before speedysnail: 1998-99

Boy, you're keen. Not satisfied with having read every page at this site and followed its fascinating history in reverse-chronological order, you still want to know what came before it? Well, okay. As you'll see, parts of it have been around awhile.

In the Beginning...: There was nothing. I'd been wanting to get involved with the web for a few years but hadn't had the opportunity; my jobs didn't revolve around it, and my Mac Colour Classic could hardly handle email, let alone the web. I'd built a few pages for others in 1996 and 1997, but my first proper chance to build something of my own came when I took over the site of my new employer. One month later...
03.09.1998: Colour, Class and Custom makes its debut at the site of the School of Politics, ADFA, with a colour scheme and graphics to match the 1992 print version. Since the print version had an orange cover, this was a little unfortunate.
14.09.1998: My first personal page goes online but unpublicised: Rory Ewins's Cartoon Lounge. It contains precisely three cartoons, two from the Alternative Law Journal and one (the cover) from Ralph. The design is an ultra-minimalist black Verdana on a white background.
13.10.1998: The personal site becomes 'Rory Central', containing the Cartoon Lounge (with several more ALJ cartoons but little else), a changing photo album for the benefit of friends and relatives, and my CV. The design is still ultra-minimalist; all my creative efforts in that direction go into my day-job.
12.11.1998: The Cartoon Lounge gets a new cartoon drawing of a red lounge as its header, which does little to improve matters. Apart from the addition of new ALJ cartoons now and then, it hardly changes for months afterwards.
14.12.1998: The publicity page for my book Changing Their Minds first appears at the site of the School of Politics, ADFA, with a simple design on a pale blue background.
19.01.1999: A redesign for the Changing Their Minds page, changing to a white background with an aqua-blue pattern down the left-hand side.
16.07.1999: A redesign for Colour, Class and Custom at the ADFA site, keeping the orange colour scheme but adding new banners and improving the layout a little.
27.07.1999: My personal pages shift to the new speedysnail site (which at the time is home only to The Stand-Up), but remain private for now. They eventually evolve into the Cartoon Lounge and Rory Central.
30.09.1999: Colour, Class and Custom and Changing Their Minds are redesigned to give a common appearance, with white backgrounds and beach-scene headers. The Silver Jubilee of Taufa'ahau Tupou IV also debuts at the ADFA site with a similar design. They keep this appearance until they are redesigned as Rory Ewins's Pacific Islands Politics and shifted to speedysnail in April 2000.