Happy Birthday StorMan!
About the Author
Having designed his first website at the age of 13, Andy has been with StorMan since 2006 and is now our Marketing & Web Services Manager. Andy also runs our client graphic & website design department, known as StorMan Business Services.
Whether your question's about web design, colour codes, Google or HTML tags, Andy's your man! You can get in touch with Andy via our Contact page.
Tomorrow (12th February, 2011) marks the 18th birthday for StorMan! From our humble beginning's many years ago as a brave toddler waking into a new world, we have well & truly passed the terrible two's & traumatic three's (or whatever they're called).
We went through some visual changes (think digital pimples) in v4 as we hit puberty but have come out looking rather stunning as StorMan travels through the end of its teens & matures into the application that is has become.
While I could probably go on for hours with the whole growing-up analogy, I'll leave you with what you have really come here for... the photo album!
The Software
This album contains photos from StorMan's 3rd birthday - right up until last week, when StorMan traveled out into the field carrying the numbers 8.1.14 (prefixed by a 'v')...
StorMan v2.6.0
StorMan v3.1.4
StorMan v4.1.0
StorMan v7.1.0
StorMan v8.1.14
The Website
Thanks to the magic of the internet's Wayback Machine, we can bring you these online masterpieces from some of StorMan's childhood years.
Oh wait, that's not a website!
Our first... um... "website". Heh. What's with the Christmas-like colours?
Another incarnation - this one from October 2000
May 2003
August 2004 saw the introduction of, what we dubbed, "The Happy People" (from a stock photo).
They stuck around for a number of years and appeared on our marketing material until early 2006.
To this day, we have no idea who they are or what their names are.
In 2007, we went a little funky - using gradients and beveled buttons!
In 2009, we went with the whole "cleaner, whiter, more blank space" look.
Upon reflection, I also think we went a little "boring" on the website (I'm allowed to critique my work :P)
Here's our current site - with some nice "Web 2.0 style" design elements & scripting going on in the background.
While there was actually another website incarnation before this (the ominous dark-coloured one), I can't seem to find it.
The Future
We have some truly amazing things coming up for you over the next few years (our product roadmap's are planned well in advance). I would love to tell you about them, but I'm not allowed to (just yet). Needless to say - if you like slick, clean, fast, web-ready interfaces, then you're in for a treat!
What do you think?
So how do you think we've done over the years? We've obviously come a long way, but there's always room for growth as we age and mature. Let us know your feedback on this post below. Thanks for reading!
Regards,
Andy (Marketing & Branding Manager, StorMan Australia)
Comment (posted by Lee Cameron on 18th March 2011)
Hi guys - congratulations! My recollections is a bit older than that. We used Stephens program back in 1991 after our US based system was... well, not good. I feel I have a close bond with StorMan as it was U-Store who trialled the original program and it was I who suggested the name StorMan. This may have been 18 years ago when the name was formed. I am looking forward to the improvements planned for StorMan in the future. Keep up the good work guys!
Comment (posted by Anonymous on 4th February 2011)
Having started StorMan with [company owner] Stephen and being used to trial things in the early days - WOW congratulations to ALL the StorMan Team through the years both in NZ & Aust - as a person naive to computer programmes you have taught me a lot - being of great assistance and a great friendship in all ways and to use it with self storage my quote "I wouldnt be without StorMan". Good Luck Guys & Gals for the next 18 years!
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