About
My name is Bill Laakkonen. I founded Im1 Web Hosting in 1997. Over at Im1 we have helped others run their own ‘blogs’ (among other things) since before they were called blogs. We (Ryan Williams and I) also started the world’s first hosting service dedicated to running the code created by slashdot, called slashhosting.com. The domain name incidentally was the first name ever registered in Tucow’s OpenSRS registry (note: the new owners of Im1 allowed this and other Im1 domains to expire and the domain is owned by speculators now).
In 2003 Im1 was sold to DHR Technologies, Inc. DHR owns Im1 Web Hosting and Skyline Broadband and is based on the west coast of Florida in Fort Myers. I took a hiatus of about a year during 2004 -2005 and did some consulting work as AVATAVA. In 2005 DHR was sold to US Wireless and I again returned to Im1/Skyline working for US Wireless. There were some issues with the UWRL purchase and the company (DHR) was brought back to the original owners for 2006 while these issues were sorted out. At the end of 2006 the company (DHR, Skyline Broadband, and Im1) were again turned back to US Wireless via another company known as Ielement. It appears Ielement have no interest in the web hosting, colocation or dedicated server business so I am back in this business as AVATAVA.net with servers in NAP of the Americas again as Im1 was in 2003 before the purchase by DHR.
On my personal side I have a lovely wife Amy and we are blessed with three children, the oldest is Geoff who now lives in Orlando. My hobbies include bicycling on my old Panasonic built Schwinn racing bike (my son Ben has an actual Panasonic brand bike), and Ham Radio. I hold an Extra Class Amateur radio license and have been licensed since 1976 initially as KA4FCO, and I now have the call sign N4BKT issued in 1977.