The fact is that The AG Company was never a real company. I never came up with the idea of one day making The AG Company a real bonafide business. Rather, if I had ever pursued any interest in a busines, I would have considered naming the business The AG Company.
It all started back when…
The AG Company is actually an evolution from the original concept I had back in 1994. In 1994, I had written a series of short stories that I proudly called “Farty Stories.” Over a period of a few months, I had written several pages – mind you that I was only eleven at the time, so writing several pages was definitely an accomplishment.
In addition to “Farty Stories,” I was also accumulating essays that I wrote for my English class in seventh grade. Since most of these were on paper, I decided to put together a ‘folder’ that would hold my works and I labeled the folder Agarwal Galleries. It was around this time period when my father brought home our very first computer and I started to learn typing my stories on the computer using WordPerfect 5.1.
Side note: did you know that WordPerfect 5.1 made extensive use of the function keys that are found on almost every major computer keyboard?
I created a folder on this computer called Agarwal Galleries and from then on, all of my works had been stored in that folder.
Agarwal Galleries has life on the web…sort of
Around the 1997 time-frame, my father bought another computer that was significantly faster than the old NCR 386sx. This new computer was loaded with Office 97 and Windows 98. If I recall correctly, Office 97 introduced the ability to easily implement hyperlinks within a document. With this, one could – in theory – link several different word documents together and create a rudimentary website.
Side note: We never got internet access until 1999
Since I was still learning my way through the nifty new GUI of Windows 98 and Office 97, I inadvertently developed multiple documents and linked them together with exhaustive use of hyperlinks. In other words, I had created a very well developed intranet on the home computer.
It was clear to me that Agarwal Galleries was becoming more than just a ‘folder’ that stored my works. To me, Agarwal Galleries became a ‘second world’ where my thoughts and my words meant everything.
In college, dreams can come true
Once I started college, I learned about how I could have my own personal website. To make matters even simpler, my college actively encouraged students to deploy a website and have web presence. I did not have to be told twice and I immediately embarked on a mission to have my website up and running.
It was in college when I started to dream of having Agarwal Galleries as a full-fledged website that showcased my work. As the college years went on, I continually updated my website and evolved it from a simple FrontPage98 creation to an all-out Flash enabled website that was fully powered by Macromedia Flash.
Name change
It was around 2005 when I felt that the moniker, Agarwal Galleries, was becoming a bit complicated to pronounce. I started doing my research for a new name. I wanted the new name to reflect the ‘dreams’ I had with Agarwal Galleries. Soon, I discovered that the word somnio (or something similar) meant to dream in Latin. What better name than The Somnio Company – loosely translated to The Dream Company.
The Somnio Company was a website fully powered by Flash and, for the first time, used my own custom-made graphics. Unfortunately, the site was very large (over 60 MB) in design and had slow performance.
(sarcasm) I wonder why it was slow…(/sarcasm)
Another Name Change
Just a year later, I changed the name of my website to The AG Company. This was a transition back to my old ‘folder’ name, but without the complicated pronunciation. I was committed to making The AG Company become a portal to my works. Alas, the complicated scope of the project, my educational commitments, and the lack of web-authoring knowledge dissuaded me from really doing anything with the site.
Soon I learned about WordPress as a powerful web blogging solution that was both open source and free. I immediately installed it and, thus, came The Air. I derived the name, The Air, after realizing that my thoughts were always in the air, but never flying.
Go Daddy screwed me…
When I registered the domain name, theagcompany.com, Go Daddy had a promotion going where you could register your domain name using something similar to privacy manager. This prevented people from finding out your real name during a WHOIS search.
What the order failed to mention, at the time, was how much the privacy feature was at regular price and how I can cancel the service. For a couple of years, I prepaid and didn’t really bother to wonder too much about it.
Earlier in December 2009, I received an email from GoDaddy to renew my domain name. I went to renew and found out that privacy manager was a whopping $9 per year renewal fee. To make matters worse, there was no easy way to cancel the feature from my order. Instead, I had to login to some obscure GoDaddy-owned privacy website.
Here’s a link you should read about GoDaddy’s private registration removal and the hassles involved (scroll down until you see a post by Cobes, post #6):GoDaddy is a b**ch
The end of an era
When I look back, I find it hard to believe that for 15 years, I had a dream with one name that will always be with me. So with that, I decided not to renew theagcomany.com domain name and purchased a new domain name, without signing up for some bullshit privacy feature.
Although 15 years of Agarwal Galleries reigned supreme, the new road is filled with other brands that will continue to ‘house’ my works and my thoughts.
New Beginnings
I decided to get a new domain name that was more me. And so here we are today, niks.me is about me, my thoughts, my words. And I couldn’t be happier!
