Apr 29 2007
Happy Birthday Jemjabella!
On this date five years ago a wonderful miracle was born… ok, I’m somewhat over-exaggerating, but today is the fifth birthday of jemjabella.co.uk!
With various sub-domains that have come and gone, three hackings, at least four different incarnations of what I wanted my domain to be and more past layouts than you can shake a stick at, today surely is a momentous occasion?
Jemjabella.co.uk has seen the rise of an Internet superstar (that’s what I like to tell myself), sowing the seeds of love for website management that grew into a passion for mark-up, standards, accessibility and best of all: the developing of free web script that has seen my ability recognised by hundreds of people all around the world, each and every time they install BellaBook or BellaBuffs.
Of course, developing and designing my website has also taken me down an amazing career path. Coding and scripting all day may sound dull to the majority, but because of it I am working with wonderful, funny, talented people on a day to day basis. I’ve completed projects for clients that have made me smile, laugh and even made me cry — but above all that — have taught me more about myself and about the languages that I love.
Each comment, survey submission, hate mail, fan mail; each member of my fanlisting and more besides — to you I thank for your support over the past five years. Here’s hoping that in 2012 when I’m cheering on the one-oh, you’ll still be here egging me on.
Warning
This post is over 6 months old. This means that, despite my best intentions, it may no longer be accurate. Age, motherhood, experience, loss... these things have all changed me from when this blog was started back in the heady (ha) days of my youth.
As much as I would like to go back and edit 10 years of archives to provide an insight into the 'me' of now — to update coding snippets and revise website advice — it would probably take years to do so (by which point I'd have to start again!) This would defeat the point of keeping these archives anyway.
Please take these posts for what they are: a brief look into my past, my history, my journey.
49 Responses so far
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Happy Birthday Jemjabella-the-website! :P
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Woot!! Happy birthday to Jemjabella.co.uk!! Wow time sure pasts fast! My own domain would be turning five this June too. And thank YOU Jem, for providing years of interesting posts to read and script advice (I use both Bellabuffs and BellaBook!). It’s been great seeing this site grow over the years. Lets hope for many more to come!
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CHEESE!
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Happy Birthday, website.
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Well congratulations! I’m sorry to say I’ve only known Jemjabella for just over two years, but I’m happy to say that it’s been an excellent acquaintance! Here’s to many more fruitful years ahead!
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Thank YOU for creating Jemjabella! Without you (or the site), my site wouldn’t be validated, I would use inline styling, and there’s a chance I’d be using a crappy fanlisting script, so CONGRATULATIONS on the five years, and let’s hope that the next five years are even better for Jemjabella.
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Yay for big website birthdays :D!
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Happy Birthday ;)
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Congratulations Jem and “Happy Website Birthday” XD
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*sets up party camp* Woo hoo! Happy birthday jemjabella.co.uk and many more to come!
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Happy Birthday (and well let’s see if this is here still 2012, I wouldn’t mind ^_^)
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happy birthday!!
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Jesus I hadn’t realized it’s been that long. O.o Happy birthday, Jemjabella.co.uk! :D
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*throws confetti* Woo! Happy birthday!
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Happy Birthday Jemjabella! I’m sure that this will still be here in 2012. After all, why would a superstar leave?
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Happy Birthday to your wonderful website Jem :o) It gets better and better day by day! So proud of you and your achievements Jemma xxx
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Kudos to you on running the site for 5 years, and of course a happy birthday wish to the website :) Many thanks for tutorialtastic as well, and for starting (and continuing) that beginner’s guide to PHP. (I’m eagerly awaiting Part 3 :P) These new styles are pretty nice, but the original always strikes me as best. Perhaps it’s because it’s the first one I see. I like the purple one, though.
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Congratulations! That’s quite an achievement.
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Yay :D
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Happy birthday, Jemjabella.co.uk! =)
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Five years is surely a long way. Happy Birthday to Jemjabella.co.uk! Hope for many more years to come.
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Congratulations, and many happy returns and all that. I’m not the best maths doer, but it seems a little odd that it’s copyright
2000-07
, yet 5 years old. It doesn’t seem to add up. What are the 2 other years? -
That’s awesome, Happy Birthday Jemjabella.co.uk and many more returns!
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@Josh: jemjabella.co.uk might only be 5 years old but the content isn’t; I’ve been running websites since 2000.
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Happy birthday Jemjabella! I haven’t been following this site for much more than a year, but it really influenced the way I look at design and usability. Plus I’ll never use anything other than BellaBuffs for my fanlistings ;) Happy birthday, and see you in five more years!
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Happy Birthday Jemjabella.co.uk – I remember the good old days with the ‘childish dreams’ layout – despite the fact that I was only 9 at the time. May you have many more happy years!
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Congratulations!
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HAPPY B-DAY TO JEMJABELLA!!!!!!!!! I am a HUGE fan, and without this site, I would have invalid coding, sucky links, and even splash pages… Well… maybe not splash pages, but you have influenced me! Good luck w/ the next many years to come!
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Congrats! Without this site (or rather you) I wouldn’t have thought to get better at my coding skills.
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and to think I remember the days when you used to use that naff webhost, who’s name escapes us..heh. Not to mention the Geocities one. How glad are we that we moved us both over to Site5…? Site5 rule..;)
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Happy fifth birthday jemjabella!
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Riiiight.. Hppy Bday website O_o
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Woooo, happy birthday, Jemjabella.co.uk! *confetti*
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Happy birthday to Jemjabella!
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Happy Birthday to your site! Five years is definitely something to be proud of- another thing to be proud of is that you can actually remember the day you first created your site. I can only remember the general time…I just guess that it’s been around 2 years for my site. It is certainly funny to look back at what you used to do for your site, and see how much you’ve improved. I remember when I was on freewebs, and didn’t even know what XHTML was! *sigh* With each year your site grows and changes- but the core of it will always remain the same. :) I think you set an example for a lot of people- me included- because of how you began your career. It definitely shows that with some time and dedication we want-to-be-web-designers could accomplish a career similar to yours. I’m glad you’re happy (more than happy) with what you do- if only it could be like that for everyone! Oh, and I really like the new purple/pink style override! My favorite colors, hehe. All the themes look very nice.
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Happy Regday :-)
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I’d give your website its 5 birthday spankings, but I don’t think my laptop would approve.
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Congratulations Jem and Jemjabella.co.uk! :) I must say that I check your website everyday to check for new blogs and stuff like that. I find your content incredibly entertaining. *also throws confetti*
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I’ve only had my current domain for close to two years now, but it sort of feels a lot longer than that. I never really got into the domain name scene until about 2003, and then it was one of those “keep it for a year, then register a new one.” I can recall a few I’ve had that I never kept past then. Five years is ages in domain years! :P
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Happy 5 years! I celebrate my 5th anniversary later next month. Feels like such an achievement!
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Aww. Happy birthday Jemjabella, and congrats Jem! =D Thanks for everything you’ve done, all your wonderful contributions to the internet community. X)
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Congrats Jem! Here’s to 5, I mean 50, more! :)
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Yeay Happy birthday jembella :P
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Happy birthday/anniversary! As long as I have known of JemJaBella I have loved visiting. I hope you indeed will stick around past 2012 too.
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Happy bee-lated birthday Jemjabella!!
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happy bday to jemjabella.co.uk!! keep it up!
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Yaaaaay for birthdays!
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Have a wonderful birthday :P
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[...] hope those of you who joined me in celebration last time will raise a glass to another fruitful year pwning the Internets with my l33t ninja [...]
