The History Of JS.Com

In honor of rolling over 20000 hits (since 01/04/05) on ye olde website, we’re going to take a look at the history of JoshuaStarling.com.

01/31/04 – I registered the domain name and scored space on a web server. I was going out of town that weekend, so this was the very first thing I posted on this site until I got something more concrete up. To this day, I still don’t know what motivated me to create this site. Actually, the more I think about it, deep down, I had my reasons. But you can file that under “Things Joshua’s Taking to the Grave”.

02/06/04 – After only a few days of “hard” work, this was the site design I went with. In all honesty, it was fugly. I hadn’t done any hardcore HTML work in years, so I was a little rusty. I few things to point out here: there was a nifty flash animation in the top right corner and there was a different logo every time the page was refreshed. I think I had about 7 or 8 different logos at the time. I also posted info about where I worked, my Mustangs, and cool links.

03/08/04 – I added the Apartment section to everyone could see the hell hole I was living in at the time. It’s also noteworthy that I didn’t update the site on a daily basis like I do now-a-days.

03/18/04 – Birthed out an Archives section. That section since has been overhauled…many times.

04/07/04 – I finally got tired of looking at my first attempt at HTML goodness and scraped the whole thing. This was the result. The only items that carried over from the original site were the rotating logos and flash animation. For the new site, I threw up menu items on both sides of the page and enclosed each post in its own block. I also added an email and AIM link at the top. This also marks me trying to post every weekday. And it was good.

04/12/04 – I unveiled my Arch Nemesis section. Personally, this is one of my favorite features on my site.

05/04/04 – Getting a head start on the season, I added a FSU 2004 Football section.

05/18/04 – Artie’cles debuted on the site.

06/08/04 – Matt jumped on the bandwagon with Ramblings of a Sixth Year Senior.

07/22/04 – Attempted to give birth to the Woman’s section…but it died during delivery.

08/02/04 – Added a Mail Call section to the site.

09/07/04 – Double update: I added the Current Events section (because the daily postings just aren’t current enough) and FSU In-State Tuition Status page to chronicle my journey into the realm of in-state student status.

10/01/04 – A great day in history. Cosmetically, everything more or less stayed the same on the site. Behind the scenes, I changed over from a static HTML system to a mySQL database using PHP pages. This change brought about the foundation of the great site that you have before you today. Not only did this give me the ability to update my website from any internet enabled PC, but it gave y’all the comments section. Much love went into that upgrade.

10/04/04 – Using my new found PHP-ness, I added a Photos section to the site.

10/12/04 – Added the Polls feature to the website.

10/22/04 – For all the lazy people out there, I added the Email Form.

11/04/04 – Rolled out the Old School Videogame Review section.

01/05/05 – Added a link to my Facebook profile and the Number of Users Currently Online feature.

01/31/05 – One year anniversary post. I announced that starting Febuary 6 (one year since my first post) we would have a new website design.

02/07/05 – Of course February 6 fell on a Sunday, so February 7 got the honors. To sum things up, I completely reworked the site design. It got an all new layout with new fonts, colors, and images. I also reformatted the comments section, added a favicon to the site, and a list that shows the latest comments. Also, due to popular demand, I changed all the external links to open in a new window. Finally, each post got it’s own nifty pic. That’s what you currently see everytime you check out my site.

02/21/05 – I was hoping that Futile Files of a Furious Female section would be the reincarnation of the Woman’s section, but alas, I think it’s extinct too.

02/28/05 – I changed the Comments section to auto-close after 21 days to prevent spamming.

06/02/05 – Added the Forum to keep my visitors for rioting.

So that’s the history of my website in a nutshell. As you can see, it’s a constant work in progress. So much so, that I probably left out a few items that have been added over the past year or so.

As for what the future has in store, I need to update the backend of the site (database and code) to add new functionality and features. I started the process a few months ago, got busy, and didn’t get a chance to finish it. I’m also open to suggestions as well.

I hope you enjoyed today’s featurette, especially those that haven’t been around since the beginning.

OSLD: Now this site reeks of awesomeness. This guy is converting Metroid and Legend of Zelda (NES) into an online 3D Version. (Insert Drool Puddle Here).

Did I err? It’s Strong Bad Email #131.

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