Happy 15th birthday to the World Wide Web!

Time flies, it does indeed. It seems like only yesterday I was learning my first HTML tags and how to get the most of them at my Geocities page, and printing pages upon pages about how to become a hacker, killing expensive inkjet printer at my college lab. That, of course, wasn’t 15 years ago – more like 10 – but it doesn’t stop my feelings for the web. From the first moment that we met, we spent so much time together. We learned a whole lot about each other… Now, I am sinking deep down to the romantic memories… Enough!

For those of you, who have only recently discovered what a beautiful place the Web is, take a look at this list of websites that changed the world. Of course, those a bunch of subjective choices, but still, it gives the idea of what is out there.

This month the web is 15 years old and in that short time it has revolutionised the way we live, from shopping to booking flights, writing blogs to listening to music. Here, the Observer’s Net specialist charts the web’s remarkable early life and we tell the story of the 15 most influential websites to date.

You are what you search

Don’t you just love it when something that you’ve been seriously suspecting, and trying to explain to people, is suddenly mentioned by someone else, together with some statistical data to back it up? Well, I do.

As you’ve probably heard by now (a billion times), AOL has recently released a few million records of its users’ search history. Plenty of people jumped on to it – all for their own reasons. One guy, among these people, studied the data and came up with this report (linked to from this Slashdot post), categorizing people into seven groups, based on their search terms.

Here is a quote from the article that made me feel glad and proud:

My favorite plots show hours of G-rated searches before the user switches gears—what I call the Avenue Q Theory of Internet usage. User No. 190827 goes from “talking parrots jokes” and “poems about a red rose” before midnight to multiple clicks for “sexy dogs and hot girls” a half hour later.

I’ve been saying for a long time – you can be romantic and kinky at the same time, and there’s nothing wrong with it, many of us are.

Question about The Real World ™

We think it’s important to make the distinction between using the word Google to describe using Google to search the internet, and using the word Google to describe searching the internet.

After reading this post at Slashdot I have this question: do they mean that there are people out there who use something other than Google to search the web?

Unbelievable!

Women and Usability at Fedora

Fedora Project has focused on a couple of important issues recently – women and usability. Both are indeed important and will make Fedora Linux better for all of us.

On the other hand, I wonder, if there is even more usable and friendly way to start web browser. Because with current trends towards the web, soon (if not already) that’ll be the only thing that matters. Heck, I can even imagine my “Login to your Firefox” workstation already.

Productivity tips. NOT.

If you are one of those people ,you know, here are some tips on How to Do Nothing at Work, and Get Away With It

What they can’t see: Rearrange your office so that your computer monitor faces away from any windows or doors that your boss may be able to see through. This will ensure that you have ample time to hit the “Boss Key” in any game you’re playing, or open a Word document to hide the porn you’re surfing, should your boss happen to wander into your dungeon..er..office.