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History
of CharlesWorks Charles's
roots in the computer field go back to the early 1970s when he wrote a program
that ran on a Radio Shack TRS-80 Level II microcomputer called
Access-80. The system was jerry rigged to answer a 300 baud modem
(that's .3k as compared to 56k today). Such systems were referred
to as a computerized BBS (Bulletin Board System). A novel function
on the Access-80 system was available
to the caller that offered a relatively new concept. That function was delivered by
another program Charles wrote that he called "email."
There is more about Access-80 on Charles's personal page at Oropallo.org.
Based in Massachusetts,
The Internet Access Company (TIAC), was Charles and Susan
Oropallo's personal Internet Service Provider (ISP) from June
1998. TIAC provided 56k dial-up Internet access. With their Internet service came a five megabyte personal web space. This was the first
Internet space that Charles managed. He created
personal web pages on a machine in his home using Microsoft FrontPage Express software and uploaded them to the
the Internet using a file transfer program (WS_FTP). He had placed some personal information and photos on web pages that were online for family and friends to
view. He also experimented with the Personal Web Server
(PWS) that is part of Windows 95 and Windows 98. He had overcome the five megabyte space limitation by putting his own pages online over a modem connection.
This was before the days of the ISPs blocking port 80.
In April 1999, Charles put forth a proposal at an Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) of New Hampshire meeting
he attended. He proposed that a web site be set up so the AVP workshop scheduling could be accessible twenty-four hours a day to facilitators (or anyone) desiring to participate in an AVP workshop. Charles volunteered to manage the site
as part of the Oropallo's personal web space.
In June 1999, TIAC agreed to provide hosting for AVPNH at no charge as long as the site space did not exceed the five megabyte limit that was available through the Oropallo's personal TIAC account.
On July 6, 1999 the
AVPNH.org domain name was purchased and Charles began managing it.
The Maine AVP organization was
equally interested in a web presence and hired Charles to create their web site. On August 24, 2000 he began managing the Maine AVP site,
AVP-ME.org.
Over time, TIAC was gobbled up by a larger ISP. Their service worsened to a point where Internet access was terrible.
For days on end one could not dial in. Charles experienced intense frustration and wanted to change to a different
Internet Service Provider ( ISP) but felt
locked into TIAC because they continued to allow AVPNH.org free web access.
During this time, Charles also started doing web services for a professional speaker in NH. It was not until July 2001 that Charles found another company willing to
make AVPNH.org available at no charge, provided he
kept a personal or business site with them. It was on that date that the
Oropallo.org
domain was obtained and the personal space from the old TIAC space was
now available under its own domain name. AVPNH.org was moved to the new company as well. The new company also allowed space for
AVPME.org and
along with KezarTraining.com now Charles was managing four web sites on the new company's servers.
Before long, Charles managed about a dozen sites on the new company's servers. The management was
soon happening under the name of CharlesWorks, which consisted of a series of domain names Charles had purchased. Service was inexpensive, but, as it turned out, increasingly unreliable.
As if it were not bad enough that the server down time was worsening, there was no way
for Charles to ever speak with a person about the problems. As the service worsened there was less communication from those managing it. Charles
would leave messages and return calls were never made. He vowed he
would not do that to folks if it were up to him. The
CharlesWorks internet web presence provider was getting so
unreliable that it disappeared at one point for in excess of three weeks.
Free for non-profit organizations or not, CharlesWorks had to find another
company to provide web services.
There were important schedules and information on the non-profit
sites that many folks relied upon, as well as email,
that became increasingly unavailable.
The next hosting company CharlesWorks used was much more expensive. Their service
appeared to be very reliable. However, after only a couple of months with them, a bug surfaced in the
operating system of the server CharlesWorks was on. This bug made it impossible for
CharlesWorks clients to update their own sites and inadvertently
opened private areas of sites to public access (although there was
no breach of security as the problem was discovered immediately). The
company CharlesWorks was dealing with unsuccessfully endeavored to resolve the problem. This problem went on
for a number of weeks, costing CharlesWorks several hundred hours of
additional work. CharlesWorks
was forced to explore a more reliable solution. Operating
its own servers had been a goal early on for CharlesWorks. So
that's exactly what happened in August 2003. CharlesWorks
now operates its own
servers in Peterborough, New Hampshire and in Keene, New Hampshire.
CharlesWorks has had no major disruptions in service since that
time. In fact, the worst problem that has arisen to date was a
backup hard disk failure resulting in less than ten minutes of
actual server down time.
CharlesWorks is
pleased to report that its servers
are currently handling Internet service traffic for over 100 domains.
Some are mentioned on our information site, CharlesWorks.info. |
