25.10.2009 ~ In the beginning

« May 2012 »

01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

In the beginning there was light... or dark... or something... it's been a while since I've read genesis. Not that the bible version of the birth of everything matters in this particular case... but beginnings are the kernel of this post, so I'll continue.

The first web team I worked with was under the brand of HorizonDM, a small but ballsy 4 man group based in Clonmel. I was last to join the team, my work on the McCarthys hotel website and a connection with Fachtna Roe giving me the illusive 'in'.

Horizon Digital Media

It's early 1999. The internet is nothing but promise, the .com crash that would introduce so much doubt still some way off. And Ireland was trying to catch up as businesses of all size begin to scramble to get a web presence (understanding why would only come many years later). And HorizonDM was more than willing to help them out, for a fee!

The office

Or the sitting room, depending on you lust for accurate definition. Things certainly did start off small, with a handful of computers (including my Amiga 4000) and a network so high tech that passing packets involved flinging floppy disks at one another!

This soon grew to a peer-peer networked ring of monsters hooked to a pretty intimidating wall of monitors as machines and multiple graphics cards were added. Just in time for Half life deathmatch!

The tech (1999 style)

Our sites would start out as flat html sites, maybe with a perl form to mail script, but that quickly changed when we discovered a perl based news management system called Newspro. We quickly saw the potential of offering clients the ability to maintain their own websites and quickly hacked together a basic content management system using a crazy mixture of perl on the backend for the content management area and an iHTML backed frontend.

iHTML was/is a coldfusion like scripting language that was incredibly fast when compared to early versions of Microsofts active server pages, more info at iHTML.com.

The clients

We started off pretty lucky, with MouseMorris.com and a number of smaller but reliable clients. We were all about process, in the most holistic of senses. Each piece of work was a newborn and treated as such. Sometimes it didn't work but for the most part it did, with sites like freshfilmfestival.com, itcsu.com and the revised McCarthys website getting massive amounts of praise.

My favourite win of the time was Clonmel.ie. Originally a Clonmel Chamber of Commerce lead initiative build by Aardvark in Cork, the site was up for redevelopment and the local County Council stepped in to help. If you're imagining the generous application of red tape right now you're on the right path!

I guess I should give a sense in why I was interested in getting this project before I continue (as it wasn't going to be a high payer or a prestige site). Prior to joining HorizonDM I had started work on a project I called 'portal'. It was a simple idea, an information portal restricted to a reasonably tight geographical area (a town or city) that presented news and other information deemed useful. A site like this would sprawl quickly, so lots of thought went into maintenance, information architecture and search, a framework was created accordingly.

Back to the Clonmel.ie process. A series of pretty intense meeting would ensue, with a number of other local web designers and Eircom's Nua backed local.ie all pitching for direction and ownership. I have to admit I found the experience kinda amusing, the term 'stacking kittens in a corner' comes to mind as egos and agendas brushed and bruised. A process of elimination whose rules I don't understand to this day would eventually reward HorizonDM with the contract. We successfully rolled out the CMS backed client managed system in 2000, but I don't recall if there was wine or cheese at the launch... I must enquire!

I would go on to support clonmel.ie (with periodic design realignments and training free of charge) for almost 7 years, but despite the efforts of many people it sadly never fulfilled the promise of 'portal'.

We also endured what would become many of the classic client tales, like the irate client ringing late on a Sunday night demanding why they're not getting any email (they hadn't connected to their ISP) or endless questions about not being listed first in Altavista for the word 'free'. But these were the small niggles of being at the crest of a wave.

The tech (2k style)

Enter the WAP hype. Dubbed the 'Matrix phone' by those who don't pay attention, the Nokia 7110 was a stylish, first of breed 'smart phone' whose main selling point was the ability to surf WAP sites. Both of them.

(c)WAP?

Wireless Access Protocol. Hyped as the "internet in your pocket", this strict xhtml-ish greyscale nightmare should be recognised as a failure well before birth. But the advertising machine pushed it as 'the future' and people got excited. And where there's excitement there's money.

Not wanting to be left in the dust we extended our CMS to include support for WAP (having become all excited about getting accepted by Nokias very open developer program) and sought funding to move it forward. After a number of dry meetings involving budgets, projections, target markets and other 'pull it out of your ass and hope it looks kinda sane' number collections & colourful arching charts, said funding was granted. The future looked damn bright ...

All good things...

I left HorizonDM in early 2000 for reasons I'd eventually come to regret, but I maintain that I was young and needed the money! I continue to remember the good times fondly and the hard won lessons aid me to this very day.

Tags: 09, clonmel, computers, cti, history, life, lost, love, oldDaze, retro, right/wrong, webdev, work, wow.

Deziddon.com

Welcome to the personal web-site of Dez Iddon, a web-site developer / designer residing in Clonmel, Ireland. Come in, Stay a while, Stay Forever!!