Why the Website?

I first made a personal “homepage” in 1994 when I set up my then employer's first web server. This site has evolved from that page. In those days, the only people visible on the web were the ones with some web skills; now, the tiny proportion of the world's billion web users who have any personal web presence mostly use off-the-shelf tools like MySpace and blog software. But in an age of mass-production there will always remain a niche for the craftsman.

This incarnation of the site is fully standards-compliant (XHTML1.1/CSS2) with content and presentation completely separate, and should be fully usable on any browser. Valid XHTML 1.1

I developed all the graphics myself from my own digital photographs using the free Gimp software.
The HTML/CSS/PHP code is all hand-written (and I'm available for hire - contact me).
All words and images are copyright © J. Harley 1994-2007.

Some would say it's rather narcissistic to have made a website devoted entirely to myself.
I'm not like that though. So here are some of the reasons why I did it.
The first three are the main ones, but here's the top ten anyway.

The Top 10 Reasons

  1. As an outlet for my creative urges, particularly in graphic design
  2. To have a place to share my other creative work (writing/photography)
  3. As a testbed project to develop my web design/implementation skills
  4. To help me discover myself
  5. To help me rediscover myself in the event of severe amnesia
  6. To entertain people (it could happen)
  7. To amuse myself
  8. It's the memes, they're just using me to propagate them
  9. To solicit e-mail from like-minded people
  10. Because I can.
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