Jun 5

Jun 5 Digital Archeology: My GeoCities Website

“What does digital archaeology have to do with philosophy?” you might be asking. Well, the way I see it, along with both David Hume and Derek Parfit on personal identity (along with the character Jesse Wallace from the movie Before Sunset, incidentally), we are the sum of our memories and experiences (what’s known as the “Bundle Theory” of personal identity):

Jesse Wallace: Isn’t everything autobiographical? I mean, we all see the world through our own tiny keyhole, right? I mean, I always think of Thomas Wolfe—you know, have you ever seen that little one-page “Note to Reader” in the front of Look Homeward, Angel? Right? You know what I’m talking about? Anyway, he says that we are the sum of all the moments of our lives, and that anybody who sits down to write is gonna use the clay of their own life, that you can’t avoid that. (Before Sunset, WarnerBrothers)

And if Thoreau’s journal properly counts as philosophy (some philosophers don’t think so, but I think it does), then my own reflections on, and memories of, my life’s experiences should count as philosophy, too!

In working on the current versions of my website and blog, I couldn’t help but recall my first website, a wonderfully 1990s GeoCities website complete with animated GIFs and all. (In fact, perhaps in a subsequent post, perhaps I’ll actually recreate some portion of my GeoCities site here in Squarespace, just for proverbial kicks.)

Thankfully, even though GeoCities is long since defunct after having been acquired and subsequently shut down by Yahoo, I was able to resurrect my old GeoCities website from the Internet Archive (Archive.org) because I still remembered my original GeoCities address and URL. I still think it’s charming that GeoCities successfully used the metaphors of cities and neighborhoods, in a quite literal and visual sense, to give users a sense of belonging to a community, despite the relative anonymity of the internet experience in general. On GeoCities, you didn’t just build a website, you moved into a neighborhood. (Awww!)

I thought it would be interesting to look at the evolution of my old GeoCities website over time with the help of various snapshots of the website (thankfully!) captured by Archive.org.

My Original GeoCities Homepage

Let’s start with my main GeoCities homepage. I distinctly remember my GeoCities address as being Cape Canaveral, Launchpad, 5219.

According to the note at the bottom of my GeoCities homepage, my Geocities site was born (awww!) on April 4, 1998, shortly after I got my first web-capable computer (an IBM Aptiva from RadioShack).

The very first snapshot of my GeoCities homepage that was captured by Archive.org was on October 3, 1999, although according to the page itself I last updated the site before that on April 27, 1999. Here is the snapshot of my GeoCities homepage from October 3, 1999:

October 3, 1999: http://web.archive.org/web/19991003001206/http://www.geocities.com:80/CapeCanaveral/Launchpad/5219/

Of course, my original GeoCities homepage continued to evolve over time. Here is the timeline of additional Archive.org captures of my original GeoCities homepage, including those captures of the simplified URL structure that GeoCities introduced at a certain point:

May 19, 2001: http://web.archive.org/web/20010519204954/http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Launchpad/5219/
December 21, 2001: http://web.archive.org/web/20011221012502/http://geocities.com/kd6dxa/
February 5, 2002: http://web.archive.org/web/20020205184605/http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Launchpad/5219/
February 8, 2002: http://web.archive.org/web/20020208103837/http://www.geocities.com:80/kd6dxa/
April 5, 2002: http://web.archive.org/web/20020405135012/http://www.geocities.com:80/kd6dxa/
June 1, 2002: http://web.archive.org/web/20020601092208/http://www.geocities.com/kd6dxa/
October 19, 2002: http://web.archive.org/web/20021019035455/http://www.geocities.com/kd6dxa/
November 27, 2002: http://web.archive.org/web/20021127192346/http://www.geocities.com/kd6dxa/
April 2, 2003: http://web.archive.org/web/20030402045144/http://www.geocities.com/kd6dxa/
April 4, 2004: http://web.archive.org/web/20040404065404/http://www.geocities.com/kd6dxa/

New GeoCities Splash Page and Relocated “Personal Webpage”

Zachary-Fruhling-GeoCities-Homepage-New-Splash-Page.png

By June 2004 I had apparently created a new GeoCities splash page and had moved my former homepage to a new page that I had called “Personal Webpage.” Here are the new splash page and the relocated personal webpage:

New Homepage:

June 9, 2004: http://web.archive.org/web/20040609191922/http://www.geocities.com/kd6dxa/
January 13, 2005: http://web.archive.org/web/20050113215551/http://www.geocities.com/kd6dxa/
April 4, 2005: http://web.archive.org/web/20050404075242/http://www.geocities.com/kd6dxa/
August 29, 2005: http://web.archive.org/web/20050829071821/http://www.geocities.com/kd6dxa/
July 28, 2009: http://web.archive.org/web/20090728043712/http://www.geocities.com/kd6dxa/
October 19, 2009: http://web.archive.org/web/20091019121913/http://www.geocities.com/kd6dxa/
October 23, 2009: http://web.archive.org/web/20091023091302/http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Launchpad/5219/
October 27, 2009: http://web.archive.org/web/20091027035756/http://www.geocities.com/kd6dxa/

Relocated Personal Webpage:

February 25, 2005: http://web.archive.org/web/20050225025308/http://geocities.com/kd6dxa/personal.html
November 3, 2007: http://web.archive.org/web/20071103222256/http://geocities.com/kd6dxa/personal.html
August 9, 2009: http://web.archive.org/web/20090809144054/http://geocities.com/kd6dxa/personal.html
October 21, 2009: http://web.archive.org/web/20091021203926/http://geocities.com/kd6dxa/personal.html

Other Pages on My GeoCities Website

In addition to my homepage, splash page, and personal webpage listed above, there were other areas of my original GeoCities website that are worth exploring as well. Below I’ve listed out these additional areas along with a timeline of the various Archive.org captures of each area, for posterity’s sake.

Amateur Radio Information

I apparently thought it was important to give some background on what Amateur Radio (Ham Radio) is, both because I was, and still am, an active amateur radio operator and because I self-identified as such on my GeoCities homepage. It doesn’t look like this page changed very much in the decade that my GeoCities site was up:

October 3, 1999: http://web.archive.org/web/19991003052633/http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Launchpad/5219/hamradio.html
November 4, 1999: http://web.archive.org/web/19991104061300/http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Launchpad/5219/hamradio.html
March 5, 2000: http://web.archive.org/web/20000305160555/http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Launchpad/5219/hamradio.html
June 6, 2000: http://web.archive.org/web/20000606192740/http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Launchpad/5219/hamradio.html
October 12, 2000: http://web.archive.org/web/20001012044102/http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Launchpad/5219/hamradio.html
August 30, 2009: http://web.archive.org/web/20090830013157/http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Launchpad/5219/hamradio.html
October 22, 2009: http://web.archive.org/web/20091022194239/http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Launchpad/5219/hamradio.html

KD6DXA’s Ham Radio Links

I also provided some (what I thought to be) helpful ham radio links on the following archived GeoCities pages:

June 2, 2002: http://web.archive.org/web/20020602014753/http://geocities.com/kd6dxa/hamlinks.html
August 3, 2002: http://web.archive.org/web/20020803030710/http://geocities.com/kd6dxa/hamlinks.html
November 20, 2002: http://web.archive.org/web/20021120132717/http://geocities.com/kd6dxa/hamlinks.html
March 4, 2006: http://web.archive.org/web/20060304000321/http://geocities.com/kd6dxa/hamlinks.html
September 1, 2009: http://web.archive.org/web/20090901181459/http://geocities.com/kd6dxa/hamlinks.html
October 24, 2009: http://web.archive.org/web/20091024141851/http://geocities.com/kd6dxa/hamlinks.html

The Poetry of Zachary Ryan Fruhling

It’s amusing to see how few poems I had on my GeoCities website compared to how many are on my site now. Poetry has been my lifelong companion through the ups and downs of life. Although the poems included on my GeoCities site are still available on my current website (Poems by Zachary Fruhling), it’s an interesting piece of digital archaeology to see how I presented my poetry online in the late 1990s, complete with cutesy tiled backgrounds to set the right mood for reading poetry, I suppose:

October 3, 1999: http://web.archive.org/web/19991003080617/http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Launchpad/5219/poetry.html
November 4, 1999: http://web.archive.org/web/19991104083255/http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Launchpad/5219/poetry.html
March 5, 2000: http://web.archive.org/web/20000305222204/http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Launchpad/5219/poetry.html
June 7, 2000: http://web.archive.org/web/20000607075826/http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Launchpad/5219/poetry.html
July 28, 2001: http://web.archive.org/web/20010728090525/http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Launchpad/5219/poetry.html
August 30, 2009: http://web.archive.org/web/20090830153941/http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Launchpad/5219/poetry.html
October 23, 2009: http://web.archive.org/web/20091023103012/http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Launchpad/5219/poetry.html

And since it doesn’t appear I made any changes to the pages containing the individual poems themselves, here are Archive.org links to the oldest snapshot for each of the six poems I had included on my GeoCities website:

Admire Beauty in All Her Forms: http://web.archive.org/web/19991003023253/http://geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Launchpad/5219/admire_beauty.html
Little Bird: http://web.archive.org/web/20000305183810/http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Launchpad/5219/little_bird.html
Perfection: http://web.archive.org/web/19991003063746/http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Launchpad/5219/perfection.html
This Love I’ve Found: http://web.archive.org/web/19991003105102/http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Launchpad/5219/this_love.html
Waiting: http://web.archive.org/web/19991003123009/http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Launchpad/5219/waiting.html
A Wedding: http://web.archive.org/web/19991003015701/http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Launchpad/5219/a_wedding.html

Zachary Fruhling’s Philosophy Links

As a progressed through my educational career and settled on studying philosophy in college and graduate school, I created a page for philosophy links on my GeoCities website:

June 7, 2002: http://web.archive.org/web/20020607021449/http://geocities.com/kd6dxa/philosophylinks.html
November 19, 2002: http://web.archive.org/web/20021119155606/http://geocities.com/kd6dxa/philosophylinks.html
September 1, 2009: http://web.archive.org/web/20090901181459/http://geocities.com/kd6dxa/philosophylinks.html
October 25, 2009: http://web.archive.org/web/20091025104818/http://geocities.com/kd6dxa/philosophylinks.html

Friends, Family, and Colleagues

As my GeoCities website continued to evolve, I added a page with links to the websites of various friends, family, and colleagues:

June 3, 2002: http://web.archive.org/web/20020603104206/http://geocities.com/kd6dxa/friendslinks.html
December 12, 2002: http://web.archive.org/web/20021212035652/http://geocities.com/kd6dxa/friendslinks.html
April 2, 2003: http://web.archive.org/web/20030402142501/http://geocities.com/kd6dxa/friendslinks.html
August 9, 2009: http://web.archive.org/web/20090809144054/http://geocities.com/kd6dxa/friendslinks.html
October 22, 2009: http://web.archive.org/web/20091022012808/http://geocities.com/kd6dxa/friendslinks.html

Zachary Fruhling - SETI Group

For quite a long time, off and on, I ran the SETI@Home program on my computers. SETI@Home was a program run by scientists at the University of California, Berkeley allowing users to download and process radio-telescope data in search of signs of extraterrestrial intelligence. At some point I added a page for my SETI@Home group on my GeoCities website:

November 19, 2002: http://web.archive.org/web/20021119155756/http://geocities.com/kd6dxa/seti.html
August 31, 2009: http://web.archive.org/web/20090831121731/http://geocities.com/kd6dxa/seti.html
October 25, 2009: http://web.archive.org/web/20091025064329/http://geocities.com/kd6dxa/seti.html

GeoCities Guestbook

No GeoCities site was complete without a guestbook where visitors to your site could let you know that they stopped by for a visit. GeoCities guestbooks were part digital guest register and part digital graffiti wall allowing you to leave your own mark on someone else’s site.

I actually had two different GeoCities guestbook versions on my site, and I’ve included the last archive links that I could find for both versions on my archived GeoCities website: