According to my registrar and some of my notes, BrianMoses.net came to be 13 years ago today. I originally purchased the domain name because I thought it was cool and interesting that I could do such a thing. After buying it, however, it went unused for some time. Later on I thought that it might set me apart from other job candidates that I had gone out and purchased my own domain. This is when I put up my own web server and email server. Seeing as how I wanted to work in the Information Technology field, it seemed like an interesting gimmick. I can’t remember the subject ever being brought up in any kind of job interview, so maybe it wasn’t the most effective gimmick. Nevertheless, it’s been a neat toy to tinker with from time to time.
I’ve had some fun over the years, hosting my own content. I’ve never really saved any of the old content because it’s always been a little embarrassing. Usually when I would look at the old content it made me feel sheepish and like a great big dork. My self-designed websites have always been very simple and not much to look at. I’ve learned to gradually become more comfortable with the fact I’m a gigantic geek and that I have little to offer in the category of web design.
Thankfully, we live in the digital age and anything embarrassing is guaranteed to be preserved out there forever. Using web.archive.org you can dig up some of the first versions of my website. The dates available don’t quite line up with when it was first stood up, but the versions and content seem to be mostly intact.
Here’s a look at the front page of my website over the past thirteen years. As you can tell from these samples, web design’s not really my thing, and the world is probably grateful I took a more behind-the-scenes approach and let my content management system do the heavy lifting design-wise.