Nov 25
My first Duoh! website
2008 at 07.34 pm posted by Veerle Pieters
I already talked about it a few years ago but since so much has changed here on the blog and many new readers don’t dig that deep in the archive I’m reviving this post inspired by Jason Santa Maria’s lastest post about his first website.
First a little backstory on how I did discover the Internet
We have to go back to 1996 when we owned a Tektronix Phaser 140 printer that had a little bit of trouble communicating with AppleTalk. You gotta love those Mac OS 8/9 days, where a crash a day was on the menu. In those days we had a pricey support contract with an Apple dealer Compuvision that charged us money to just do the following: "I'll look on the Internet to see if a new driver is available". That's when I started to get fascinated with that mystery thing called the Internet. So, I went to a computer store and got myself an account with a service called Netlink, and got myself a Farralon 14.400 modem that I soon after exchanged for a 28.800 one. My first baby steps to browse on the Internet was with a browser called Mosaic and only showed text. The first advanced browser that I used that was able to show a bit of the potential of the Internet was Netscape 1.0 alpha. You can't believe how buggy it was on the Mac, but we didn't know any better so it was cool too, if you know what I mean. I still hear the modem dial tone while connecting to the Internet and it felt like somebody scratching their nails on a chalk board :)
My first website
When I started out with HTML I remember some of the names of the applications, but I'm not 100% sure anymore in what order I used them. If memory serves me right, I think I've started out with Claris Homepage, and soon after that, I jumped to Adobe Pagemill. Once I got the hang of coding, I've jumped to World Wide Web Weaver, an application that isn't a true WYSIWYG editor, but a bit of a mix. Later I moved on to BBEdit, GoLive and DreamWeaver.
With all the geek talk out of the way, let's return to the actual site. You got to give me some credit for having a sharp vision in anticipating the hatred towards frames :o) The site has it all, moving gifs, music, and ShockWave. I remember that I was so proud of my hip animations. In that period I was complete intoxicated by Macromedia Director and the possibilities it offered. As you notice, the design shares some of my other favorite tools as well such as KPT Bryce, KPT Power Tools, and KPT Vector Effects for Illustrator. Kai Krause was one of the first people to experiment with interface concepts, something that wasn't really common back then.
I'm guessing you are curious by now to see it, step back into the time machine and before you know it you are looking at my first website. I've also found the second one that went online in 1997. I'm sure you'll laugh when you explore around a bit :)
Duoh! version 1
Duoh! version 2
Be brave share yours too
I've set up a group on Flickr called '20th Century Web Sites' to share all our lovely work from back in the day. All you need to do is become a member and post your screenshot in the group pool. Hopefully this will become a nice museum where we can go to have a good laugh about the old days :D
35served
1
This was my first personal website for a high school project. Back than I thought Java & JavaScript were the same and FrontPage was a good editor.
It’s written in Dutch. Special: Works on IE6 only:
http://www.freewebs.com/programmeertalen/Web Home.htm
I’m ashamed…
2
KPT Spheroid Designer looks like a puzzle game I should buy on Xbox Live Arcade.
Marco, that Home logo is fun. I wish I had been in this game longer, the oldest record I have is a screen from my first WP blog theme from just under two years ago when I started breaking CSS;
...I tried to auction it for the OLPC project and it made $5. Doh.
3
It is great to be able to go back and see where we came from. Things seem so primitive and clunky but that was really cutting edge. I laughed a bit when I viewed the link to see your spinning logo only because things like that were so typical of that time frame.
Thanks for the blast from the past.
4
haha my first website was really bad, i didnt know how to resize images very well but I improved on the 2nd layouts, 3rd etc… here are a few that I found.
5
Veerle, sorry about taking over the comments with a honking great big screenshot - didn’t realise images were allowed in the comments (my face has gone a bit red).
6
Yeah, it was Claris Homepage and Adobe Pagemill for me too. I had forgot about KPT Power Tools, happy days! ;-)
7
It’s great to see where you came from! This has actually been on my mind for quite some time now. And I’ve been wanting to do a post of my first website as well. Currently trying to find the files and bring it back to life. :)
8
I wish I could find it! I lost it off my hard drive in a upgrade at some point and it’s not in the wayback machine.
It was hosted on Geocities, had a bright pink background (why pink? I hate pink!) and I had a gif of the word Welcome spinning in the center of the page right above the under construction animation. I had rainbow text I had to rainbowize one letter at a time myself and I don’t remember if I had ANY actual content. Probably my favourite song lyrics or something…
Thanks for sharing :)
9
My first web presence was in 1995 (grade 9), as seen here. Uggh.
There’s even a hidden link to a secret page—maybe I should have gotten in to SEO.
10
Nice. Looks very ‘90s. I really loved using Kai’s Power Tools too. I found the original box two weeks ago when I was packing to move my studio to my new address.
11
:-)
Ha ha ha… It’s real fun. Me too used to check my old sites time to time, just to get a feel, how much I changed myself and in my designs.
A loud applause for you; your improvisation from these designs to current designs with in a short span of period is really appreciable.
Regards
Haree
12
Thanks for sharing your 1st site with us.
My first website was done in 1995, in purple, center-aligned, using HTMLed Pro. It was scary…very scary. Fortunately, I didn’t use Comic Sans or the whole thing might’ve imploded.
Kai Power Tools! LOL I remember that. I had forgotten about that until now. It was great, and the interface was so high-tech. ;)
13
It is really great to see your first made site ever. It’s really amazing thing that you saved it at all. I am sure you are proud of your work in that time, and you are always happy when remind those days.
14
hahaha - when I saw the KTP effects screen-grabs it really took me in the mid/end 90’s and reading the post I heart ambient mix on my favorite radio, starting with that old modem sound ...
15
Wow, this kind of flash of the past gives us a measure of our progress. Sometimes when i have a designer´s block and i look back i can see how much one can be improving your skills.
Veerle, this is my first comment. I have been reading your blog a months ago and i have to tell you the new design of Duoh! is awesome. You have a fan of your work here.
Congratulations!
16
First time posting, long time reader…
I found my first website from 1997 archived but no longer live. Only the homepage is available.
http://web.archive.org/web/20060910192400/http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~coolcat/
I recently redesigned my band’s website without using tables. :)
http://www.anaura.com
Cheers!
17
Uhh… Just saw the new AICN Star Trek trailer with the (only, of course) real Spock, next stop on the Internet now this post with OS8, PageMill, Netscape 1 and, of all things, Kai’s Power Tools. Talk about a blast from the past…
18
Great post Veerle - you weave some fantastic stories on your blog! Posts like this take us all back to those humble days of early Internet access :)
19
Hey Veerle,
I do remember your first site, probably after reading about Duoh! in Best of Mac or Clickx Or was it Wave?. Shortly afterwards I saw your presentation at the Adobe seminar / day at Cybertheater in Brussels. Remember how Clickx would feature all the new Belgian sites that were launched each month, on 2 or 3 pages, screenshot, short description, rating on design andcontent.
Where are the days…
20
Check mine which was designed in 1998.
http://web.archive.org/web/19981212014743/http://indax.com/
I have been using http://www.archive.org
for a long time to see some of my old designs.
Great feeling.
21
You have no idea what a favor you’ve just done me by setting up that Flickr group:) I’m teaching webdesign history next year, and I’m actively looking for old screenshots. I hope I’ll be able to share a few myself. Cheers!
22
Great post Veerle. I love looking at these old sites and I wish I could add mine to the list. There are some other good ones on Jason Santa Maria’s blog, as he recently had a blog entry on the same subject.
23
My first website was on 1998. About Pamela Anderson. Fan of her on Baywatch. Me with 13y. :)
24
There is nothing like your first anything and no matter what it is you will always remember that one time!
But even for your first website it still looks great!
25
Those screenies sure bring back some memories ... mainly of awful websites.
My first website consisted of a lot of Java, which I threw together with some cheap app.
26
Sorry about my post earlier, I don’t know how I missed that first paragraph where you mention the same thing commented about… My fault! :)
27
I just want to let you know that I missed visiting your blog so much that I have at one shot read all the archives and bookmark all the tutorials! And I am so tired now because I stayed up all night last night re-looking my own blog posts and thinking how to make my blog better.. (and now is tonight and I am going to bed..) And yes, I love your new business site, it has a lot of personality.. I love it, esp. the illustration of you and your husband :)
28
My first site that I produced is still around from 1995
I still am in denial and have refused to update it. IMHO, it is still valuable and ahead of its time from an icon ands symbolic meaning and coffee as awareness invitation energy.
Should I update?
29
Too bad the guestbook on v1 does not work.:)
Let’s start a guestbook revival and forget all that “facebook” and “blog”-thing everyone is talking about.
30
Those image bulleted lists, frames and crazy animated GIFs make me very nostalgic. I discovered the internet at about that time too.
31
Also used Kai Power Tools back in the days and released my first website in 1996 with notepad.
I remember using some magical “dancing flames” animated gif, back then there were people who tought it was cool instead of annoying.
Anyway, it was cool to see the dollar from Amazon bookstore referral fees come in!
32
The most tragic thing is that STILL there are people who make sites this way, and STILL there are websites like this in everyday use:)
33
This post certainly brought back a few memories! I remember Kai’s Power Tools, and how when I first used it I thought they were the most amazing effects I’d ever seen for personal graphics work. That was back in 2000 for me and I like to think I’ve grown wiser and stronger in the art of design since then :)
34
well well .. one of my very first pages is still available online (till Lycos goes finally down, thou): http://mitglied.lycos.de/oxygenius/
happy nightmares ;)
cu, w0lf.
35
This thread of blog comments finally motivated me to search my first website.
Welcome to 1996:
http://www.kodel.be/1996/main.html
no CSS, but this manual design was liquid nonetheless…
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