.

The kids these days have no concept or experience...and any experience they learn these days come from get rich schemes that only fleece either their time or money, and real money as well in hosting services etc. and without a clue.

Who you calling "we", white man? :-P I used measured phone service for the first ten years or so of my adult life, and only had to move to unmeasured when I got a modem and my phone usage shot through the ceiling. 1400, 2800, finally the real plunge to 57k, allowing me to connect at a blazing

:: business with calculator ::

7.2kps. Which was plenty for my SE using AOL 2. Don't remember when I actually learned HTML, but it was from the UIUC tutorial. Printed it out and memorized it, but never got as far as lists, which may explain why to this day I have trouble with them. A few years ago they finally took down the tutorial :( after making it increasingly harder to get to. Weren't no w3schools back then. I may be the only person in the universe who still has <address> at the bottom of their pages.

[wyweb]

skip it....

[edited by: wyweb at 11:02 pm (utc) on May 16, 2011]

[tangor]

wyweb... you old curmudgeon... you really need to work on your people skills. lucy gave me a chuckle... I actually date a bit earlier with 100 then 300 BAUD modems... :)

[edit... I had a previous edit, changed mind, then decided to edit again... lucy24 is not 24... not a 1400 baud!] So I guess "we" are old folks.

[edited by: tangor at 11:10 pm (utc) on May 16, 2011]

[tangor]

Golly gee, wyweb... I know (from other threads) things have been tough, but can't you recognize HUMOR, TONGUE IN CHEEK, or JUST FUN anymore?

As for a recipe, I like Sugar Free Koolaide (any flavor) with a shot of what shot John... though beer makes it too fizzy.

[wyweb]

I don't care who came first.. chicken or egg. Makes no difference....

I've got some kahlua though... What do you do with it though?

My ex left it the last time she was here. She put's it in her coffee.. friggin' drunk...

[wyweb]

LOL... tangor...

I knew there was a reason I liked you...

[tangor]

Fun off topic I've deleted.

[koan]

I've got some kahlua though... What do you do with it though?

The Dude would go for a white russian. You just need to add milk (or cream), vodka and ice.

[wyweb]

I recognize humor fine. I'm a supporter of humor. I enlist fellow supporters of the humor thing.

I do.. watch me...

I'm just telling lady gaga to watch her mouth, much as I'd tell you to do the same if it came up.

There's lots of ways to dance..

I know most of them....

[wyweb]

koan....

[tangor]

Okay, at this point we've killed the thread. Sorry OP. Then again We've Probably Covered All the Old Memories (of those of us to Actually Have Old Memories). Move along now. Nothing to see.

[wyweb]

Except what to do with kahlua..

And I'm sorry about the post.. I get carried away sometimes......

I love you Lucy....

I think....

[lucy24]

Dang it all, I was off trying to decode something in a language I don't know,* and missed all the fun

:: sobbing brokenly ::


* Java, I think.

[jecasc]

About ten years ago I had a part time job to cover my university expenses. It was a store for office supplies and I was responsible for the website. The owner forced me to change the mouse crusor into a javascript clock and to commit many other horrible design crimes against humanity. I also had to create webpages with animated "under construction" gifs and use frames and <font> tags.

I was young, I needed the money....

[rocknbil]

Netscape page Editor. 'Nuff said. LOL . . .

[londrum]

does anyone remember bravenet, with all their plugin things that you could add to your site? i've just had a look to see if they are still around and they are. and they've still got all the old stuff that we've been talking about too -- hit counters, web rings, guest books, guestmaps.

i've got an idea... let's all go into work tomorrow and add them to our sites! yeah! our bosses will love us and probably give us a raise too because going retro is the future

[lucy24]

Slightly OT-- for a given definition of "topic" ;)-- but while looking for something else* I found this line lifted from a text that was itself on a different subject:

light green on dark green! All text is centered! I smack your style sheet with a dead haddock!

Somehow this led to wondering about fonts that used to be the height of fashion. Not long ago I came across a pdf done (not by me) in Avant Garde or very close equivalent. I just love this font-- at least for headers, if not for the body text that the pdf used it for-- but it never caught on. One site says that only about 1% of computers now have it, so I guess I'd better not base any designs on it. Unless I do The Bad Thing and show headline text as graphics.

As recently as 2008, an Official Governmental Source put out its informational flyers in Comic Sans. Body text and all. Maybe they were trying to look user-friendly but, well, there are limits.


* Because I am who I am, I feel obliged to say: that is, nagvaaqtara as opposed to nanivara.