An online notebook
Just noticed from the phpBB site that version 2.0.17 has been released. Hopefully this will solve some of the security problems we have been having over on Palimpsest, where various web robots have been brining the site to a standstill, creating multiple database sessions as they plough through the site.
Nice profile of Tim Berners-Lee, ‘inventor’ of the World Wide Web, in today’s Guardian:
There are, according to recent figures, more than 35 million web users in the UK today. More than 15 million British homes have internet connections and, thanks to faster broadband technologies, we are living in a radically different world from that which was predicted.
The world wide web has changed millions of lives in little more than a decade. For some it has changed fortunes as well: this week was the 10th anniversary of what is widely acknowledged as the beginning of the dotcom boom – when the web browser firm Netscape floated on the US stock market before ever turning a profit. That sparked a technology goldrush that has transformed modern communication. And while much of the boom was hyperbole, one rock solid fact remains: none of it would have happened if it was not for Tim Berners-Lee.Sir Tim, named last year as the greatest living Briton, is rightly heralded as the godfather of the web. It was he who, as a physicist working in Switzerland, turned the internet from a disparate collection of academic and military computer systems into an international network. Without his input, arguably, the world would be a far duller place. The global village would still be under construction, technology would still be the preserve of an elite, and revolutionary companies such as Google, Amazon – and even easyJet – would not exist.
Links:
The BBC are running a trial offering some of their radio programmes as downloads, effectively making them podcasts. Might give this a go for some of the more interesting stuff.
Mark Kermode‘s film reviews might well become a regular listen.
Go to a personaliseable (!) version of Google at www.google.com/ig. It’s actually pretty good. You have to log in with your Google ID and password, for example your gmail username, and you can set out various bits of info to have on your screen, as well as the Google search box.
The screen is split into 3 columns. On the left I have a list of favourite links, a preview of my Gmail inbox, a ‘Word of the Day’ thing and the latest feed from Slashdot. In the centre I have a few blogs which I like to monitor regularly. The latest 3 posts in each appear here. Any RSS feed can be subscribed to. On the rightermost (!) column I have various news site feeds, including the BBC and Google News.
When I get home I will stick an image of what my screen looks like. It makes for an excellent homepage.
At last! Sean Wright receives the honour of having his own page on Wikipedia!