Internet History
My Internet history. Where have I been from 2000-Now? Mostly focusing on websites.
It all started with Neopets. Not piczo, no one else’s blog, or a friend. Well, I got into Neopets because of a friend, but we didn’t play together that long. I, however, played enough to get started with making my own shop layouts and graphics for other people. I started by doing ‘commissions’ for free, and having my own shop layouts for others to see and ask about. I used a couple of sites to help me get started (dizzied.nu I think was one of them), but most of it was on my own. This is when I knew I was probably going to be a programmer of some sort… It seemed to come quite naturally to me :)
After Neopets got boring, and only making tons of neopoints was fun anymore, I made my own websites. I started on a free host called boomspeed. That site now appears to be an image hosting site. It was a great free host! No ads at the time was a rare thing. I’m not sure why, but then I moved to geocities afterward. It was horrible, but everyone else was doing it, so I clearly felt I had to. My first website was actually pretty good – I’m still pretty impressed with it.
[insert screenshot here if I can find it].
After the first one, they got worse. All this was between 2000 and probably 2002. I had my first ‘hostee’ opportunity with a domain called “lollypopkid.net”. I had a small blog there, in which I made with just HTML.
2002 – First Domain
On November 19, 2002, I bought my own domain! Strawberriz.net was born. My first layout at strawberriz.net was abysmal. It was entirely dark pink with more pink and some gray. It also had frames. I didn’t take a screenshot in fear of infecting my computer with the ugly bug down the road. My layouts continued to be crap for a while. Somewhere along the line probably in early 2003, I made a blog with real blogging software – b2. It was the software before Wordpress. I kept using b2 until it stopped development and moved to the first version of Wordpress. On my current blog, the earliest post is shown from 2005, but I definitely had my 2003~2004 posts just a short while ago. I accidentally deleted them.
2005 – Better Domain
I got bored of Strawberriz.net, and got another domain on November 3rd, 2005. It was X548.net. Short story behind the name: 5 letters in my nickname (Bekki), 4 in my middle name, 8 in my lastname. ‘X’ because 548 was taken. I used this as my main site included my blog. I did have a few things for ‘visitors’, but it never really amounted to much. As time went on I kept having more ideas, but I never got off my butt to implement anything. At this point, I was learning PHP now, and was doing CSS and HTML properly. This is when, I think, the trend of having a valid site or even a blog didn’t exist yet.
2006 – This Domain
I registered void-flower.net relatively shortly after X548.net. Similar to the story of the ‘void-flower’ alias below, it was registered in a moment of emo-ness or something. I still like the name so I’ve kept it. It became my main site and mostly my blog. When I created this domain, I envisioned acquiring some mad art skills in order to make pretty layouts, but that hasn’t happened yet. Instead, I’ve stuck to simple things. My favourite Wordpress theme for the domain so far as been:
This was up from November 2007 until about a month ago. I really liked it, but I felt I needed a change. The content section had meant to be filled, but I still never got around to it. I wasn’t very good at keeping up to date either. I suppose I just suck at running websites :P
Around this time, or perhaps a bit later in 2007, I started making websites for money. I didn’t do too many, but managed to make a good lot of pocket cash. I still make websites for others, but it tends to be family and friends now.
2009 – The Present
I’m still here! Nine years on the Internet. Most of that time has been aimlessly surfing. I don’t really do too much on the internet, considering how long I spend sitting in front of the computer. I’ve told most of my IRL friends that most of the time I just sit there waiting for people to reply on MSN. How sad is that? :\
I still have void-flower.net (clearly), and I have a plethora of other domains as well. I have 9 under my name in total, where 5 of those are directly used by me. The other 4 are domains registered for clients. My domains include: void-flower.net (here!), if-else-what.org (fanlistings mostly), x548.net (nothing atm…), rebecca-putinski.com (‘resume’ site), and ingnow.com (clever, eh? I want to use this sometime for something neat…).
I consider myself a master of CSS/[X]HTML now, and to have a good handle on PHP. I keep meaning to write my own CMS as well as start a bunch of other projects, but school gets in the way. Someday!
Aliases
I’ve had a few aliases over the years:
- moonryse – Circa 2000. People thought I was copying from someone else who had something similar (I forget the username now), but I wasn’t. :\
- missb_1000 – 2000-2001? A good friend and I made ourselves some ‘creative’ internet names for Neopets. Hers was missk_1000.
- superberri[4] – 2001-2005ish. The four was optional. I thought this was a pretty good alias at the time.
- h4xnoodle – 2005-Present. A product of my caffeine-filled imagination some night at 4am. I like noodles and I was going through a phase where I thought I was 1337. I still use this, but not around people who are actually leeter than me. Then it would just be embarrassing.
- void-flower/void – 2008 – Present.
I’m slowly working into this one.The first instance was my domain name, where I was perhaps a little depressed while buying it. The term ‘void’ seems to fit me though. - caution – 2009 – Present as well. I’m not sure what inspired this one, but I think I was in a ‘rebellious’ or slightly angry state of mind at the time. I try to use this for most things now, but ‘caution’ seems to be taken so I put on an extra ‘n’.
I’ve been known to use other variations/names for accounts on sites such as Neopets (back when I used to play a lot…), but this sums up the more frequently used ones.