Designed by Al Iverson

Over the years I’ve done a fair amount of print advertising, website design, interactive media, etc. Mostly simple stuff, as my design goals are (usually) to keep things on the clear and clean side.

Here’s just a few of the things I’ve found online that I designed and/or created over the years, archive courtesy of the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.

RSL – Relay Stop List. I designed and created the website for this anti-spam blacklist.

PDL – Pan-Am Dynamic List. I created a set of simple graphics around a stop sign motif to help this blacklist maintainer give his website a visual makeover.

SpamResource.com (circa 2002). As you can see, I use a lot of stop signs when creating graphics for sites whose focus is stopping spam.

DNSBL.com (circa 2004). I realized this site got lots of traffic, even though I wasn’t doing anything with it. So, I created this simple design template to use as a basis for a new information-based site.

MAPS RSS. I created the design and graphics in 2000 for the anti-spam blacklist I created and brought with me to MAPS. I really loved this design and it was one I wish I had kept for myself.

MAPS – Mail Abuse Prevention System. A simple design I created in 2000. to fit in with the primarily text-based nature of their existing website. A friend generated the 3d @ sign to our specifications. Later variations added stripes (I can’t remember if that was my idea or not; I do like it though) and some really horrible buttons with an awesomely 70s typeface on them. Yuck.

Radparker.com (circa 1996). Gosh, transparent GIFs were all the rage then. Also, apparently mixing nineteen fonts on one page was pretty cool, too.

Radparker Radio. A website supporting my radio work in 1998.

MNJazz.com (circa 2001). Eventually became solely for use of the Artists’ Quarter, since moved to www.artistsquarter.com

Artists’ Quarter (from 2006). The current version of the site looks somewhat similar (as of this posting), but I suspect it’ll change eventually, as I’ve handed it off to a very capable friend to continue on with the site, since I moved away from Minnesota.

Fun stuff! Kinda nice to walk down memory lane once in a while, isn’t it?

Chicago Links Page

Chicago Journals/Blogs
ChicagoLand Community
Wassup on the El?
Chicago Carless
Looper Photoblog

Scanner Info
Chicago Scanner Club
List of CTA Ten Codes

Neighborhood/Safety
Joe Moore, 49th Ward Alderman
Broken Heart of 49th Ward
Chicago Police Department

Travel/Transit
CTA Trip Planner
Google Directions
Chicago El Stations in Google Maps
Megabus

Media/Entertainment
Chicago Radio Stations
Chicago TV Stations
Village North Movie Listings

News
Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Tribune
Chicago Reader

About This Page

I just moved to Chicago in July, 2006. Being new to the city means I have a hell of a time remembering who's in charge of what, where to go for this thing or that thing, and what's going on in town. So, I created this page to help me find the right information, fast. Some of it's important, lots of it isn't. Ah well.

About Me

Hi. I'm Al Iverson.

I've done many varied things in my time. I've created multiple widely-used spam blocking tools. I've worked in radio. I've been a record producer. I am currently the director of privacy and deliverability for an internet company somewhere in the midwest. I work with ISPs, anti-spam groups, and clients, to resolve spam and deliverability issues.

I've been working to stop spam for somewhere around ten years. In 1996, when I talked to people about spam, IF they knew what I was talking about, they thought I was crazy. Few understood why spam need to be dealt with, and even fewer understood what a big problem spam would grow to become. Depending on which numbers you trust, somewhere between 67% and 83% of all email traffic seems to be spam, maybe more, probably not less. Reliable sources tell me that at any given time there's at least 3.3 million (or more) infected computers spewing spam, with another 700,000 or so being discovered or infected every week. This isn't a problem? ISP servers are overwhelmed. People need help to reduce the amount of spam they receive. Companies need guidance on how not to spam. I, like many of my colleagues, will be gainfully employed forever.

I live in Chicago, Illinois, having moved here from Minneapolis in July, 2006. At least, I think I live in Chicago. I travel so much that it's hard to remember sometimes.

My favorite jazz club is the Artists' Quarter, located in St. Paul, MN. I created their website and was the sole maintainer my recent move to Chicago. The site is now in the hands of a capable friend.

I'm a long time unix user and very script/HTML-savvy. I am used to hosting my own sites on my own hardware. A change from my usual practices, this site is hosted with Blogger. Lately, I've been having a lot of fun using both Google Pages and Blogger to host content that I previously would've hand-coded and self hosted. Why? Because I'm busier than I ever have been before, new tools are fun, and Google's tools are fun and time saving.

I write for a half-a-dozen blogs, journals, news sites out there on the 'net. Some of them public, some of them not. In February, 2007, I converted my oldest active domain, radparker.com, into a technology and gadget site. At spamresource.com, I've been posting news and commentary related to spam, since 2001. At dnsbl.com, I do the same, but more specifically covering anti-spam blacklists.

Why www.radparker.com?

So I suppose you're wondering why this site is at www.radparker.com.

Well, truth be told, there really isn't that great of an answer. But, the domain's got a lot of history, being over ten years old. So let's talk about that instead.

This was actually my second website address. I first had parker.com, which I sold to Parker Hannifin circa 1995. I ran parker.com, and then (after the name change) radparker.com as a hobby web host and internet service provider, mostly hosting websites for friends and various businesses. Some of it strange and interesting, some of it strange and not so interesting.

Some of the things I created and/or hosted:

• A website I designed for a restaurant located in Columbia Heights, MN. I got free pancakes whenever I wanted in exchange for that one.

• A website I designed for the Artists' Quarter jazz club in St. Paul, MN.

• A widely used anti-spam filter I created that morphed into the RRSS and later became part of a commercial spam filtering product.

• A website for an Alpaca farm.

• A little site now called Pitchfork. It was first hosted here -- back then it was called “Live Wire.”

• The playlist archive for a radio show I hosted back in 1998.

• An online 'zine created by a friend called “the noodle.”

• I hosted the website of a friend who was sued by Microsoft in 1997.

• This cool site by Chris Gregerson called Phototour of Minneapolis.

• And many other random things here and there.

I was working as a graphic artist and prepress engineer way back then. That led to a unix administrator position, then a job directing a spam project for a spam filter creator. That happened at the beginning of 2000, and right about that time I divested myself of most of the users of radparker.com and it's been more or less my private vanity domain since then. Haven't had a lot to do with it of late, so here we are.

What does “radparker” mean? We'll have to save that story for another day.

(ETA: This blog content used to be hosted on www.radparker.com, another domain of mine.)