I can’t believe that this is my 250th Blog Post and my web presence is almost 25 years old, where has time gone?

Muckypaws website started in the mid 90’s as an excuse to teach myself HTML and Java/JavaScript using some space on a BT Internet Web Server. It came free as part of the internet package (Oh those were the days), and closed in 2012 after 15 years when BT terminated their webspace offering.

I suspect this was down to costs of maintaining, securing and provisioning web space that was commonly being misused for nefarious needs by unscrupulous threat actors, and that webpages are easy to hack.

The site contained source code for DirectX projects I was working on, Games I’d written in Java or C++ with DirectX, Applications like OFX Converters for banking software import, or the UK National Lottery Ticket and Syndicate Management I’d written. Like anything, interests and content evolve over time. Though I’ve avoided work related interests, such as the committee’s I sit on. At the time of the official closure of the BT Service, the page had been visited nearly 700,000 times, not bad for an old geezer with an electronic typewriter 😉

Content Management Systems had built up momentum, which made it easier to focus on content and not worry about formatting and secure HTML. WordPress was streets ahead of the competition, and given it was free, the muckypaws wordpress blog was brought to life and new content has been added ad-hoc since.

It’s not the same as owning your own space and code, though given the state of the internet and how easy sites are to hack these days, it means you can focus more on content and let the CMS providers work on fixes and plugging security issues as and when they are identified.

If you want a nostalgic trip, my old (and original) website can be found here: https://web.archive.org/web/20121012073300/http://www.btinternet.com/~Jason.Brooks/index.html

The garish design, the choice of colours oh so screams Netscape, the only thing missing is the <blink> HTML Tag 🤣🤣

Thank you for staying with me, through the highs and lows of my Cyber life, it’s you that Rocks 👍🏻