That was Then

I jokingly refer to myself as a dinosaur with respect to the Web. I remember when it first appeared on the scene back in the early 90's. I was working on a project at the University of Michigan at the time. We were trying to use WAIS to create an art image browser complete with thumbnails and textual information about a variety of pieces of art. Pretty advanced stuff, huh?

One of my officemates at the time, Lee Liming, showed me an early version of NCSA Mosaic, the first widely available graphical web browser. This was an early ancestor of today's Firefox browser. After playing around with it for about an hour I had to go to the professor who was leading our project. WAIS was out. The Web was in. Even back then, before all the fancy graphics, fonts, and blinking text, we could tell that this was really something special.

Not long after, Lee went on a trip to Antarctica. When he returned he built one of the Web's first travelogue sites, including excerpts from his journal and pictures that he had to scan because no one had heard of a digital camera yet. He still has a version of it available today. Remember that when he made this site, he had to do everything by hand. We didn't have Dreamweaver or any of the other website development applications that you can find now. Unlike other dinosaurs, I'm not going to even pretend that we liked it that way!

"Surfing the Web" has changed a bit, too. I remember each day while I ate my lunch I would go check out the site called "What's New on the Web?". Sometimes there were even two new sites! Now, I can barely keep up with what's new on my Google-hosted home page.

What stories do you have of the early days of the Web? Do you remember when AOL first gave its users access to the Web and "every day was September"?

Chalk It Up -- Write It Down

I realize I am late in coming to the Blog scene. In fact my mom, Debby Peters, a very wise woman in the ways of business networking, but no technophile, even got her blog up and running before I did. Let's just chalk it up to youthful ignorance and leave it at that.

I call my blog "Home Work" because it is an outgrowth of my consulting business, Cyber Data Solutions, which I run out of my home office. Coincidentally, the focus of my business has been on helping non-profit organizations, in particular those that help people with special needs to find housing, such as Community Housing Network, Inc and the HOMES Coalition. I have to admit that earning my living by serving those who help others is a pretty satisfying thing.

So, what shall I write about in this venue? I'm not sure. Some days it may be about a Good Thing that one of my clients is doing. Other days I might wax rhapsodic about the latest website technology about which I've been learning. Still, don't be surprised if the occasional mention of my wife's beautiful tulip garden sneaks in. I realize that in the maelstrom that the blogosphere has become, the shouting masses can quickly drown out the lone voice. For those few who find me, though, and stick around for the ride I hope I can provide a moment of amusement or even an idea to ponder as the day goes on.

Until the next time, I hope you find Good Things around you to bring you joy. If you do, share them in the comments. We can all use a pick-me-up now and again.