So finally I have dedicated some time to do research for this post. Here you go :)
1999, sometime in November, armed with a brand new 28.8 kbps dial-up internet connection, I began my first endeavour on the Internet. I uploaded my first webpage. I still remember how exciting it was back then; to see my HTMLs being served for the first time to people around the world. So here I present a ‘Rusty’ museum of sorts; with screenshots of how this website evolved into what you see now. It was a great nostalgic trip back; seeing all these sites again :)
- Click on the images to zoom * **November 1999** [![November 1999](http://lh5.ggpht.com/_bldeHDeimoo/S2Ufs2cg3cI/AAAAAAAAFRM/uZDvUORQ2RU/s144/homepage_nov_99.png)](http://lh5.ggpht.com/_bldeHDeimoo/S2Ufs2cg3cI/AAAAAAAAFRM/uZDvUORQ2RU/homepage_nov_99.png?imgmax=800 "homepage_nov_99.png") This was the first version; hosted at spaceports.com. I was still learning how things were working. Notice the awful choice of colours! - - - - - - **November 2000** [![November 2000](http://lh5.ggpht.com/_bldeHDeimoo/S2Ufs-jwhlI/AAAAAAAAFRI/lfiRQJ7YrYY/s144/homepage_nov_00.png)](http://lh5.ggpht.com/_bldeHDeimoo/S2Ufs-jwhlI/AAAAAAAAFRI/lfiRQJ7YrYY/homepage_nov_00.png?imgmax=800 "homepage_nov_00.png") Even worse colour comibination; but now with more content and also the hottest retro thing on the web – Java! (the left nav bar) - - - - - - **February 2001** [![February 2001](http://lh4.ggpht.com/_bldeHDeimoo/S2Ufs3dTo8I/AAAAAAAAFRE/6yg2QOFSzhk/s144/homepage_feb_01.png)](http://lh4.ggpht.com/_bldeHDeimoo/S2Ufs3dTo8I/AAAAAAAAFRE/6yg2QOFSzhk/homepage_feb_01.png?imgmax=800 "homepage_feb_01.png") Things are getting way better now; the colours don’t hurt the eyes much. Not too much improvement with the content though; except for the embaressing bio-data up front :D - - - - - - **September 2001** [![September 2001](http://lh5.ggpht.com/_bldeHDeimoo/S2UfxHHX7vI/AAAAAAAAFRU/x1r5qCrZJ_k/s144/homepage_sep_01.png)](http://lh5.ggpht.com/_bldeHDeimoo/S2UfxHHX7vI/AAAAAAAAFRU/x1r5qCrZJ_k/homepage_sep_01.png?imgmax=800 "homepage_sep_01.png") The first ‘real’ design. Java is gone, CSS comes in. Design is still very teenage; with a goofy name for the site ‘SmileHouse’! But this really special; because this was when I started writing my blog :) I had also shifted to a much better host called DigitalRice. - - - - - - **August 2002** [![August 2002](http://lh5.ggpht.com/_bldeHDeimoo/S2UfsqXBBFI/AAAAAAAAFRA/oYJQpzjrUi8/s144/homepage_aug_02.png)](http://lh5.ggpht.com/_bldeHDeimoo/S2UfsqXBBFI/AAAAAAAAFRA/oYJQpzjrUi8/homepage_aug_02.png?imgmax=800 "homepage_aug_02.png") CSS skills have improved beyond recognition! I really loved this design. The site has become more dynamic; as I had finally learned some PHP. The blogging system there was hand coded in PHP. And this time the site moved to paid hosting; even though I never really paid :) It was hosted for me by Vishnu and Vivek at sig9.com - - - - - - **October 2003** [![homepage_oct_03.png](http://lh3.ggpht.com/_bldeHDeimoo/S2UftfHAEdI/AAAAAAAAFRQ/W_lU4R4wEE4/s144/homepage_oct_03.png)](http://lh3.ggpht.com/_bldeHDeimoo/S2UftfHAEdI/AAAAAAAAFRQ/W_lU4R4wEE4/homepage_oct_03.png?imgmax=800 "homepage_oct_03.png") And finally the base for the current design. I also dumped my buggy blog engine for WordPress. And around 1.5 years after this; I finally had registered a domain for myself. The hosting also slowly shifted to asmallorange.com; with the space provided by Anand bhai. It has remained there ever since. You can also browse some of the sites from the Internet archive:
- 2001 – 2003
- 2003 – 2006
- 2006 – 2009
It was hardwork to get this done; I had to find my old hard disks; then get it working and so on.. but it was all worth it. Special thanks to Shyam for letting me plug-in my dusty 10 year old HDD on his PC!