I don’t know why I am picking Mike’s blog to post a rambling. It just feels right to do a rambling guest post on a blog that allows you to ramble. How many out there does? I dunno… but I’d like to thank Mike for including this topic.
I received a mail from Intrascape this morning. In a nutshell, they wanted to let me know that they have acquired the Portland Web Hosting services. It would be great if I could remove all my files from my Port 5 subdomain. Failing to do so within a certain period of time would force them to lift their fingers and do the deletion themselves.
The mail brought back a flurry of memories. I don’t know how many of you were making a living on the Internet back in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, but I was. Still a teenager, I taught myself HTML, Photoshop and Flash, and launched my first website in 1999.
Back then, there was a hosting company called Portland Communications, that, out of the goodness of its heart allowed people to host their websites for free. Yeah… FREE. Their USP was no ads, and they allowed the free users to use sub-domains of their own registered domain names.
There were quite a few domain names that freeloaders like me had the option to pick between, but the port5.com domain was the most popular. I remember, my site’s URL was buzzbin.port5.com.
What was it all about? Well, it had a lot of articles… how to’s, book reviews, recipes etc. I remember publishing a few ebooks for interested writers as well. Not sure if they are still available for download on the net… but back then, I was really into it.
I was on a “learning by doing” drive then, and slowly kept adding features to the site. It was actually quite popular, had a good ranking on Google, and a decent band of readers. Hey! I had guest posters too. 
I even did link exchange, though I had no idea that it helped in SEO. I did it to increase visibility for the site. There was also a very elaborate advertising page. Unfortunately, I did not know how to market it.
The site fizzled out in a couple of years. I joined a full time job where I did pretty much the same thing, for an assured and decent pay, but also as an anonymous entity.
Then recently, I took up blogging for a cause. I love it. I also love the support I am getting from everyone in general, and especially from my fellow Entrecarders.
It felt strange to read the mail this morning. Almost 10 years back I was unknowingly doing something I loved. Who knew that 10 years down the line, I would still be here… “blogging”?
I will leave you with a few remnants of my e-adolescence. Enjoy…
Courtesy: the Wayback Machine - June 2002
My favorite - advertising page
Sorry for the off-topic comment, but I haven’t even thought about “Back to the Future” in what seems like 20 years. What a nostalgic flood of memories that brought back…!
Sorry to hear about your forced change of web hosts, though.
HAHA, I’m glad the guest post by Paws Awhile brought back memories
I certainly love the “Back to the Future” series and I still enjoy it each time it is on TV 
-Mike
Love the back tot he future picture. Blogging for 10 years is pretty commendable when you consider how fast most blogs fizzle out.
Thank you for commenting on this very odd post.
@Forrest - I don’t really mind the change in web host as the Buzzbin site is now defunct. However, I still have a few files up on their server that I’d have loved to keep. Alas… I have lost my log in details
@ Mike - You have a knack of picking the most relevant images for the posts. Back to the Future was fun… but I enjoyes the first movie of the series, the most.
@Tom - I know what you’re talking about. I think a lot of these blogs fizzle out because their focus remain on things other than blogging… and the moment your blog loses focus, the momentum fizzles out with it.
Ahh the good ole days. I started blogging in the mid 90’s damned if I can remember the title of the blog, was a personal blog of sorts got me in trouble with quite a few of my friends, you know airing out their dirty laundry, racy posts that sort of thing. But I got a bit of a following. It was hosted by yahoo at the time, yeah that was it !!! cripes I cant remember what I called it. At any rate. I didnt knwo you could buy hosting until a few years after I thought it was all techy in house server stuff, so I never really looked into it. I always loved blogging. More so now than then I think, especially since it is an income source . I still run a personal blog. I have a kid and all that and family all over the planet so its good to keep them in the loop. But I dont cover so much the racier side of my friends whack lifestyle any longer though at time it’s really tempting not to. All in all its been a fun ride for me as well.
Oh by the way I came here by way of Caroline middle brooks blog. Dont ya just love the way web works!! All these little gold mines lying every where waiting to be discovered, subscribing to your feed after this comment is done. !!!
Cheers and Beers
Shane
I was not on the web in the late 90s, but always hoped I someday would be.
Looking back, I wish I had gotten in sooner.
I love back to the future.
I don’t even want to see my first site again, I cringe just thinking about it. I really thought it was the bomb at the time, now I see mistakes in every other line of code, lol.
Thanks for sharing the flashbacks huh?