Hyperbole aside, this website has a massive history. In total, there have been fourteen different versions spanning nearly 10 years. Having gone through so many manipulations, tweaks, and redesigns over the years, it has amassed quite a development chronology, and I’ve attempted to document the various iterations of this website several times over the course of its history. I believe I’ve reached that point again. After digging around some older versions of this site on my hard drive (which really brought some memories…) I’ve managed to locate some of those history pages I created. The text below is an updated version of those history pages (much of the text is largely reproduced from those earlier history pages). So, without further adieu…
A picture history of Assortments Today
Version 1.0 (mid-1997)
My website first makes its appearance on the web dubbed, “Jerethi’s Page — A Gathering of Assortments.” I must apologize for the low quality of the image, but unfortunately I’ve long deleted this version of my website. Kind of sad because I’d appreciate looking at it now, for it’s crappiness that is. I designed this page in Netscape Composer, that really crappy top-down design WYSIWYG designer. Yuck. Major sections included a Doom2 page, a Star Trek page, and a DWANGO page. Trust me, you don’t want to know.
Version 2.0 (Late 1997)
Here’s the second version of my page.. this one certainly got a little cooler, because I went through a crap-load of different design ideas before I settled for the one you see on the right. When I first put it up, there were only 2 frames, and no javascript. The version on the left has 3 frames, with selectable music, and roll-over images on the main navigation frame. I was also at the point where I thought any and all javascript was cool, so I even had a mini ticker-tape thing going on the right frame. It was annoying. I got a lot of grounding with this page, html-wise, but it was still a fairly basic page because I used a WYSIWYG editor.
Version 3.0 (1998)
This, by far, was the culminating event of all my HTML experience. I poured everything into this page, and made it the best it could be. By this time, I had become quite comfortable with HTML, so I did it all in Notepad. To this day, I still only use Notepad to design my html documents, none of this flashy macromedia dreampooper and FlarK (I mean, Flash) Most of the visitors to my site are probably most familiar with this version of the page, since I had it up for nearly 7-8 months. Still, in the end, I got bored with it, and decided to make this layout! This page was probably such an accomplishment for me because I think I became very proficient in HTML, and I learned how to create the pages I want using the methods at my disposal (e.g. tables)
Version 4.0 (1998-1999)
This was the fourth incarnation of my website, continuing the tradition of my notepad-only religion for designing HTML, and revolved around a clean concise design with little or no images on each page. This was also the first time that I renamed my site from “A Gathering of Assortments” to just “Assortments Today” to give it this kind of dorky newspaper feel. I had a lot of cool sections in this version including a dark humor page, and a random page (basically the same as misc) and a handful of other cool stuff. I think it was on this version too that I surpassed 10,000 hits on my website. Woohoo! I really liked some of the effects I did with nested tables and the such here… alas, in the end, I got bored with it. I should also mention that it was around this time that I found an awesome sub-domain redirector called CJB.net. Check it out.
Version 5.0 (1999)
The picture you’re looking at was a section from the 5th version of my website, unfortunately not the index file. I think I wrote over that file in the next version. The index page was actually a picture of a globe with links to various parts of the website, to kind of give it this fake “world” feeling. Hey, I was trying to be creative! The only significant difference in this version was the navigation at the top, and the spiffy graphic I made in Photoshop alls by myself. I don’t exactly know why, but this version of my website had a very short lifespan. I think it was with this version that I started becoming a little board with the whole homepage thing, and little fed up with my limited HTML experience. I guess you could say, I was burnt out.
Version 6.0 (1999)
The next reincarnation of my website. I significantly reduced the number of sections to only an about me section, a links page, and a thoughts page. Did a lot of nifty table thingies too, and went for a more professional look. It was quite nice for a while, but it was at the end of this version that I completely lost interest in my website, so the picture you’re looking at was stuck on the web for quite some time, static and unchanging. It probably had something to do with the fact that I was moving into college at this point and getting accustomed to life there, so I didn’t have much of a chance to dick around with a website. I even made a semi-farewell notice at one point that gave hints that I might not update ever again. That never happened of course, else you wouldn’t see this page here!
Version 7.0 (2000)
This version was a rather spiffy one. It was the first time I messed around with CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) compatibility, and had a pretty nice design in general. Unfortunately, this one also suffered from a lack of updates, and I even ended up cutting out another section entirely (links) but adding a new one (music) Both of which of course never got completed. All in all, this page got very little attention from me, considering I only updated it like… once. I did however, get some rather interesting feedback about an article I’d written about thinking in the shower. I think the design was pretty nice, but at this point it felt like I was just making new designs for the hell of it, for something to do, to keep the interest with my homepage going strong.. certainly not a good reason I’d say.
Version 8.0 (2000-2001)
I decided to go for a completely different design on this version, which I started early during the summer of 2000, before I started organic chemistry at Northwestern. I wanted something a little “darker” and much serious than the previous, lighter, happier versions of my website. Unfortunately I barley even got this sucker off the ground (although the design did get me my job as webmaster here at Brandeis. I don’t think I ever made it past the index page. I was going to put more information about me in general on this website, but as you can see, I did not finish any sections, and it just sat there on my webserver collecting cyber-dust for a long time. It’s interesting to note that, in the belief that I was somehow being trendy, I apparently renamed the website to just “assortments” for this version. This move obviously didn’t stick.
Version 9.0 (2001)
This design is actually the second part of a redesign I did after version 8, which was done mainly with tables and colored backgrounds. You could say, this is revision 2 of Version 9.0 (sorry but I don’t have a picture of the first revision) After a year or so of hap-hazard updating and skimpy content, I decided to try and bring back Assortments Today to the high standard I had previously held for it during its early years. I added an entirely new section, Interests, with content ranging from my interest in aviation, to videogames, to Star trek, and the X-files, and added my resume to it as well. Again, this design centered mainly on table effects and clean design. It was pretty successful, and I did notice that I was getting some visitors again, but in the end, I decided it was time to experiment with a new, more sophisticated look. That is what you see before you.
Version 10.0 (2001-2002)
The tenth version of my website, and probably one of the best, in my opinion. Although I was stingy on the graphics, this site was by far the most complete, and most professional looking design I’ve ever had. With lots of tables, lots of curves, and lots of content, this was not only my most complete website, but also the hardest to take down (there was just so much information to transfer) Still, in the end I got tired of this design because it was a little bleak, and for some reason it was much more time consuming to go through the motions for updating this site.
Version 11.0 (2002-2003)
And now we come to one of my favorite designs! In retrospect, this design looked a lot like many of the blogs currently populating the blogosphere. It was your typical top-down design, with graphically created tabs at the top, and a very fashionable banner. I also, for the first time, included a substantial picture section on my website, with pictures from Brandeis, Chicago, and vacations. Each picture had its own javascript popup window, caption, and was all done by hand (including the resizing!). Man pre-gallery days… anyway, I really liked the various colors on this website; it was stylish and contemporary. This version actually lasted me all the way through my senior year of college and even through my first semester law school until…
Version 12.0 (2003)
Version 12.0 was a leap forward for this website. In conjunction with a redesign, I also for the first time ever, acquired my own domain name — the one happily sitting on your location bar at this moment. The actual redesign, as you can see, was not all that snazzy. I essentially threw this together in a few days during winter break after my first semester of law school. I went a little wild with style sheets (actually I think I “modified” one from another website… heh) and created another clean, fairly sleek, minimalist design. Unfortunately, I had neither the time nor the desire to integrate a whole lot of content because I was still trying to survive my 1L year. At this point, I should note that I was still using notepad (with a little bit of help from Macromedia Dreamweaver) to edit and publish content for my website. However, huge developments were just around the corner…
Version 13.0 (2004-2006)
After significant updating droughts and prodding (Dennis), I officially left behind my notepad roots and joined the 21st Century’s blogosphere. I downloaded and installed Moveabletype, the premiere content publishing software (aka blogging program) at the time, and transformed Assortments Today into a blog. It was great move. Thanks to Moveabletype, I could update my website anywhere, anytime, with the mere click of a button. And suddenly, my website was no longer its own little self-contained universe — people could leave comments and trackbacks, connecting me to people all across the globe. This was a pretty exciting time. I installed (and continue to use to this day) a magnificent open source gallery program which added new dimensions of interactivity to my website. In short, Moveabletype had transformed Assortments Today into an entirely new entity, and provided a much needed infusion of new content, excitement, and customization.
Version 14.0 (2006-Present)
Moveabletype was not without its problems, however. At the top of the list was the comment and trackback spam, which really got out of control on a number of occasions (i.e. it was not uncommon to find hundreds of comment-spam e-mails in my inbox – not a good way to start the day). The people behind Moveabletype were also doing a lackluster job at keeping it competitive; other publishing programs were popping up with better features. In time, after prodding (Dennis – man this guy prods me a lot!) I switched to a new engine – WordPress. WordPress is rapturous. It supports downloadable, update-on-the-fly themes, and just rocks. It is upon WordPress’s foundation that Assortments Today currently rests, and it will likely do so for quite some time (hell, I’ve spent way too much time customizing it to my obsessive compulsive tastes, so frankly I can’t afford to change anytime soon!)
The future
What does the future hold for Assortments Today? Hell if I know. But you know what they say – nothing is certain but death, taxes, and Assortments Today. Have you had your’s yet?