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Thanks for visiting my web site. This page provides further
information, regarding the author and also a brief history of
the site's developments.
Personal Information
My name is Andrew Tegala, but I am known as Teg to all my friends. I was born
on Monday 23rd November 1981 (click here to find out who I share my birthday with and what famous
events took place on my birthday through the years)
I studied my GCSE's at Sir
William Ramsay School and completed my A Levels at Henley
College. I didn't do as well as I expected. But I found
a place at De Montfort University in Leicester. I was in the
Midlands for three years (plus a placement year) studying Computer
Science. I like computers, playing football, listening to music,
going out with my mates and, of course, watching the great Arsenal
and the international wannabes that call themselves England.
The year 2000 was extremely exhausting. I took my A Levels
in the summer. In the autumn, I left small town Wycombe to start
my Computer
Science course at De
Montfort University in the big city of Leicester
I quickly settled down to work mode again, made several new
friends, started a new job and got used to life in a city!
Successfully completed my first year in 2001, allowed for a
rather relaxing summer. I headed back to Leicester and once
again began working hard for my second year. Unlike the first
year, all my results and grades now equate to my final degree
classification! The first semester of my second year was extremely
hard work but went well. I was also searching for a placement
during this time. Unlike my friends I did not get a even an
interview until after Easter 2002. I had applied to over 100
firms by this time and the continue rejections were demoralizing
to say the least. In mid April, there was finally some good
news! I had two interviews.
So as summer arrived in 2002, I was beginning my third year,
out on a placement in industry. I started on Monday 1st July
and the duration of the placement was 12 months. For further
details regarding this, and more information please check out
my professional
web site.
Five years ago, 2003 turned out to be a very strange, as I completed
my Placement, at the end of July. Enjoyment of the summer was
quite short lived. In September, I was back in Leicester, and
my final year at University had begun. For the first time my blog was able to record all the major stories from Freshers Week to those final few exams.
With 2004, the big bad world beckoned. I worked in London for
a five months and then after an unemployment break of four weeks,
in November I started working in a new field but still IT. To
run along side this job, I also started a work log,
which records my experience in the office and the development
of my technical knowledge.
Three years ago, my blog grew in both popularity and content moving for the first time to paid advertising free hosting, including the move of the domain to 123-Reg. Perhaps for the first time I was able to write frank clear postings about everything without other things such as university getting in the way.
If you want to chat to me, the best way to contact me is through the various IM clients on the internet. Although I tend to be on MSN most of the time I am on the computer. I casually step onto Yahoo! Messenger, so it would perhaps be best to e-mail me on that account if you want to chat. I have not used ICQ for years, but it is available as a last resort. My usernames are: andrew_tegala@hotmail.com
or a_tegala@yahoo.co.uk and my ICQ number is 10066953.
A Brief History Of Our Time...
The Blog
The blog came about as an accident really. It was the evolution
of the site from being merely a brochure on my life to peering
further below the surface and has taken me to another level.
Firstly let us establish what a blog exactly is. I am asked
this question so many times I feel I should point people in
the direction of a comprehensive resource for all those FAQ's
you may have. Try here,
for a detailed explanation. So originally, I would use my home
page to give details of what has been updated across the site.
Photos and links being the main additions. Then over the course
of early Summer 2002, I started to briefly add my opinions on
current affairs, sports results and general commentary on my
life. The turning point came in the midst of the Summer, in
early August when the blogging started for 'real'. I began to
include my emotions, from which I was able to reflect on events
in my life. Overall I found the whole experience therapeutic
and the more I did it, the better I felt. You can see how the
updates grow from a mere five or eight lines to three of four
paragraphs of text. The blog wasn't actually referred as such
until April 2003. The site came into it's own in November 2003.
With the new design, I finally achieved the status that I wanted
to. The recording of my time at University, and going from purely
text to including my own photographs and links. I hope you enjoy
reading my entries as much as I enjoy writing them. It is great
to know that so many people find my life so interesting.
The Site
Well where do I begin. Perhaps at the beginning? Well back
in June 1997, I met Steve Driver on ICQ. He had just started
work on a web site and asked for my ideas on content. I suggested
an audio page. This was just before MP3 files became
as big as they have now. Back them Real Audio was perhaps the
best quality audio on the web. Steve, did not have the time
to work on a separate page, he was busy putting together a few
other web sites. I offered to work on the page if and 'Teg's
Audio Page' was born. From June until the end of October
my page was on Steve's web site. Unfortunately, until recently
you were able to visit the site but the account has been closed
and subsequently the web space has been deleted from the server.
I received in the range of 5000 hits on the page until it was
closed late, last year. During this time, I was the foremost
user of the messaging program ICQ (I Seek You) gathering over
200+ contact list. For many years, I enjoyed using the program,
it was handy, and enabled to be get into touch with so many
people. It was ideal tool. However, as the program was updated,
it started to annoy be. Dictating the way I should use messaging
and get in touch with people. So I took it off my system, and
have never put it back. Although, recently, I did consider putting
it back on my computer, I decided against it. If anyone, who
remembers TEG from the ICQ service, contact me on the above
services.
On the first of November, 1998 the site moved. I had so much
that I wanted on my own page that it become too much for just
one page. I decided to get my own site. I did not want to pay
for a domain name at this stage and opted for Web Jump, with
the site URL, http://teg.webjump.com
It was great, 50mb of space to use as I wished. The site grew
from the single page to over twelve. However those surfing onto
my site complained that the server was extremely slow. Indeed
this was the case and at times you could not even access my
site. Time had come to get a new site. This was done just at
the right time, a few weeks later, Web Jump stopped their web
hosting service. Below is version 0.5 of my site. Keeping very
much to the same style and layout, of the original site hosted
by Web Leicester. However, as this was my own web space, I was
able to control more of the content. My graphics skills were
poor (notice the Word '97 Word Art graphics as title headers
for the pages).
http://www.t-e-g.co.uk (Domain purchased
in March 2000)
I decided to open a new ISP account. I wanted a different web provider, and
I chose, Mad As A Fish. It was August 2000. And there we were.
A faster site with no annoying banners, or pop-ups. Below is
version 1 of my site. This still stuck with the ideas of predecessors
but there was slightly more interactivity and more consistency
in content and style across the site.
Having had the site up with the same design for the past 5
years, I decided 2002 would mean a dramatic change. Due to other
commitments it has was very difficult to get anything together.
But after months of working on various designs, I finally chose
the one below (version 2). I think its was quite effective.
I added more pages to the site. I was very pleased with this
version and kept the design for almost two years. The graphics
had been designed by myself using Adobe Photoshop and all the
pages were much easier to navigate and use.
However due to changes in terms and conditions with the ISP,
from August 2003, I would no longer be able to access the FTP
for the site, without connecting through the MAAF account, that
is dialing into their system. Also, I was now getting bombarded
with junk mail. One week, I received over 250 spam messages,
with only a small handful of important messages. This was highly
frustrating and it was time for a move. I decided to temporarily
host my site over at FreeServe. This was while I found a new
server for my site. I decided that I needed a completely fresh
design of my site. I have found a new host for my web site.
The Hosts are called United.
With, them I decided upon this design for the site. It went
live, in late October 2003.
They provide 15mb of free, advertising free web hosting with
additional feature of mySQL and PHP capabilities, which I will
be using later on in the development of my web site. In March
2003, I purchased premium hosting from Portland
to cope with the growth of the site and increase in traffic.
In 2005, my needs changed once again. Portland had let me down
one time too many. Although I had contacted them to organise
the renewal of my hosting, the company just removed my site
from their servers. Apparently it was still in the free section
of the rack, when it had been paid for for nearly two years.
I called them, complained after the letter I sent got no reply.
I was given a full refund for the hosting and given a lame excuse
that they were a small player in a big market. I should have
jumped ship then and there, but the fact I was getting a refund,
let me stay. My plan was to move over to 123-Reg in March 2006,
when my domain expired. All these well made plans were put into
motion ahead of schedule in early August 2005, when Portland
went down for what would be the last time (for my web site).
I transferred my domain and purchased new hosting. It took much
longer than expected. Twelve days, exactly the same number that
Portland was down. Thankfully that is all behind me now, as
I have a reliable host!
The site, now continues to be updated, every weekend (almost!) and I try to
tweak most of the pages on the site. I hope you enjoy your stay
and please let me know what you think!
June 1998 - 31st October 1998 Web Leicester = "Teg's Audio Page" version 0
1st November 1998 - 31st July 2000 WebJump = "Teg's Audio Page" version 0.5
1st August 2000 - 9th March 2002 MadAsAFish = "Teg's Homepage" version 1
10th March 2002 - 23rd October 2003 MadAsAFish = "Teg's Homepage" version 2
23rd October 2003 - Present 123-REG = "[T3G:2]" version 3
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