HISTORY

The Semeraro Family Website went online in March, 2000.

At first, the site was used by the Semeraro Family living in Columbus, Ohio. However, the hope was always that it would help keep the entire Semeraro Family connected all over the world!

By early 2001, the site was showing its true potential for all Semeraro's everywhere! Semeraro's were submitting pictures, family history, and greetings from across the USA, from Italy and elsewhere. The site grew to be a source of information and fun for all Semeraro's.

In 2002 - 2003, the website exploded with information about the family, great photos, and even included a world-wide family e-mail directory! This was a great era for the "new" website.

By 2004, the site was clearly needing an overhaul - to better handle the photos, information, and news that needed included in the site. So, in 2004 - 2005, design of the new site was begun.

Unfortunately, events in the years between 2005 and 2009 effectively stopped any real development on the site. In Spring of 2007, design and development of the site began in earnest - and visitors to the site did see changes. However, no changes were made to the site for another two and a half years.

In Winter 2009, development of the site began again - and has continued to the present day.

THE FUTURE

In 2010, family members will once again be treated to all the photos and information the original site had - as well as new exciting features that everyone will enjoy. Family members will be given their own login account, with the ability to post pictures and information to the site.

The years between 2000 - 2010 have seen great leaps in web technology and social networking. Going forward, the goal of Semeraro.com is to be an effective website dedicated to the Semeraro family. In 2010, visitors and family will see Semeraro.com realize its full potential in keeping the family connected.

WEBMASTER

Paul SemeraroHello! My name is Paul Semeraro, and I am the current webmaster for Semeraro.com. Since 1995, I have been an Information Technology Consultant - specializing in the design and development of internet/intranet sites. In 2003, I became an independent consultant and started my own company: Semeraro Technology Services LLC. In reality, I want to learn guitar and become an international rock star. Until that day comes, I have to stick to the day job.

I would love to hear your comments and questions about the website! I can be reached at this e-mail address: paul@semeraro.com.

I look forward to hearing from you!

WEBSITE TECHNOLOGY

This section of the "About" page describes the various technologies used to bring the site online. Anyone interested in web development may enjoy the information in this section. It has been an interesting journey...

When the site was first thought out in Fall 1999, there weren't too many options for powerful website development. The two most realistic technology choices were:

  • Microsoft's Active Server Pages
  • ColdFusion
Ultimately, ColdFusion 4.5 was chosen for Semeraro.com based on its feature set and speed of development. Developing in ColdFusion was still time consuming, but it seemed (at the time) that the effort would be less extensive (and more reliable) than Active Server Pages.

Initially, ColdFusion seemed to be living up to its promise. However, ColdFusion was plagued with a series of practical problems, which grew worse over time:
  • ColdFusion was not a "true" Object-Oriented Design Framework. The custom markup tags were powerful, but designing and maintaining the code proved to be a challenge. In essence, it was difficult to "add" new features into the site without significant effort.
  • ColdFusion based websites were expensive to develop and maintain.
  • ColdFusion's popularity seemed to wane by 2004, and it was feared that the technology would ultimately become obsolete.
As a result, ColdFusion was abandoned in 2004 in favor of a new technology: PHP.

PHP is an "Open Source" technology that provides a closer Object-Oriented design capability than ColdFusion or Active Server Pages (NOT ASP.NET) framework. Together with an "Open Source" database known as MySQL, websites written in PHP can provide powerful features AND be easy to extend and maintain.

Over the last 5 years, the promise of "Open Source Technologies" is being realized in the form of "Content Management Systems" (CMS). Essentially, a CMS is any system where a user can easily customize their own website content - without needing to be a developer to do it.

Some examples of a CMS would be MySpace and Facebook. Some of the CMS technologies available right now are:
  • Joomla!
  • Drupal
  • Horde
  • Microsoft's Sharepoint
Unfortunately, each one of these technologies has various limitations that prevent them from being appropriate for Semeraro.com.

So, the technology that will be used for Semeraro.com in 2010 will consist of:
  • PHP 5
  • MySQL
  • jQuery
  • AJAX
These technologies will provide the framework that incorporates the best features of Joomla! and Drupal, while ensuring the security, performance and features that Semeraro.com requires.