A Tangled Web

After spending quite a bit of time getting all my websites organized, I thought I would spend a few minutes explaining what actually goes into running a website like this.

I’ve owned the domain name “newfunny.com” for ten years now.  To get an idea of exactly how long that is in “internet time,” Steve Jobs and Bill Gates weren’t even born in the year 2000.  (note to self: fact check this later– I’m pretty sure at least two of the people on this list are robots who exist outside the conventional time/space continuium.)

Things were quite a bit different back when I started up this site.  For example, I actually built a computer to host the site and connected it to the Internet with a static IP address.  When the website went down I would call up Scott and ask him to reboot the system.  If that didn’t work I would call up Scott and ask him to reboot the system again.  Repeat as needed.

On the software side of the equation things were just as complex.  Designing a website consisted mostly of looking at other people’s websites and stealing their source code. In addition to knowing HTML, a web designer had to also be familiar with manually transferring files through FTP, configuring file permissions, and, obviously, understanding the complex language of the gnomes that run through the tubes of the world wide web.

Now things are quite different.  Any loser with a credit card and an internet connection can build a website.  And trust me, there are plenty of losers who have done exactly that.  With today’s existing technology, you can simply speak into the microphone of your computer “I want a webpage!” and a flying robot will be dispatched to your house to take care of all the details.

On a slightly serious note, I use WordPress for all my current websites.  It is very easy to set up and use on a daily basis.  You can set up a free account in just a few minutes with a domain such as “mydomainname.wordpress.com” (sure, it isn’t as cool as something like, say, newfunny.com).  Basically, if you can use email and basic word processing, you can have your own blog.