(Phaysis)

> whois phaysis.com

Whois Server Version 2.0

Domain Name: PHAYSIS.COM
Registrar: GODADDY.COM, INC.
Updated Date: 09-mar-2010
Creation Date: 14-apr-2000
Expiration Date: 14-apr-2011

Yeah, you read that right! Today, Phaysis.com (this very website, yo) is TEN YEARS OLD! Oh shit! That’s older than most websites I visit. If it were my kid, it’d be in fifth grade by now! What a mild ride this past decade has been! So much squandered potential, so many false starts, so many failed attempts, but my website still stands.

I started this site in April of 2000 as a way to learn web programming, to finally have a place on the web to call my own. Once I moved to Austin, it became a way to keep in touch with friends back home. Time and tide wears all shores, and Phaysis itself has changed, albeit slowly and almost imperceptably (and sometimes nonexistently). And now, it is the mostly-functioning site you see now. Hail Progress!

Today is an important milestone for my site, and I want to thank all of you for reading as often as you have and for coming back even after all my update neglect and my half-assed attempts at the Big Dreams. I still have dreams, and still have hope. You people are why I keep doing this. Thank you!

So here’s to ten more years!

Twelve years ago, I ran a site called The Farm. It started as a personal site, but grew to encompass the writings of six other people, three of whom I knew in person, one who I met in chat, and two who found us by happenstance and chose to join us. On the latter category, I had the good fortune to be approached by a stranger named Jef Kearns. He was an unusual cat, but wrote good poetry. Our email exchanges were always meaty, and he expressed his extreme interest in the proper capitalization of his name — jeF kearns — for his postings at The Farm (hey, it was our age for personal redefinition, so I went along with it).

I was poring over a working copy of the old site tonight and thought I’d follow up on Jef, see if any hits came up. Boy howdy they did. It seems our old friend Jef Kearns is an accomplished musician, and has published several albums of his jazz flute and soul music, and has done collaborations with other musicians and lyricists there in his Canadian homeland. Well done, Jef! Happy to have known you!

“Hi Shawn! I do read your site on occasion but I don’t remember to check it often. I won’t even pretend to say I pull it up every week to catch up. I’m just too busy with my hectic life to keep checking back.”

Hey kids! Shawn Thomas here with a special offer!

Do you often find yourself lost in a backlog of blog entries posted by your friends and feel like you have no hope of ever catching up? Do you often forget your best friends’ homepage URLs even though they’ve had them for years? Does this ever stop you from enjoying the interpersonal discourse that the Internet makes easy?

Well, do I have the product for you!

Did you know that you can read my blog entries without having to remember to visit my site? It’s true! Such wondrous technology exists! I know it’s such a hassle to remind yourself to read my electronic ruminations, so why not make it easier? Subscribe to my RSS feed!

What comes with a Phaysis Dot Com subscription? Everything you see here (except for the layout, and the page graphics, and all the other stuff). But that’s not all! Whenever I make a new entry, it will be posted instantly to my newsfeed.

How much effort will you expect to spend on this modern marvel? A lot? A whole lot? A crap-ton? It’s yours for the low, low price of EASY. It’s a patented process we call 1-2-3-Feed! Just follow this easy THREE STEP METHOD:

1. Find an application called a “feed reader”. You can use one of the many, many readers that are offered as a service by many of the most popular websites. One popular example is Google Reader. Have a Facebook account? Use Facebook Reader! How about Myspace? Using one of these services allows you to follow all the newsfeeds you want without ever having to go to anybody’s website, no matter where you happen to be!
2. If a site you love to read provides a feed, there are two easy ways to tell. The site will provide you with a link to their RSS or Atom feed, or your web browser will notify you with an orange “RSS” logo. Click either the link or the logo to find the URL of the feed. Copy that URL.
3. In your feed reader application, find the “Add a feed” or “Subscribe to a feed” button. Press it. You should be given a form where you can paste the URL to the feed you want to subscribe to (copied in Step 2). Paste that feed. Finally, click Next.

That’s it! You should be subscribed! Yes, it’s that easy to follow anybody’s feed. Amazing!

Act now for a taste of the easy life. RSS Feeds are Standing By! Never be lost in blogging history again!