How did you get started?

In the webmaster world

[creative craig]

My start was around 5 nearly 6 years ago when I was 16, at college I discovered the Internet the web and a little of what it could offer.

Being a 16 year old male there were a few things that caught the eye on the net ;) one was hacking, I had read an article somewhere on Clifford Stole and the Cuckoo's Egg saga (got the book excellent read). I found a few sites explaining about cracking but nothing about the true definition of a hacker untill I found this article: [tuxedo.org...]

I read it became inspired and here I am today :)

Craig

[Susanne]

I was running a dive centre on a small island in Malaysia. A friend who knew some html made a ONE PAGE website in Geocities for us that only contained one sentence and our email address. Zero pics! This was in 1998 and amazingly we received clients through this site!
Then, another friend made a whole site (5 pages!) at Tripod and I had to learn how to update the news page. Somebody brought me the book "Webpage making for Dummies" :) and I started from there. I'm happy I didn't learn any WYSIWYG program until later but had to struggle with html code from the beginning.

[BlobFisk]

Like you I started in first year of college in '93. I was doing a B.SC in Physiology and just got hooked on the interent (IRC, Lynx, Gopher and MUDing) and started doing some sites. I remember the buzz that came with the Mosaic and pictures. The huge whirlwind of new technologies and developments in the area was hard to keep up with at times, but I spent more time in the computer lab than my lab during my undergrad, that I came out knowing more about the net and it's technologies than computer science graduates who had spent their time doing assembly languages and the like!

I went on to do a Postgraduate diploma in Computer Science and was lucky to hit the job market at the beginning of the boom. 4 companies and almost 5 years 'professional' experience later and I still love it!

[jackofalltrades]

I went to Uni to study Marketing, and picked information management along with it as it was the only IT subject available.

We did a lot of web design theory, good practice, some HTML and basic graphics work there.

I ended up the only marketing person doing any IT stuff at all ("JOAT, how do i save this? How do i do that... ;)).

I still wanted to go into marketing (web marketing specifically, although i didnt really understand what it entailed at the time).

After a few years in crap jobs, i ended up in an admin position where the IT manager introduced me to FrontPage and PaintShop Pro - was hooked! :)

That was about 13 months ago - I set up my first site 8 months ago - now have 3 of my own (4 on the way) and a setup and maintain 3 for my employer.

Was an eventful year last year - looking forward to this one! :)

[kevinpate]

It all started simple enough. A look see here, a look see there. Only a mild curiosity. Just a look ... I could walk away anytime I wanted too. Then another look or three. Next, a simple discrete email, nothing overt, just a quiet whisper of "I noticed something, did you."

I enjoyed the brief attention, the dab of gratitude. Later, I looked again, just a look I told myself. What can it hurt. It's not bad for me or anything. Besides, I don't look everyday and hey, I can quit anytime I want.

After another email or three, the request came. Would I like to try a taste? Just a taste, nothing to be alarmed about, and if not, hey, that's fine, no pressure, nop pressure at all. What was it called? Oh yeah, I remember express, the fp strain. ...

Not bad, not bad at all. Wow, it fact, that's a bit of a rush. Sure, I've got some time to chill. No, maybe I shouldn't try another taste. Oh, why not. It's just express. It really can't hurt me or anyone else, and it'snot like I'll do it all the time.

Besides, I know I don't really need it. I can quit anytime.

And then came the heavier stuff, hand coding. But hey, it's ok. It's not really a problem. What's that, if I'm really good, we can talk about a delivery of css and maybe some php too? Kewl!

Now, I'm more excited than worried with each passing day. Some friends have commented on the change in my appearance, and the time I spend at the computer in the wee hours, but hey, it's really not a problem. Besides I can quit anytime I choose.

[excell]

lol@kevin :)

[creative craig]

From that web page in my first post:

If you're attracted to hacking because you don't have a life, that's OK too -- at least you won't have trouble concentrating. Maybe you'll get a life later on.

Makes me laugh, maybe for the wrong reasons :(

[running scared]

Somebody at the company I was then working for was told that they needed a website. They then needed somebody to "run" it. I was on holiday at the time and was therefore the only person who didn't say "no".

[dingman]

Got into BASIC programming some time around late elementary school, but couldn't do much with it 'cause I didn't have regular access to computers. (Priceless exchange with the "computer" teacher in middle school - Me: "Will we be learning any BASIC in this class?" Teacher: "Yes, everything I know is fairly basic." Me: confusion as to why she's the teacher.)

We then got a computer at home, and I did some more self-directed programming, got hooked on BBS systems, was thrilled and excited to discover RIPTERM - a terminal emulator with *graphics*, can you immagine? And really, it doesn't take all that long to download them because you only have to do it once each time the BBS operator changes the icon theme. Nevermind that he/she is as excited by this new thing as you are, so they're fiddling with their icon theme constantly. Then there was Worldcom World Manager - which I really liked until I discovered FirstClass when I started helping to manage my high school's FirstClass server.

Around that time, my friends were discovering the 'net, but my parents wouldn't buy internet access so I was stuck with free BBS systems that would connect to the internet every four, six, or twelve hours to exchange e-mail. Anyone else remember "surfing" the web by sending specially crafted e-mails to a mail-to-web gateway, and having to wait two mail connect cycles to get the page back? I did do some small ammount of actual web surfing at school and by borrowing a friend's authentication tokens for a local ISP. (Hey, we were good. I was never on while he was and vice versa. For that we just dialed eachothers' modems and typed over eachother in a terminal emulator :)) I also took programming classes in HS.

Went on to college, had real 'net access, discovered Linux, installed Linux, learned Perl and C, set up my own web site, got sick of maintaining it when I changed little things that should have been site-wide and taught myself SSI, decided that didn't have enough power to be useful and learned PHP instead. Meanwhile earned a double major in math and computer science and an almost-minor in French.

[curlykarl]

Boss: Karl you know about computers don’t you?
Karl: A little bit
Boss: Oh good, you can do our company website and sell car parts on the Internet

6 months later

Boss: Karl, you are doing an excellent job why don’t we give you some more money.
Karl: Thank you very much indeed

:)

Aint life sweet :) :) :)

[excell]

:) good thread

I got started because a friend thought it would be something I could do LOL

[Liane]

My story is a real WebmasterWorld feel good sort of saga which was recently documented here [webmasterworld.com ] :)

[ritch_b]

I fell into this strange and crazy place when I decided to do a site which contained all the day-to-day problems my sister was facing - at the time she was quite ill & waiting for a double lung transplant. So...armed with a copy of something called FrontPage I got with it & that site became a good place to vent all our frustrations, annoyances and basically make a record of everything.

From then I ended up doing freelance site work for a local place before being made permanent and thus lumbered with the corporate site...damn...should've seen that one coming.

R.

[brotherhood of LAN]

I got started by getting pi***** off about hearing Internet success stories from half baked ideas like stuffing the meta keywords tag and seeing annoying SERPs when searching, met with half-made sites that could reach it to the top as is! :)

So I thought of an excuse to write content and make a site, so got my college/school notes together and wrote 20 pages of content.

After checking on it 3 months later and noticing i was getting a 100 visitors a day I got sucked in :o

So I wrote some more content and after finding WW, started to validate my HTML and find out a more about SEO and the like.

As they say, the rest was history! I'm probably "learning" more than "doing" just now, but I blame this place ;) After joining I knew this place had all the info "to get me started".

[crosenblum]

I got my start when I got into computers, the Apple II+, in the 1980's my senior year of high school.

After that I have been in the bbsing scene since then, running 3 different bbses at different times.

I also got into the bbs modding scene, because I was always looking for ways to take it to the next level in functionality and usability.

A friend of mine showed me mosaic, he was also my co-sysop at that time, and had his own bbs eventually. BTW Both of our bbses are listed in textfiles.coms all time bbs listings for minnesota.

I eventually joined my friend at an ISP, learning from the start up all about Tech Support, and working to learn how to be a webmaster and then hostmaster. Dealing with commercial websites and domain transfers/setup.

I learned a lot about the backend of what makes the web work, in terms of the money and some of the technical.

Then I bothered the heck out of the web dev crew at where I worked to learn as much HTML, Javascript, ColdFusion, SQL. Until I learned enough where I moved out and became a CF Developer.

A great learning experience.

And I went thru the dot-com when a company I worked for completely mismanaged their money and had really idiotic financial planning. (AKA depended on more investors to spend money unwisely as a big source of income.)

But now I work for a really great company. And I love the field, now that the dot-com is back on planet earth, mixing common sense and solid ecommerce.

[toadhall]

I started writing essays on a word processor developed by the CS department of my university through a terminal in a windowless room. Then my neighbour loaned me her Kaypro and I learned about floppy disks. This lead to an affirmative answer to the question "Know anything about computers?" which landed me a 386 (with a math co-processor) and a copy of Generic Cadd which my mentor wanted me to teach him. My mentor lost interest and I inherited the 386. I bought Aldus PhotoStyler and CorelDRAW and dreamed of an Amiga.

Wasn't until 1996 and an upgrade to a 100 MHz NEC that I hooked up to the net via 28.8 and a text only ISP. Used World Group Manager for communicating with peers. Discovered HTML through the NCSA tutorial [archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu]. Discovered animated gifs. Benefited from the wisdom of Yaley Patrick Lynch and the Web Style Guide [webstyleguide.com]. Started hacking Javascripts. Thought I was pretty hot. Took on Java. When I regained consciousness I learned PHP and MySQL. Which lead to Apache and will lead to *nix soon. I guess.

As for webmastery, that just came from the heyday of TomDickandHarry wanting "a web site" and all the subsequent maintenance.

Now, eyesight damaged, butt broadened, friendless, out-of-touch and alone, I think back to that windowless room where it all began and ask why, why didn't I use the door?

Thanks for asking

T

[crosenblum]

One thing I forgot, is that during my stay as a webmaster, I started my own site dedicated to the Minnesota Vikings, and joined with one of the local former players.

Unfortunately, I just had to shut that site down, because of the heavy competition.

We just didn't make enough money or contacts to stay as a viable news service.

Oh well, life goes on.

[txbakers]

I've liked computers since junior high school in 1976. We had a big machine and we learned BASIC by bubbling the cards. If you bubbled the cards a certain way we could get the computer to "sing" the Star Spangled Banner.

In College I took a Pascal course and wrote a Monopoly program in my spare time - all text of course, but all the good games were text back then.

In Grad school I discovered the internet with Lynx and wondered what all the fuss was about. What was the point of paying long distance to dial up to a BBS in Florida on my 1200 baud modem?

It wasn't until I moved to American Samoa that I started writing web pages as a way to show my pictures to family back in the states. I took a free geocities site, and realized that I could sign up for several free sites and link my images, effectively skirting the 3 MB storage limit. (Of course today I can't remember all the passwords and locations to the various other sites)

I learned web page writing through tutorials on web monkey. Then I got a copy of Dreamweaver and was thrilled. I got a copy of Drumbeat and couldn't understand it. A year or two later I was working in the computer industry on the AS/400 machine and learned about databases.

And now I run websites which are really database applications with web front ends. So much more to learn!

The "get a life" comment has come up in my life as well. And I always reply, "Can I get one on eBay?"

[europeforvisitors]

I was managing the Writing Forum on MSN back in 1995. The Web was just starting to be accessible to the masses, so I decided to create a not-for-profit Web site about freelance writing to generate attention for MSN's Writing Forum. I obtained the Writing.org domain in January of 1996, created about a dozen or so pages of writing-related links to get the site started, and went online. (The site now consists mostly of articles for new or aspiring freelance writers, and it's very much a sideline to the site in my profile.)

Later, in February of 1997, I saw an article about a new "network of sites" called The Mining Co. that was scheduled to launch in April of that year. The deal sounded appealing ("We'll handle the technical and business stuff, you worry about the content"), so I signed up to edit and write a travel site about Venice, Italy. A year later, I expanded my coverage to include all of Western Europe, and The Mining Co. later changed its name to About.com. The company and I parted ways in September, 2001, and I relaunched my copyrighted editorial content at my own new domain in October of 2001.

I've been earning my living one way or another from online services and the Internet since I signed my forum manager's contract with Microsoft early in 1995 during the Windows 95 beta. I've written an Internet travel guidebook, "After Hours" material for PC Magazine, a column for BOARDWATCH from 1996 to 1999, and corporate Web material for companies like Microsoft and Symantec. I also was an editorial consultant to Delphi Internet when it moved its forums from a text-based service to the Web in 1996-1997.

I'm part of a generation of 50-something geezers who happily made the leap to the Web from print media and text-based online services. And none of it would have happened if I hadn't bought Ventura Publisher back in 1989, found discount coupons for a 2400-bps modem and CompuServe in the box, signed up with CIS for the VP support forum, and become addicted to online communications. (BTW, I now spend less per month for industrial-strength Web hosting than I did to use the CompuServe forums with an offline reader in 1989!)