A Brief History

Please note, this page has been simply copied from the older site, as a result may not be up to date, or accurate.

Many sites have a "old gallery" which is basically their ego's going mad saying look how good my site used to be. So I thought why don't I do that? So I am.

Version 1 (1999-2001 ish) - Brave beginnings

This was the original and buy far the worst of all the site designs. It was very much a learning exercise. There was a dancing banner at the top, along with some awful music that played on page load.

Version 2 (2001-2003) - In with frames

There was also a earlier version of this which just had a banner with the link to the home page instead of individual sections(Music, news etc.). This site lasted at least 12 months longer than I had planned, entertainingly it was in a folder called "New Website for 2001-2002".

Version 3 (2004-2005) - The joys of using Front page

This version originally had less crap at the top of the page. The site was extremely slow to load, due to the number of extra tags placed in it by WYSIWYG editors of the time

Version 4a (2005) - Starting to make sense

Continually have a page that was slow, as well as having broken images it made sense to wipe the slate clean. 4a launched July 1st 2005, under the name "Steaming Fish". It lasted about 6 months until it was given a light facelift, with more colour added and some new links added and rearange, there was also a minor design change.

Version 4b (2006).

This was the rejiged version of version 4a, and was changed to this in early January 2006. This made use of CSS and a helpful tool called SSI. This was in use until the end of June 2006 when replaced by version 5. This version was changed to allow dynamic picture changing so that the logo could be changed on regular occasions, this was usually the Dr. Who logo. The current site features heavily on it but is now heavily CSS bassed.

Version 5 (2007-2008)

This was a major redesign of the site, although all the major content remained the same. Both the front page, and the navigation structure were changed. The redesign was prompted by some new features and the re-organisiation of much of the content to fit into categories, instead of just being a collection of links to my favourite features. This design was also prompted by the desire to place banner advertisements on the site as well as the blog. This version received very few updates, and was eventually abandoned by mid 2008.

Version 5h (2009-2017)

Prompted by a change in server hosting a new colour scheme was introduced, as well as a rebrand. Living as a pun of "out of my way"; Atomway was born. However, the only update was to this, a holding page stating that I had lost all my free time, as well as any interest in updating a site that I was no longer passionate about. Which brings us to todays content:

Version 6a (2014-2017) - For internal use only

After purchasing a tablet computer, as well as wishing to get back in the habit after many years away. Mid 2013 saw the start of design for a whole new site. With the axe primed and the keyboard at the ready, whilst working full time too. All the old stuff went, and the new travel and photography site started construction.
Unfortunately the full time work took its toll on me, and Version 6 never actually launched. This was compounded by the work events of 2015, leading to the biggest digital cobweb gathering possible!
August 2017 update: This is the current version of the site, which was prompted again by a change in host setup, making the hidden page now the default. Admittedly it needs some changes making in order to bring it up to speed, but there is now some progress visible since 2014

Version 6b (2017- ?) -

The early part of 2016 brought about some fresh hope of using my website for real use once again. While I was happy with the Version 6a, I never had the confidence to remove the 5H holding page, or indeed any of the old content. However spending some time learning how to actually use PHP and MySQL all over again was valuable. Many times I did question why would I actually build from scratch, but the passion to learn more is far more important than just installing Wordpress.
The Change in work at the end of 2015 led to a little more free time on my hands, or at least a bit less stress for me.

Version 6m (2017) - On With Mobile!

Until this point, I had browsed many sites on a tablet or on the iPhone, but never designed one, while it's unlikely to actually happen, a mobile friendly site is planned... One day.

Seasonal / Attempts at Flash

Christmas Version 1 (2002).

This version was closly based on the version 2 site.

Christmas Version 2 (2003).

This version was originaly just a slight content revision of the original(a bit more).
There were some smaller versions but they were just tests of flash animation.