BillsWatch Posted October 8, 2009 Posted October 8, 2009 Back in 1996, when I needed to find a way to recruit members for the newly formed Bills Backers of Central Maryland, I had just started to get into this "world wide web" thingy. With no money to take ads out in the Baltimore Sun and with potential members from Dan Valentine's BBML exhausted - I turned to this "world wide web" to try and get the word out. I downloaded a trial version of Claris Home Page and found free web hosting on GeoCities. I published my 1st website trumpeting the new BBCM. In Feb. 1997, it would be renamed Two Bills Drive and the files moved to a paid hosting service... If it wasn't for GeoCities and your free 5 MB websites, I doubt this would have ever occurred. Thank you! I got same notice about Geosystems closing down. I also put my first public website back in 1996 on Geosystems after Steve Tasker's game against the Jets (November 24, 1996) where he played almost exclusively WR due to injuries to other WRs. He was tearing up the Jets until injured. I was at the stadium at the time and had been able to move down rows steadily since stadium was about half full at beginning and people were leaving. I was less than 5 rows from sideline when he got injured of which I believe he was taken out by what was a cheap shot. Yahoo has been pressing users to change to their paid version Yahoo sites for quite a while with "outages" and promises of more features, more space, etc. but I will just move my backup site to google sites with Yahoo getting less free content.
Dan Posted October 8, 2009 Posted October 8, 2009 Most people want to do something in their life that's important or maybe makes an impact in the lives of others. Some even aspire to trying to make the world a better place. Well, SDS, you've done exactly that. Thank you for having a vision and the motivation and talent to bring that vision to all of us. As much as the Bills send me, and many a fan, into the dark depths of dispair, there is no better place than TBD to come and get the best Bills' news and complain about that news (or lack of news in the case of HC firings). Without a doubt, you've created and continue to improve upon, the absolute best website and news outlet for Bills fans. My life would be less without it. Thank you. Dan
The Senator Posted October 8, 2009 Posted October 8, 2009 Hey SDS- If someone has a bunch of loose cash laying around, one interesting (but probably fiscally worthless) investment would be to pay you (or some Aglish literate person who understands computos) to pay SDS for his time if he is willing to give it or to pay a writer to work with SDS (and potentially others) to write a history of development of the modern www using the story of the development of a site like TBD (or other communal sites) to tell the story. Actually, an exploration into the evolution of the 'net & the modern web could be quite fascinating for some, though tedious for most who just want things to work when they 'turn their Internet on'. (Certainly, it would be enlightening for the folks who still believe that Al Gore invented the Internet. ) I'm sure there are few born after 1980 who know about DARPAnet, the 1964 Rand Corporation study that lead to the CCITT Recommendation X.25 and the evolution of packet-switching and TCP/IP, the scientists at Bolt Beranek & Newman that - in an effort to develop a 'self-healing' network that could survive a natural or military catastrophe - invented the network switches that led to today's modern routers, etc., not to mention the achievements of luminaries like Vint Cerf, Robert Metcalf, etc., etc. Heck, now I'm thinking of writing it myself.
billsfan89 Posted October 8, 2009 Posted October 8, 2009 I use to host a few sites on Geocities back in 1999/2000 it was a good and simple interface that even me a kid at the time could use effectively. Sad day in web history but I guess every era has to come to an end.
billsfan89 Posted October 8, 2009 Posted October 8, 2009 Actually, an exploration into the evolution of the 'net & the modern web could be quite fascinating for some, though tedious for most who just want things to work when they 'turn their Internet on'. (Certainly, it would be enlightening for the folks who still believe that Al Gore invented the Internet. ) I'm sure there are few born after 1980 who know about DARPAnet, the 1964 Rand Corporation study that lead to the CCITT Recommendation X.25 and the evolution of packet-switching and TCP/IP, the scientists at Bolt Beranek & Newman that - in an effort to develop a 'self-healing' network that could survive a natural or military catastrophe - invented the network switches that led to today's modern routers, etc., not to mention the achievements of luminaries like Vint Cerf, Robert Metcalf, etc., etc. Heck, now I'm thinking of writing it myself. Self healing network that could survive a natural or man made disaster that sounds like skynet!
DC Tom Posted October 8, 2009 Posted October 8, 2009 There's a punchline there somewhere ... I'm pretty sure the punchline involves me.
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