I first got online back in 1996. Now, more than ten years later I often think about how much the internet has changed. It's become a valuable tool for marketing, commerce and most importantly: communication. It has arguably become the most important innovation of the digital age.

I could only imagine then how much potential something that so many of us now take for granted could have on the world, on ourselves, on me personally.

I was immediately anxious to make a name for myself online. I creaded a few home pages on "free web page" sites under my self-applied nickname, Cyberduck XP. (This was long before "XP" became identified with Microsoft.) My family got our first web page when we signed up for dial-up internet service that had just moved into our area. We called it "eemapres," a portmanteau of all of our initials. I quickly turned it into "Ahchoo," a personalized parody of a popular search engine that almost everyone is familiar with today.

When I outgrew it, I shut it down. However, it remains online to this day, preserved in posterity.

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