This web site is the new version of the copy of one of first personal sites of mine, about Monte Argentario, which I built in 1997. It is not long time ago, I know, but in the Internet, it is as if it had passed  more than a century. In the same time while I was doing it, here, in Porto S. Stefano, some friends of mine tried to develop projects and tried to take the way of the Web as their own jobs, but they had to quit and look for regular jobs in short time. It was because the immaturity of times, where people didn't succeed to recognize the utility and what the Web would have become in relative short time. At that time when you talked about the Internet it was like you talked about pornography.

I didn't have a domain at that time, I couldn't afford its expenses, and my sites were hosted on servers which offered a bit of free space. These servers have allowed us, little developers of small web sites, to train and share our knowledge and our skills with other people like us, increasing the huge database that the Internet is. Before this one, I succeeded to have a web page on a US server, I think it was called maxipage.com, I don't remember well (as soon as I hear Debbie, I ask it to her, she surely remembers it), I got that page for short time, it was about the use of computer and Windows. I compiled that page with notebook of Windows; it didn't come out so bad. It was allowed to put a photo on the page, so I put one of my old computer. I was lucky, I had a scanner, a tool that I paid a lot of money (as we say: an eye of our head), but it gave me a lot of satisfaction and by it I digitalized tons of pictures, which have been of big effect on all sites of mine. Later I bought a digital camera; it was an incredible thing, to see the photo just taken on its display in a while. For the construction of that little page, that is, for the transfer of the only picture, I had to install the newest Netscape Navigator, if I didn't remember badly, it was version 3.00 and I had to pay it as well. I had to do that, because, the newest Internet Explorer, embedded in Windows 95, I think even that was  version 3, but it didn't support java, so it did not allow me to use the FTP program, which they put at disposal of their users. Later on, I worked on a  sub domain of Freeyellow for a bit of time. It offered 500 KB of free space and it seemed, who knows how much space it were. The strangest thing of that web server was that you had to choose a sponsor from a list, before starting your site construction, I chose one and then it was a weapon builder, thing absolutely antithetic respect my thought. I recognized it only after things were already done, so I accepted it and I shut my mouth down. With the help and the advice of my American friend Debbie J. Swanson, from Minnesota, who actually taught me a lot of things, practically in few words, she taught me to build web pages. So I built a good web site for then, I made it almost completely in wysiwyg (how it was easy) through the compiler  that is resident in Netscape Navigator 4.00 . I called it: my red site, it was in Italian and in English and it made good publicity at Monte Argentario along many years, with many visitors and it is not long time they closed it, but I opportunely rebuilt it, not long time ago (November 2004), on a domain of mine.

After short time, a friend of mine made me know that nice server which GoPlay was, it didn't have pop up windows, no publicity on your pages: in fact, in two years they closed it, what a pity! That server gave 2 MB, with some little tricks you could take more sub domains, link each other, so you could have enough space to develop great projects. And I left behind the work on Freeyellow and I developed the original of this web site on GoPlay. Then many other web sites were linked to my one, even though some of them died with the end of that server. I remember I linked the one of Paoletta Tana, about the Convent Of Fathers "Passionisti" of our mountain tha was a nice and a very interesting web site. The peculiarity of GoPlay was the permission to use external FTP programs, thing completely unthinkable on other free servers. This made the transfer of files to remote folders faster, and the management of the whole site sensibly better . It was the top, one could ask to a free server. The first draft of the web site of the Association Argentario Vivo was on GoPlay, with even three sub domains linked each other. Later these pages were transferred without any change to their own domain, after having stayed just for short time on a free space given by Tiscali. It was very good to work on that web site, with the complete collaboration of one of the members of their council Gianluca Gozzo, who helped me both to develop that project and to transfer files to remote folders too. Then it is even a good job, it is a graphically elegant site, if we consider the technical ways to build sites at that time, and the programs we used to make them. Then I made some nice sites as the one of the painter Busonero Stefano, with his microscopic, but exceptional works. Also the first draft of the web of Big Byte Computer, or better my friend Roberto's web site was on GoPlay, where we hosted the works of the painter Arturo Stronchi, and to make his gallery I had to link four sub domains, because the whole gallery was too large to reside into an only folder.
At the same time I made, in a couple of days, the project "The Tools Of The Sea", with which I tried to change my policy, before then all of the sites of mine were tourist ones, so I made this one not rearding tourism at all. For that site I took space on GeoCities, which was, maybe still it is, a huge community of developers. It was long time since I have been there, I think it's time to go there again. To translate that web site and one that is resident on one subdirectory of theirs, in other words:  "The Palio Marinaro of Monte Argentario", I was helped by Elizabeth Genovesi. She was the only people had the patience and the constancy to attend my classes to learn to build web pages. She was a good student, she strongly believed on the develop of the Internet; now she lives in Rome and we lost our touches, it is a pity..