I have been online for the better part of 30 years, and as you might expect it’s inevitable that as some who enjoys making online content that I will have some form of digital footprint as a result. The wonders of the Web Archive can make it possible to look back into much earlier times of the Internet, but is it possible to find my first website? lets start from now (2025) and start working our way backwards.
2024 – Now – tribesmanjohn.au
This very website is the newest of my content and after an extremely long hiatus, I decided it was time to have a personal blog again – a space separate to my hobby websites where I could post sometimes as a IT security professional, but mainly so I could try and document memories and things I find interesting, just like this post.
It also gave me a space where when speaking, I could provide a link to “my” website.
2009 – Now – benshortphotography.com
Pre Covid 2020, My primary hobby was photography and I have had modest success in both selling my photos and claiming licensing fees from those who choose to breach copyright laws.
However photography changed around 2014, when phone cameras were suddenly “good enough”, and social media cannibalised the amateur photography market for likes and favourites.
Environmentally, social media influencers devastated the serene environments I used to enjoy taking photos in. First came the influencer, and then came all the people wanting to replicate that experience and post their own photos. Fragile ecosystems were trampled down by the shoes and boots of enthusiastic tourists until there was nothing left but compacted dirt and mud. Then it’s time to move on to the next “trending” location.
Having taken a lot of photos from relatively easy to get to places, I am at a point that to get to a location that truly inspires me I will either have to camp, or stay in overnight accomodation, both of which are not really an option right now.
Apr 2010 – Jan 2014 – www.rvvfb.asn.au
For a period of 6 years between 2008 and 2014 I was proud to be a member of the Risdon Vale Volunteer Fire Brigade, and over that time received the TFS qualification of Advanced Vegetation Firefighter.
It was also around this time that Facebook was introducing “Pages” and “Groups” and as a result this website did get a huge number of updates and eventually disappeared after I left the brigade, in favour of Facebook.
Mar 2010 – Jul 2018 – practicaladmin.wordpress.com
(Site no longer exists – Web Archive.)
Having recently started with a new employer (That I am still with to this day), I was a reasonably young, enthusiastic server administrator who often found himself overcoming technical challenges that he could not find any other advice for online, so took it upon myself to share in order to help other sysadmins.
Probably my biggest achievement on that site was the development of PowerShell scripts when PS was very new for working with management interfaces such as HP iLO and Dell iDRAC. I ended up receiving a couple of mentions on some major sysadmin-related podcasts of the day, along with having Dell reach out with an interest in my iDRAC Powershell Libraries, and then release their own Libraries with suspiciously similar outputs to mine 🙂
However as the years progressed, I found myself with less and less time to post as I further specialised into core platform and identity services. With the last post in 2018, I finally closed the site in 2022.
Early 2008 – Now – vk7ben.id.au / vk7ben.au
My “main” site up until this one has been my ham radio hobby site, which I set up shortly after receiving my advanced license (AOCP). Unsurprisingly my callsign is VK7BEN.
I try to post a mix of operations activity along with more technical and historical information here when I have time. Unfortunately I seem to not have much time at all for Ham Radio, and it’s only when I get leave from work that I seem to remember to turn the gear on.
The website moved from its .id.au domain, to the .au domain in 2023 following a distressing couple of weeks I refer to as the Domain Saga, in with the Australian Domain authority changed it’s eligibility requirements, did not provide any notification about it and then tried to seize the domain from me, despite still meeting the eligibility requirements.
At this point, things get a little more interesting and we now start to enter the area of my web history where there websites have long since gone as have the domains (and in some cases the ISP hosting them).
Delving into Web Archive has been truly an enjoyable experience in rediscovering this old content.
Oct 1999 – Jun 2004- www.nhsaa.asn.au
As a keen Heron dinghy sailor of the day, I sought and was given permission to create a website for the National Heron Sailing Association of Australia. The website underwent a few iterations during it’s lifetime before I eventually advised the Association I would be stepping down from webmaster duties as I no longer sailed, and the Association was not interested in continuing the site.
There days the NHSAA can be found at https://heronsailing.com.au
Dec 1999 – Dec 2016 – shortboy.net
Shortboy.net was the first domain I owned, and along with hosting an early web presence, being the enterprising youth I was while trying to afford university I offered a variety of basic services online in the hopes I would have one point have a thriving web site design business. Sweet innocent me 🙂
It is also where I started to learn Linux for the first time, with the website and services hosted on a 486 DX2-66, with 8MB Memory and 40MB disk drive. I believe a a 14.4k D-link Modem was connected to a variety of ISPs prior to 1999, but culminating in a Telstra Internet Direct service, providing a dedicated modem in the telephone exchange for me to dial into.
Dec 2001 – Jan 2002 – syd2hob.shortboy.net
This website was my very brief foray into providing information on the 57th Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race in a time when regular updates for the race were not a thing.
A hand written CMS using PHP and MySQL, and actually looked pretty good for the time. However I did get the shock that come the start of the race on Dec 26 2001 I managed DDoS myself off the internet as 3000 people descended onto the website at the start of the race, which was still being run on the aforementioned 486 Server.
2001 – http://veedubs.shortboy.net
This admittedly has caught me by surprise, as I don’t remember putting together a page to celebrate my first car. It clearly did not last that long, as in November 2001 I bought a RAv4.
2000 – scripts.shortboy.net
This website was the successor to evilbastard.au.eu.org hosting the CGI Scripts
What is super massively impressive is that the scripts are also on the web archive and you can download on the links on the page!
1997-1999 – evilbastard.au.eu.org
Nothing is left of the EB Website, which pre-dated shortboy.net and was dedicated to offering free website CGI Scripts written in Perl.
The Most popular CGI Script I wrote was “Mr Download” which was a relatively easy way to webmasters to generate and report on files downloaded from their websites.
It also allowed me to have a vanity domain on IRC of I.am.an.evilbastard.au.eu.org 🙂
1997-2000 Net At Nite with AndyG and Jennifer Bert & Take40 Australia
There is really not a lot left of this site. And that I found preceeds me.
In 1996 I used to frequent (and be an @op) in the #net_at_nite IRC channel on the Oz.Org IRC network. Through this, I eventually met a producer of the show and was invited to be the site’s webmaster.
While volunteering as webmaster, I managed to get myself DoS’d off IRC after writing a review on Signal9 Firewall for Windows, which was an innovation at the time, and bold claiming it would protect you from hackers. Needless to say a 14.4k modem is no match for a Cable Modem when it came to ping floods.
I also was able to write a review for Sausage Software’s Hotdog Pro 6 – which through they show they generously provided a license for, and which was one of the premiere website development tools of the day.
AndyG went on to host Take40 Australia while Barry Bissel was on leave and as a result was still offering live IRC interviews and panels with the music superstars of the day. I have been very fortunate in my time to moderate those live chat rooms and as a result been able to speak with the likes of Jessica Simpson and Coco Lee among other stars (sadly these are the only two I particularly remember).
1997-1999 – shortboy.trump.net.au
There is not much to say about this website other than it was the precursor to shortboy.net. and basically hosted the same services-oriented site.
Fun story #1- back in 1997 you could walk into a bank and register a business account without needing and proof of business registration. Things were much simpler back then!
Fun Story #2 – I was responsible for the $60 per month unlimited time, 100MB download limit plan with TrumpNet being discontinued, after I learnt how to make my Linux gateway automatically redial after the 4 hour connection drop, and by using text based browsers was able to keep under the 100MB/mo limit, effectively having always-on Internet.
1996-1997 (Geocities)
Nothing of this site remains. I remember the very early iterations of Shortboy Productions were hosted on GeoCities, under the Silicon Valley space. I thought I may have abandoned the page and it may show up in the archives made when Geocities shut down, but I have not found my old site. As such, I can only assume I actually closed my Geocities account or the page was never backed up or it was pruned as an inactive account at some point.
1997 – info.rosny.tased.edu.au
With the assistance of the school librarians, myself and a friend designed and maintained the Rosny College website.
Rosny College at the time had some 500+ Students and Staff and access to the Internet at the time came across a 64kbps ISDN Connection. It used to be quite exciting to be able to download at more than 0.1Kb/s at any given time.
I recently found the handouts I wrote back in 1997 when as a student I held a workshop for interested teaching staff on how to connect to and use the Internet.
The Rosny College site did have one last surprise for me in the form of a weblink that even I had forgotten, and finally we reach what I believe to be canonically my first website, and sadly it too is gone
1995-1996 – http://users.bigpond.net.au/b.short
It should come as no surprise that there is no remains of this site anywhere. In fact, I have no idea what the actual content may have been on site. It would canonically be the location of my first website though, with Bigpond being my first ISP.
So there we have it. A fairly solid effort of my Internet website publishing history. I now open the challenge to you dear reader! If you have been on the Internet for more than say… 20 years… and have published websites, are you able to trace yours all the way back to the beginning?
If you can, write about it, and let me know below in the comments!