In late 1998 I started letting my fingernails grow, and started painting them. Over the following year they got really long, and I learned a lot about decorating fingernails. In late 1999 I wrote a FAQ about my fingernails, in response to many repetetive incredulous enquiries. The FAQ is no longer in any way up to date: it is strictly a historical document, concerning the state of my fingernails in September 1999.
Since then, due to moving jobs, I lost the freedom to keep my nails painted all the time. The nails got longer again, much longer than in the images in the FAQ, and as they were unpainted most of the time their looks started to deteriorate, to the point that some people complained that they were scary.
From about 2001 I stopped letting them grow unhindered, started having them professionally manicured, and learned a lot about looking after fingernails. They were still longer than most people's nails (longer than most girls' nails, even), but were nicely shaped and shiny and stuff, and when they got painted for special occasions they were painted much more interestingly.
In late 2003 I decided that, after five years, the novelty had worn off, and I'd rather be able to type. So I shortened the nails to a length that was more practical but still long. In May 2004 I went further, reducing the nails to a length of about 3mm, and started typing with the pads of my fingers (rather than the nails) once more. The era of Zefram's fingernails is at a close.