» Latest Blog Entry- overview; early activities
- 2005 to 2006
- 2006 to present
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about/history
I am a student in Toronto, Canada.Current skills overview
I've played around with numerous different tech-related tools- PHP, AJAX, CSS, Ruby on Rails (somewhat), and a little bit of server management (Apache HTTP Server)
- Various types of databases, most prominently MySQL. On occasion, I've had to use Oracle and MS Access as well.
- C++, Java, and Pascal.
Since I am a website owner myself, I am also cognizant of the business of web development. I've made some pretty big sites before, and managed some even bigger ones for others. I am well aware of online advertising, SEO and online marketing techniques.
History
My story begins a couple of years prior to 2004. Back then, I used to enjoy playing MMORPGs online, and developed an ambitious vision of making one. At the time, I had absolutely no idea what was involved in the creation of a game... but I would later find out that it's not easy.I have divided my online history into chronological sections. A table of contents is provided above.
The early beginning...
Initially, I learned from a couple of HTML and Javascript books from my father's college. I had quite a limited vocabulary, and so it was high adventure for me to figure out what some of the explanations meant, let alone the code. As a result, I learned Javascript and HTML largely from trial and error. Needless to say, this took a while.. but it got me interested in what I thought was "programming" at the time.My earliest website can be found here. Evidently, there was little purpose to it. It was simply a playground for me to test my HTML and Javascript knowledge. In 2004, I created a small gaming website/forum called TheController [2004-07-xx]. Motivated by an active member of the forum as well as my own curiosity to test my knowledge, I also wrote a few Javascript tutorials and founded EazzyTuts [2004-09-xx], a tech tutorials website. Both these sites were eventually abandoned in early 2005 as I developed interests in other areas. The links to the sites here are directed to the archive.org versions of each site. Please note that archive.org may not always display reliable website archives, especially not for sites that existed 5 years ago.
2005 - the later beginning...
My interest in web sites was probably at its all-time high in 2005. It began on a high note, as my free web hosting provider bestowed upon me a free domain name, and edwardsun.com [2005-01-07] was born. This was a big deal to me. Despite a domain name costing only $8, I could not afford one at the time. I was not only jobless and broke, but also lacked financial support from my parents, who they felt "playing on the computer" was silly.My skillset exploded this year as I spent quite some time picking up the basics of PHP, MySQL, CSS, and XHTML. I stumbled upon an online marketplace and for the first time, thought about perhaps making some cash. I initially took on some very difficult projects for what they were worth. For example, my first ever freelancing project involved making a clone of EasyBib.com, with a price tag in the double-digits.
Regardless, with a bit of cash on hand, I rejoiced. I had plans to buy domain names for myself and hoped to start some popular websites. I consummated what knowledge I had at the time into creating an image uploading service, ImgNow.net [2005-04-xx]. One of the features on ImgNow that I was quite proud of at the time was the referral system. Users were able to trade referrals for increased uploading space, total storage space, or number of simultaneous uploads. The system worked like a charm, and eventually, ImgNow gained approval at various forums around the web. Its interface was clean and easy-to-use, with no obstructive advertisements. However, this later proved to be a problem. I eventually started to advertise ImgNow through myspace accounts, and with the referral system rewards, the site grew rapidly. Although I did have a couple of dollars to spend at that time, I was having trouble keeping up with the bandwith demands, and was forced to sell it.
In retrospect, ImgNow was something I probably should have kept. Referral awards for file uploading was very unique at the time, and today, sites which use such a system (e.g. RapidShare [opened 2007] and MegaUpload [opened 2005]) are enjoying staggering amounts of success. However, my business knowledge and instincts were not strong enough at the time, and resources were scarce. The sale of ImgNow taught me a lesson: If I ever want to be more successful, I needed to invest some tangible resources (i.e. money) into my work. Up til this point, I've been doing everything from scratch, from $0. I needed some money.
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