Thanks A Million!

by ComputerBob

June 4, 2008

NOTE: This article originally appeared as an entry in ComputerBob's daily online Journal.

Personal. Yes, that's ComputerBob's eye. When I started this web site almost 10 years ago, I had just started teaching 12 different computer courses at a small community college in The Frostbite State. I didn't know much about how to create a web site, but I was able to figure out several of the most basic HTML codes by visiting many, many other web sites and using my browser's "View Source" feature to look at their code.

So this web site began life one weekend in August, 1998, as one very basic web page with 12 text hyperlinks that ran down its center — hyperlinks that linked to the course syllabi of the 12 courses that I was teaching that semester. Once a student visited this site and printed their syllabus, there was no reason for them to come back to it. At first, it didn't have its own domain name — it was hosted by one of the many free web hosts — so it had one of those long, hard-to-remember URLs that barely fit onto one line of a business card. A few months later, I registered the domain name ComputerBob.com and started using a paid web host. Though one of the colleges where I taught offered to host this site on their server, I've always chosen to pay for its hosting myself, to give me the freedom and independence that I wouldn't have had if it had been hosted by any of my employers. For similar reasons, I've also never accepted any advertising for any of my web sites.

Though this site was very primitive at its birth, I added more and more course information to it as I became more proficient in HTML coding. At first, I added simple things like my course shedules and announcements. Later, I added course assignments and related readings. Then course quizzes and the three-hour final exam itself. (Actually, I posted 150 questions for each course's final exam, and I told my students that the final exam itself would consist of 100 of those same questions — but I didn't tell them which ones.) I even posted students' final grades (securely) so that they could see their course grades a few hours after they took the final exam. Within that first year, this site became a central meeting and information source for my students, with hundreds of course-related documents as well as hundreds of hyperlinks to other computer-related web sites, and I no longer had to hand out any printed course materials.

Over time, the 200+ students that I taught each semester grew to love this web site. Especially when I added a forum to it. Within a year, hundreds of my students were using this site's forum to ask thousands of questions and to discuss anything that was on their minds. Of course, I answered a lot of their questions at first, but over time, I was very happy to see more and more of them answering each other's questions. I was also very happy and proud to see that, several years later, some of my forner students from as far back as 1998 were still logging in to my forum regularly, to tell me how they were doing and to answer questions and give advice to my current students.

Several years ago, this web site grew way, way, way past any of my original expectations. Since that weekend in August, 1998, I've spent over 10,000 hours working on it, updating it, expanding it, redesigning it, and improving it every single day. Its college courses page — once its centerpiece and raison d'etre — is now just an empty shell that I keep for its historical and sentimental value. My wife and I fled The Frostbite State over 4 years ago, and now bask in the colorful warmth of The Sunshine State. This site's audience has grown from getting a few hundred visits each week from the 200+ students that I taught each semester at a small community college, to getting a couple of thousand visitors every day, from people all over the world. It's been a great honor and priviledge to share some of what I've gone through in my life with you on this site — and, as a result, to both give and to receive help, support and encouragement to and from hundreds of this site's visitors via email — people who I now consider to be dear friends, even though I will probably never meet any of them in person.

I'm always looking for ways to improve this web site. That's why I started my new Survivors Forum four days ago, so that people who have survived difficult things in their lives — people like you — can share their stories and help and support each other. If you're still alive, you're a survivor. Please join my forum and tell us how you're doing it.

It's taken almost 10 years, but today, this web site had its one-millionth visitor. I am deeply humbled and I sincerely thank you for visiting this web site and for being such an important part of my life.