A bit of history about the site
I launched the first version of this website in 2007, somewhere around the time Steve Jobs announced Apple iPhone.
Since then I’ve redesigned the website almost every year and with each new version of the site came a visual refresh, and the adoption of new features & technology that I wanted to learn for my upcoming projects.
Technology:
It started as a hand-coded static site in HTML, and CSS. Over the past years, it moved to WordPress, powered by various themes including Genesis, GeneratePress, and a custom theme based on Underscores.
Last year, I moved the site to Full Site Editing(FSE), built on a custom block-based theme that I coded from scratch.
Theme:
Through the Wayback Machine I was able to find what the site looked like back in the day. The CSS of the early versions of the site wasn’t loaded by the Wayback Machine and so parts of my site may look wonky.
Here are a few versions (although the one below isn’t the first version of the site, it’s the earliest I could find that looked intact, more or less!).
Looking back at the previous versions, I had a few interesting observations.
- I had a newsletter sign-up form on my site for more than a decade.
- Some of the elements like the Golden Gate Bridge, and the world map have been a part of the site for over a decade. I let go of them in the latest version, to keep the site minimal.
- It took me almost a decade before I was comfortable having my photo on the site. Even then, I started with an avatar image before going to a full-length image of myself.
- I went from doing it all-web, identity, and print- to honing into front-end development for agencies & designers, niching down to WordPress development, and now writing about WordPress.
- I enjoyed writing content for my site.
- I loved designing for myself, maybe I should do more of it.
- I love the flair of a script font and always had it somewhere on the site.
- My fondness for the color, orange (if you ever visited my home you won’t miss it) has clearly stood the test of time.
- I embraced the dark mode way before it was a thing.
- My choice of font type has always been sans-serif.
Hosting:
The first version of this site was hosted on Geocities. By late 2007, I moved the site to goDaddy and hosted there for a few decades. Recently I switched to MDDHosting and recommend them to anyone running a WordPress website.
Changelog
This site is my sandbox where I experiment with any new technology that I wanna learn for my upcoming projects.
Usually, once the site development is done and I am happy with the knowledge I gained, I leave the site as is, until I’m lured into the next shiny technology.
Since I moved the site to FSE, I continue to dabble with the upcoming features in WordPress and focus on improving my writing skills.
| Date | Description |
|---|---|
| Jul 20, 2021 | New website design launched. |
| Jul 24, 2021 | Updated the privacy policy. |
| Jul 25, 2021 | Added newsletter signup form and page. |
| Oct 15, 2021 | Migrated the website to be fully powered by Full Site Editing. |
| Jan 19, 2022 | Added Comments form at the end of the blog posts. |
| Feb 20, 2022 | Switched the site design to dark mode. |
| Feb 23, 2022 | Added YARPP Plugin for Related Posts. |
| March 25, 2022 | Simplified the site navigation. |
| April 27, 2022 | Removed YARPP, Social sharing, Google Analytics, Akismet. |
| April 27, 2022 | Added Archives page. Updated the Site credits, Changelog and Policies page. |
| April 30, 2022 | Removed comments form. Readers can comment via Email. Added RSS feed. Readers can subscribe via RSS. |
| Nov 30, 2022 | Refreshed content with my work updates. |
Last updated: Nov 30, 2022