From Dial-up To Web Standards

Aaron Bacon — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 19:14:00 GMT

By 1996 the Internet was common knowledge. I remember the first time I “connected”. It was my brother’s custom PC that surpassed it’s time (one could tell by the monochrome monitor). I sat down at his desk, a table that he “borrowed” from some business establishment that he worked for and a patio chair. After waiting a few minutes for Windows 3.1 to boot I created my first America Online account using my brother’s checkbook. I was well on my way to discovering the joys or easy access of the World Wide Web. After several minutes, I was defeated; unsuccessfully connecting to anything beyond reading my welcome email from AOL. I disconnected. That was the first of many heartaches that would come from dial-up.

All was not lost, however. Through the help of a print-out that I grabbed at earlier that day from the Norwood Library success was celebrated when I completed a TELNET connection. It was bliss. The black and white screen painted beautiful Courier Font in 24 pixels. My attention faltered after only being able to read the library's contact information and hours (I hear the real money is an “Upcoming Events” section which was Under Construction at the time).

I am typing the obvious cliché that the Internet has “come a long way” since that fateful day at my brother’s studio apartment on Cincinnati’s Northeast side. Today Tom, ***, and Sherry have nearly unlimited resources to produce their own space whether riding the backs of Facebook, LinkedIn, and WordPress or taking control of their own domain. It is still easy for anyone to become lost, misguided, or ill-informed when it comes to design, posting content, or simply defining a tag line.

I came on board with eTapestry in January of 2005. I was an intern and wet behind the ears. I was also fortunate to start in a young department. Most people in my field start their career fresh out of school and as book smart as we can be (well, some of us). Then, one quickly realizes the importance of “real world” experience. From communication with customers and fellow employees to knowing what was proper and good when it came to website design and development.

As the internet changes and takes on new dimensions the continuous education and deployment to meet and succeed at all levels is a must to stay competitive in the market. We call this standardizing the web. eTapestry’s Web Services maintains this through all of our web solutions while being accessible, user-friendly, and affordable as well as secure and reliable.

All though we still maintain one of the smallest departments at eTapestry, I am confident in the knowledge base that we represent. Over the past year our department has strive to not only learn and implement today’s standards for web development but also focused on educating our fellow employees and customers of the importance of standardization.

The Thread : Website

From Dial-up To Web Standards