This story goes back 10 years or more, probably a bit more. Back then I was just a "user" of forums and websites. Either out looking for help on them or trying to give some. See, I am a computer buff. I have always loved building them and tinkering and all that. But, everyone needs a bit of help once in awhile.

So, I started going to computer forums. I can't recall all their names now; but there were a few. They were awesome for the most part. Until I started spending a lot more time on them. My mind started to think about the site itself instead of what I was there for.

I started thinking about what I could do differently than the Admins on those sites. How I could make things better for the people using them. Or even if I could run a site like that at all. At this point, I had no experience at all with Administrating a forum or website. So I started a search on the net for forum software. That is where it all began.

The very first forum software I tried was one you would sign up for. You didn't need hosting or a server or anything technical like that. Just put your site name in a box and the site I was on would make it all for you. All you had to do was log in as Admin and start doing....whatever Admins did, lol.

I was amazed at all this. It was great, just what I wanted, sort of. It was nice for awhile but after everything was done, than what. It was time to get members to sign up for my awesome site. But how do you get members. Now I was screwed. I had no idea what to do, and to this day it is still tough at times to draw new members in.

As you can probably imagine, my first site was a bust, completely. It did however give me a bit of experience behind the scenes as to what really goes on back there. I kept playing around on my site by my self testing things out and trying new things, gaining all the knowledge I could. Than I learned about web hosting...

Oh man this was awesome. I didn't know at the time I could get free hosting. My very own account on a server. I was really gonna be behind the scenes now. I loved it. I was in control of space on a server that was located in another part of the world. Now I was gettin into it. Time to find out how to build a site.

Yup, that's right. I never knew how to build a site or install anything. I had never been this far into the works of things. A brand new world had just opened up to me. One I still live happily in today. Back then though, it started to eat up all my time, like, all of it. I did nothing else but sit behind this computer as long as I could each day.

I don't spend as much time sitting here now as I did but I still learn new things every day. It's one of the things that keeps me comin back. It took awhile but as my experience grew so did my confidence. I moved on from free hosting to a free server and then to a paid vps. I changed forum and website software very often. Mainly cause there was so much to try.

I tried all sorts of things from cms's to portals to forums and static web pages I built on my own. I have had a few successes in my day. I am proud of how far I have come and what I have learned. It has been a great journey. One I would recommend to anyone. These days I stick with one brand of forum software. It's free, easy to use and very well known. I use it so much I was even a team member for awhile. I have made a few modifications for this software and learned a lot.

I guess I will stop my little walk down memory lane now as I have droned on long enough, lol. I didn't wanna make this this long. In short I guess....being an Admin of a website has been great. From the learning to the people. The people...that must be one of the best things right there. If you can make a website into a community for the people than that right there my friend, is the most valuable thing of all. The people you meet and the friendships you create, are more priceless than....well, anything in my opinion. Thanks for taking the time to read this.