When Susan was a little curious girl, she always wondered how the Internet worked. By chance, in middle school she took a very tiny Web Page Design course (only a semester!) and it taught me the very basics of HTML. Even CSS was barely tapped into. I pioneered into web page design. It seemed fun enough. Type up code and make it look good, right?

Truth be told, I did not use Piczo or sites like that. I started off with a MaxPage, which is THE worst websin to have ever been committed. Let’s say….10 pop-ups per page?! I moved onto Freewebs, then Geocities. I moved to Blogspot, where I learned a LOT about how to code, including CSS. This helped me a lot.

Luckily, my father used to work of computers extensively and has loads of computer geekery, including Internet and HTML. Boy, did I learn so much from those books! I think I still have sticky notes in certain places…

Regardless, the best learning came with real practice. I have had countless free server hosts and finally, I decided I wanted the real thing. A true website. But first, I had to apply. Like most teenagers without money, I found myself a host. He now owns DreamKills. Needless to say, I am now ashamed I was hosted by him.

Luckily, it only lasted less than two weeks before he kicked me out because I didn’t have my website up. To avenge my inflated ego, I urged my parents to buy me a domain. It was very difficult coming up with one. But “youthern” clicked and it was bought on GoDaddy. (Their customer support never fails to scare me.) It took me a while to understand that I needed a domain AND hosting. You can see I was not very knowledgeable.

Using Get What You Give, I found Sophia. She gladly hosted me everything I needed. And to think, just before turning to her, I was on the verge of quitting the Internet altogether. And yes, I’ve attempted it a lot.

Now, Alex hosts me. He is an amazing person quite unusual and very gracious on my many random hiatuses (hey, not that many!). It’s an honor to be hosted by him.

Youthern has been running strong (somewhat) since the early February of 2007.