I officially closed phrostbyte.net today. 
Phrostbyte holds a certain amount of sentimental value to me. It was an ugly site when it was up, but it was completely original. I wrote the site entirely by hand in html, which I learned as I went along. Later, I added things like javascript and CGI. Skills that I had also picked up along the way. I added chat rooms via IRC, integrated into the site with javascript. I embedded multiple search engines within the site. I had reference pages, shout boxes, arcade games, you name it. I wanted to try everything I could. I even had my first taste of SQL, PHP, and CSS with Phrostbyte. It has been a great experience.
I also had a pseudo-blog on my site. This was long before I even new what a blog was. Blogs have been around since the mid 90’s, just not on my side of the net. I was a member of the forumsphere, so to speak, not the blogosphere. On the front page of my site, however, I had a column where I would write on a variety of topics. The mechanism even worked the same as a traditional blog. Every time I made an entry, the previous entry would be pushed down and replaced with the new one, complete with a time & date stamp. Very blog like, huh? I guess you could say that Phrostbyte was my first real blog.
I’d have to say that my favorite part of Phrostbyte was the discussion boards though. I used a great software package called Ikonboard. I later switched to phpBB and then to SMF. As far as free software goes, I still like Ikonboard the best.
It wasn’t the software that made the forums great though. The forums were tiny, with only a hand full of close friends that used it regularly, but it was always active and we always new where to find each other.
The site has been dead for quite some time now and it’s the right time to shut her down. I still have skyecade.net and I’m also working on a new community site which will, in a sense, be replacing Phrostbyte. I hope to officially launch it within the next 2 months.
I would like to bring Phrostbyte back sometime in the future. What form she’ll take I can’t say. I’ll probably use her for some other educational endeavor. Perhaps Python or Ruby. Or maybe even a little Ajax. Time will surely tell.
Our life is frittered away by detail… Simplify, simplify…. Henry Thoreau
Phrostbyte has officially signed off.
A special thanks goes out to to Smurfette, Bull, and Green. It’s been a great ride.
Filed under: Design / Development, Random Bits
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