Seventeen years ago today, I uploaded the first few HTML, JPG and GIF files that made up Frank’s World to the free 1MB web storage that came with my dial up internet account.  A year later, I secured the FranksWorld.com domain name and moved it to a hosting provider. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Back in Time

The first entry on WayBack Machine is for December 21, 1996 and you’ll see that the design and focus of the site has changed over time. Looking at old images of your website is a lot like looking at old high school photos.  I believe the first URL was http://grammercy.ios.com/~daddymac.

There’s some nostalgia and quite a bit of recoiling in horror as you tell yourself: “that was the cool look back then”

Eventually, I bought the FranksWorld.com domain name and the rest, as they say, is history.

Origins of Frank's World

For its tenth birthday a talented designer friend of mine together this thoughtful Flash animation to mark the occasion, which focuses on the future of Frank's World by looking back at its roots: Fake News.  

You can also see a fictionalized version of the origins of Frank's World, which originally began to tick off an uptight roommate freshman year at college by posting fake news stories on our dorm room door.

If memory serves me correctly, the first "issue" of Frank's World had stories on Elvis working at Quick Chek in Jersey City, Bruce Lee being cryogenically frozen until the economy improved, and a story about Bigfoot roaming around the Bronx Zoo.

Fun Trivia Fact: The Bruce Lee story was a quote from DC Cab back when Mr T. had a "promising" movie career.

The funny thing is that now, thanks to sites like LinkedIn and Facebook, I can send him a message to thank him for all the success his anti-social behavior inspired.

Frank's World Through the Years

Since 1995, Frank's World has been a lot of things, but, above all, this site is my baby and I've enjoyed watching it grow.

Thank's to the Wayback machine, you can trace the evolution of Frank's World starting from December 1996 to the gradual shift towards being a blog.

I made the conversion to a blog style format back in 2001, using a kludgey FTP publishing script to get the data from Blogger to this site. 

I was able to keep friends and family updated on my travels via Frank's World, while I was living in Europe. 

Sadly, most of these older posts are no longer accessible.  Among the missing posts are my Ireland travelogue posts and a run-in with a soap-opera-star-turned-obnoxious-real-estate-agent in North Jersey who took out her road rage on me.

Perhaps I will re-tell the tales someday.

When I came back to the States and moved to Lower Manhattan, the site became a way to let people know I was OK and to share my experiences of 9/11 with the world.

In 2004, I installed .Text and made my blog the centerpiece of the site. 

I even hosted Frank's World in my basement for a while, but eventually I outgrew the amount of bandwidth the cable company could (or would) provide me with.

Last year, I moved over the site to OrcsWeb and over to the Orchard blog platform.

Soon, I hope to have a “Frank’s World” app in the Windows Store, as well as unveil a “re-imagined” Frank’s World.