So we come to the beginning of the beginning...
As I write this I have a little over just two months of web building experience. During that time, I have learned more about the use of Frontpage Express, CoffeeCup and the Netscape Composer. I can now write an HTML page using Notepad. I have begun troubleshooting the tables I make through WYSIWYG editors. I can now customize the HTML codes done by others and the Javascripts I have received from the great free stuff providers of the Internet. This framed page which you are looking at is just the beginning of my serious attempt at a framed homepage. What follows is the story of how I finally got a page into the Web.
On August 23, 1999, the computer I have been using as the Secretary of our community was replaced by one that can be connected to the Internet. Four days afterwards, the computer was connected to the Internet. My first act was to get a new email account since the old one can only be accessed through the Library facilities (at that time I didn't yet realize the possibilities of Outlook Express). I got the email account from the only Internet portal that I knew of then: Yahoo. It was Yahoo that brought me to Geocities where I would put up my first page on the Net.
I began toying with the idea of having a homepage of my own during one log in session at Yahoo mail. The "Get your free homepage" invitation from Geocities looked so inviting. The name "Geocities" was already associated with "great homepages" in my mind because of the homepage of another friar. One sleepless night I clicked on the invitation and registered. Immediately, I started out with their Easy PageBuilder (then at the Beta-testing stage). As I typed and rearranged the elements on my page, I was thinking that it would be more convenient if I learned how to use the software I had on the computer. I haven't heard of file uploads or FTP then. My first page on the Net was published at about 3:35 AM, August 28, 1999. It was entitled "Agustinong Pinoy" (English: "Filipino Augustinian"). This page is no longer in existence. It got deleted during update. The homepage is still there, however, and quickly being transformed into a site for my students and teachers. [If you are interested to see it, click here.]
I got to know about the Lycos Network through the Lycos browser I downloaded some time during the first week of September. I was at a free stuff site -- I don't remember which now -- looking for some way to enhance my growing web page. The Lycos browser looked special, with its "Skin" and other stuff, so it immediately became my favorite browser. It eventually led me to Tripod.com where I began building this homepage just for myself. I was still quite inexperienced with layouts and backgrounds then. And I still didn't know how to properly paste the HTML codes provided by Tripod (the first service of its kind I knew of!). My experimentations with Tripod's Quick Page Builder are still in existence. Just click here.
The Friar's Adventure Continues...
Made With