Month: May 2009

Geocities is dead, Long Live Geocities

My first web page was a Geocities page. Freshman year of college, 1996. I still remember the address: geocities.com/area51/vault/1909. I even went and dug it out of the personal archives. You can find it here.

The front page was created with their creator software along with our guestbook. Incidentally, do people still have guestbooks? Do these kids today even know what they are? Then I went out and purchased a brand new hot off the press HTML 3.2 book. That is where the rest of the pages came from, frames and all.

Don’t kick the baby.

Why I made it or what to do with it, I really had no idea. I liked anime, but that wasn’t what my site was about. It wasn’t about anything, really. Just a collection of pages, HTML experiments and sometimes hosted files. It was a hodgepodge of randomness that never got altered. Why change it to something else when I could simply add on more?

But more important than purpose. More important than continuity or even coherence. This sight, Nowhere as I called it, was me. This was me on the internet. No longer was the world wide web something that I merely observed. It was now something I participated in.

That was a sense of empowerment. Sure I got practically no visitors, what was there to see? I still showed it off.

I went on. I made a tripod page for poetry. That one I used their template at first, but it was too cumbersome to update. So I remade the whole page using Netscape Composer (TABLES BEWARE!). On that one I jumped into some more Javascript. I had a menu I wanted on all of the pages, but didn’t want to write it over and over. If I added a page, I would need to update all of the other pages. So instead I made a Javascript function that printed out the menu. SImple and sweet, it later got me a job.

You’ll notice a blog-like page where I comment on updates to the site.

Next I tried XOOM (Xoom? xoom? hm) There I put ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ which was a site based mostly on AeroSpace Java programs. I made Java applets to find properties behind a shock wave and to get the atmospheric conditions at a certain altitude, etc. While it was neat playing with Java, I found myself with something more pressing than writing aerospace applets: aerospace homework.

All the while the Geocities site sat there, mostly ignored. So one day in 1999 (ish) I decided it was time for a revamp. The Vault was a neat name, so went for Vault 1909 as a site title. Worked with the page URL and even gave me a theme to design to. Made this page. So now it is much cleaner.

By this point I owned my first URL, theeverafter.com (as well as my name) and had been programming in Perl for quiet some time for a company started with two of my friends. While the free sites never really let us use CGI, getting my own server opened up an new world for me. I had been working as a web programmer since 1998 for various clients, but never really had my own production box to show off. (I had apache configured on my computer for building and testing). So the CGI I had been writing had always had a point. “I need a box that updates here.” “I need a place to get client email addresses.” Etc. Now I was free to do whatever I wanted.

So onwards I went. Perl, PHP, more Javascript, even some ASP (eek!). But in the end, it really all started with a small picture of Calvin at the top of a black website.

Godspeed Geocities.

Applying to Gizmodo

Gizomodo sent out a call for resumes if you wanted to work for them. I thought, ‘hey that would be fun!’ you know, even though I lack things like qualifications. But I wasn’t going to let that stop me! Here is what I sent them.

Dear Gizmodo,

I am applying for the position of a tech writer for your website. Currently I am not a tech writer by trade, rather I am a rocket scientist and a gadget geek. While that may not make me exactly qualified to be a tech writer, neither would an English degree from a nice school.

I do technical writing for work, which involves reports, and is a style entirely inappropriate for blogs. No one wants to write tech reports, much less read them.
?I also write fiction and poetry, which while may be interesting to have zombies in a gadget review, it may also distract from the important part. That is the brainz.

So let me run down the things that make me believe that I can work for Gizmodo:

1. I have a good grasp of the English language. Subjects, predicates, even gerundives, I’ve used them. In public no doubt. Spelling has never been strong poing, err point, but that is what spell check is for.

2. I dig gadgets. Seriously. I have a Storm, an XO, Macs, Pc’s, an iLiad, DSi, and many more! (you know, like those compilation CD’s they sell on TV?) I even put Ubuntu on a laptop and gave it to my Hippie sister and she likes it.

3. I code webpages by hand. Yeah, I am one of those. I use HTML, PHP, JavaScript and even CSS to make technically functional and visually bearable pages. I do admit though, I am a Perl programmer by heart. There is just something about functional one line programs.

4. I am, as stated, a rocket scientist. You would have both the ability to test whether it actually took a rocket scientist to do something AND someone who actually knew something about Aerospace technologies. So, unlike CNN, you could have intelligent posts about airplanes, rather than talking heads making stuff up about magical flying thingies.

5. And most importantly for any blog site, I have demonstrated the ability to compose a list which is all mostly related to the topic at hand.

I do have a blog where I talk about things from writing to fixing Microsoft to hating on the new Metallica. (link at bottom)

So chances are no one actually go this far, stopping at the “not a tech writer line” perhaps glancing at “rocket scientist” before hitting delete. But if you did, thanks for your time. Hope you find who you are looking for.

-j

http://jakeofalltrades.midatlantichorror.org

http://i.gizmodo.com/5225113/do-you-want-to-work-for-gizmodo