Short history of DSA

This is just a short history on DanSoft Australia, in case you were wondering. I may have forgotten some details, but remember, I am writing this in April 2005 (updated in September 2005), and this goes back a while.

 

The DanSoft Australia website was started in August 2003, at the same time I got my connection to the Internet. It was originally called 'DanSoft' but renamed to 'DanSoft Australia' when I found out that heaps of other people had websites by the name of DanSoft. The first version of the website had headings made with Ulead Cool 3D and buttons made using a program called 'Button Factory'. The text was just plain white on black (see picture to the left). The first ever programs were DanProgrammer 1.0, DanZip 1.0, Mini Windows 0.1 BETA and Daniel's Catalog 0.1 BETA. At that time, the site was hosted on my ISP's server. At this time, I used the URL http://dansoftaus.get.to/. I wanted a hit counter on my website, so I signed up for CQ Counter (the same hit counter is still on the site today).

After a while, that version of the website started to get a bit.... boring. I decided that I needed to make the site look better. So, I got that blue template (actually, I can't remember where I got it from). That made the site look much better :). People started to comment on my site, saying it had good software, etc, etc. During this time I was still hosting it on my ISP's server, but a mirror was (for a while) stored on iNeedHosting.net. iNeedHosting supported PHP so I created a simple feedback form to put on the website. I had some empty space at the top of the page so I decided to add translation links to the top (which were, of course, powered by Google, and later, Altavista). I signed up for an account a FreeFind which allowed me to put a search engine onto the site. I developed the site using my very own 'DanTemplates'. The screenshot to the right was actually a slightly modified version, I couldn't find the original anywhere! At this time, I used both the URLs http://dansoftaus.get.to/ and http://dansoftaus.cjb.net/ (but eventually cancelled the cjb.net one and instead used http://dansoftaus.r8.org/)

One of the biggest changes happened when I wrote 'Site Manager' (August 22, 2004, if you wanted to know). This allowed me to edit the template without having to re-upload all the HTML files again (basically, with Site Manager, the templates are stored separately to the actual content). Since Site Manager was written in PHP, I needed to move to a web host that supported PHP. I moved the main pages to my iNeedHosting.net account and decided to use my ISP's server only for storing downloads. In September, several companies were giving out free .INFO domains, so I signed up for www.dansoftaus.info and www.dansoftaustralia.info (but didn't use them until a while after). At this time, I used the domain http://dansoftaus.uni.cc/, which became the standard domain.

One day (December 23, 2004 actually), I realised that the website template actually had a lot of 'junk' HTML in it. I went through the template, line by line, in Notepad and deleted everything that wasn't needed. This cut 4-5kb off the size of the template. Also, on the same day, I converted the side menu into Flash and added a Site Map. A short while after this, I wrote SMFShop. This made my site really popular (lots of people came to download SMFShop, and then stayed and downloaded other stuff :) ). But the best thing was, Neil (former owner of WebPlanetHost) liked it so much that he gave me a free domain name (www.dansoftaustralia.com) I moved the site to WebPlanetHost (and anyway, it almost reached the bandwidth limit for iNeedHosting). One of the best things about WebPlanetHost was they have (well, used to have) unlimited domains, subdomains, MySQL databases, etc, etc, etc. Almost unlimited everything (except for disk space and bandwidth)

Eventually (February 4, 2005), I thought that the blue template was getting old and boring, so I got a new one (from a guy on the WebPlanetHost forum). This template looks more professional and people generally seem to like it more (although it does take up more bandwidth). This template has less navigation buttons, so I had to get rid of some of the pages.

Unfortunately, hosting with WebPlanetHost didn't last. Around January - February 2005, Neil sold WebPlanetHost to a guy known as 'Joe'. Things only got worse from here. In July 2005, WebPlanetHost and StrongHit (another web host ran by Joe) collapsed. Joe was owing money to people, including the people that registered the WebPlanetHost.com domain. Because of this, the WebPlanetHost.com domain (and every other domain registered through WebPlanetHost) went into Receivership and were eventually sold. This was a big problem. I lost my dansoftaustralia.com domain, and needed to find a new host. Neil started up a new host named 'Zeeblo', so I moved all my data to this host straight away. Zeeblo, like WebPlanetHost, was eventually sold by Neil, by the new owner is a lot better than Joe. Zeeblo will last a long time, as one of the top free web hosts. On the 3rd September, I bought a new domain name (www.dansoftaustralia.net), as the .info domains were expiring soon (and I wanted a new domain anyway)

Well, at least I thought that I would use that template for a long time. On 19th September 2005, I downloaded a package of templates, and this one caught my eye. I edited it a lot (using Adobe ImageReady 7.0 and Macromedia Dreamweaver 8.0) and decided to use it on this website. Not only did I get a good template for my website, I also learned a lot about using ImageReady and Dreamweaver (It was the first time I used both tools)

Well, that's all for now, I hope you enjoyed reading through the history of DanSoft Australia... But what will the future hold? We won't know until it comes, and when it does.............