Site Information - webnelly.com
June 2001
Technologies
Static HTML pages with CSS.
About webnelly.com
webnelly.com was the first website I started for my own use. It has gone through a few different iterations over the years, and it's current purpose is to act as somewhat of a gateway to my other sites. The site also provides more history and background on all the other sites, which otherwise might not fit within the context of each site itself.
How It Started
I originally wanted something to work with related to what I was learning in school (the Java programming language), so I was using it to post some of the Java Applets I had worked on. While it started out with simple HTML and limited CSS, my curiousity with Java grew further than just applets, and I began experimenting with Java Servlets and Java Server Pages (JSP). Java somewhere down the line led quickly to XML and XSLT, and before I knew it, I had dynamic content.
This was all happening in a matter of months during the summer of 2001. By August, I had taken the Java/XML thing to another level and started working on a section of the site to support the high school hockey team I used to play for. That started in August 2001, an from then to April 2002, the majority of the work on webnelly.com went to that section before it was permanently moved to NighthawksHockey.com as it's own site.
History
After I launched NighthawksHockey.com as it's own site, I began two others (one now gone), and work on webnelly.com pretty much stopped. As the other sites grew, I began using a template-based content system I thrown together using PHP and MySQL, which was a significant switch from the Java/XML I had started webnelly.com with.
In July 2003, I started somewhat of a redesign on the site, while in the meantime porting it over to PHP from JSP. That gave me the chance to add a little style to the original (bland) version of webnelly.com, and some elements of that redesign still exist in this latest version.
The most recent version of the site as it is today began in April 2007, and is a experimenting with a new, fully CSS approach that I hadn't implemented prior to then. Today, this site is 100% table-free and all generated with minimal HTML markup and CSS styling. With not having a big, over-the-top design theme for webnelly.com, much of it's beauty is the clean HTML and CSS working so nicely together. My other sites, though, are where the tough stuff comes into play and where things like AJAX are added for more interactivity and dynamic content.
Features
Through the various iterations of this site, there were quite a few different features demonstrating some of the web-based Java and XML technologies. As I started to shift more towards PHP and MySQL for my personal web development (I'm a Microsoft-oriented developer by trade), those Java examples seemed less and less relevant. In addition, with Internet techonologies advancing as fast as it has been (since, well ... it started), those examples were mostly outdated and child's play anyway, so they were taken down.
Today, the main feature of webnelly.com is the Portfolio section (which you're already reading). This section allows me to provide additional background on my websites that might otherwise not be included in the individual sites themselves.
I am also working on adding a Links section to share the web development links and resources that I find most helpful, as well as an About Me page that gives some background as to who I am.
What's Next
Right now, I'm working on building out more details of the Portfolio and Projects section. The Projects section takes a different turn in terms of highlighting my work in the professional arena as opposed to my casual work on these sites. I call it my double life, where I'm all about the latest Microsoft technologies professionally, but a happy open source, free as a bird kind of coder at home.
Add much of the details for the different sites and projects in those two sections is probably going to take some time, so there isn't much room to add anything else at the moment.
Previous Designs - Archive.org
Below is a list of previous designs of webnelly.com that have forever been preserved courtesy of archive.org.
December 4th, 2001
October 5th, 2003
October 16th, 2003
March 26th, 2004
All Archives