About Toid.net

I am impressed that you actually clicked on the link that took you here. You really must be bored or really dedicated to finding every nook and cranny of my site! Whatever the case, this is the page that I will explain to you about toid.net, it’s creation, and why on earth I have it.

The Mission:

You see, I have a lot of spare time on my hands, and so I figure, why not spend it doing something constructive, like starting a documentary of me and all the things I do. And since of course my life is so humorous I figured why not share it with everybody else…so that’s why I made this webpage.

The History:

My first site of about 4 years was located on some AOL servers who was my very first “ISP”. However, due to a marketing ploy, popular of websites that offer free homepages to their users, they started running banner ads on my site. Well, I didn’t appreciate that too much, and I failed to convert over to the hometown that aol wanted all homepage users to migrate to instead of their members pages. (confusing I know if you don’t have an aol homepage, but if you do, hopefully you know what I’m talking about) So, refusing to move over, I lost my ability to update my page. That was AOL’s way of making sure I moved over. Well, being the stubborn guy I am, I refused and bought this website — toid.net where I have my own IP address and can do whatever I want with it and not have to worry about anybody putting anything on it that I don’t want.

The Catch:

Alright, so having a domain name is pretty cool ya know? You can tell somebody to go to your address, and it’s short and sweet and not hard to remember. Also I get my own email at this address. (in reality I get like fifty but I have no clue what to do with them all, so if you want a @toid.net email address, email me, lol) Anyhow, since it is a registered Top Level Domain (TLD) I do have to pay for it. However, here is my little advertising pitch. I registered this site through WebHostIt (www.webhostit.com) and they are more than an excellent service. They registered it for me for $20 a year and they are currently hosting my site on some ultra fast connections, (I decided not to get too technical here) for a small monthly fee. The site runs on Linux and therefore makes me really happy!

The Beginning: (aka Version 1.0)

Well, that’s about it I guess for my about page for my site, all-in-all I am very happy to have this page, and looking forward to keep making it bigger and better, give me a shout out if I haven’t heard from you in a while, I would love to hear from you! Here is what Toid.net looked like in the very early stages…click here.

Toid.net Turns One:

After one year a lot has happened. Mainly just restructuring where things went, and the categories. Highlights include message board, webcam, and pictures. Overall I’m pretty happy with how things are going. Here is what Toid.net looked like at One…click here.

Toid.net @ Two Years:

Wow, what can I say! Last month I received over 125,000 hits in a single month! Toid.net is getting huge! Improvements in the last year include code optimization, a little change in appearance, and more directories (which mean more content). I’m really happy with how things are progressing here, I have many plans for the future. Here is what Toid.net looked like at Two…click here.

Toid.net Reaches Three:

Another year went by which means another year of growth! While not much in the layout design has changed, a considerable amount of content has been added and tweaked. I look forward to the next year and what is to come in the future. To see a snapshot back in time of Toid.net at three, click here.

Toddler Toid.net is Four: (aka Version 2.0)

What a year! Finally made it to version 2.0! During the last year, I have gotten engaged, and then married, rode a century on my road bike, moved from Boulder to Broomfield, climbed a handfull more fourteeners, added print support to Toid.net, added GPS waypoints for the 14ers, along with many other updates that I can’t think of right now. If you are interested in seeing what Toid.net looked at four years old, click here.

Alive at Five – Toid.net:

While Toid.net didn’t have many changes this year, I experienced probably some of the most dramatic changes in my life. It was my first year of marriage, Colleen and I bought a house together, we got a dog named Sooner, whom we love so very much, climbed some more 14ers, started finishing our basement at our new home so I could update this website and Toid LLC had a banner year. I’m looking forward to a year of relaxation but I don’t think it’s going to happen due to the landscaping of the backyard that we are obligated to finish by August. Anyhow, if you want to see what Toid.net looked like at five, click here.

Migrating to WordPress – Ages Six and Seven: (aka Version 3.0)

Eventually the next step in the evolution of a website had to happen, and that was migrating over to a content management system, (or CMS). There were many to choose from in 2006, but I settled on WordPress. WordPress made it much easier to update the blog. I even added a login for Colleen, so she could do things, I added a ton of plugins (probably too many). click here.

The Dormant Years – Ages Eight thru Ten:

As with anything, when the honeymoon is over, and life sets in…stuff happens. Well, Toid.net stopped getting traffic, mostly because I didn’t ever put any new content on the site (due to us having a new baby!), and then the emergence of social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter. It appears that when people are on the web, it is much easier for them to connect through these hubs instead of personal blogs, privacy matters aside. Nevertheless, Toid.net continued to struggle through this “Web 2.0″ period. click here.

The Comeback – Age 11: (aka Toid.net 4.0)

Like a phoenix rising out of the ashes, Toid.net was massively overhauled to update to a completely new version, layout and look. This required going through every single post and updating them to the new code. Pictures and video are now streamlined in how they go from Camera -> Lightroom -> Toid.net and we finally got off what was the bane of our GoDaddy hosting and onto our own Cloud Server at Rackspace. Even though nobody visits us anymore, I enjoy programming and maintaining it. click here.