The last time I refreshed this web page was in 2001, and at that time, it had been over 5 years since I had changed it previously. All of a sudden, two years have passed, and times have changed again...
I am always amazed at how much time and effort people put into their web pages - I guess sitting in front of a computer all day doesn't leave me with much drive to spend my off-hours pounding out content, futzing about with the latest web technology and in general joining the millions who absolutely love the web and stake out their territory day by day.
It is very tempting to put up my list of cool links, but I have found that the referrenced pages disappear very quickly. The links get stale, the content gets dated and frankly, why would I want to be the unpaid editor of a magazine few will ever read?
So, why bother with a homepage at all you ask? Especially with all the wacky homepages out there on the internet these days? A good question.
When I first put this page up in August of 1996, there weren't a heck of a lot of web pages out there. An innovative company named Geocities started giving away free web pages back then - it was a novel concept at the time, became quite common during the boom days of the internet, and now ISPs give away the same amount of space with their accounts.
The boom days of the internet... When I last updated this webpage in the summer of 2001 things were starting to slow down - nothing like the summer of 2002 of course, but the frenzy had slowed down.
The variety of ideas and the amazing free services that have come and gone are pretty staggering. Besides geocities, I made good use of:
I am glad to see how well Yahoo maintained the original concept of geocities, and even improved upon it in some ways after buying them out.
This page used to be called a 'homestead', and GeoCities had the homesteads organized in neighbourhoods - mine was in Paris, which catered to food, drink, movies, etc. The last thing I wanted was another technology page! As I write this, I remember they used to have these homestead police who would go around and make sure that the Detroit homesteads were about cars, etc. I remember my site was found wanting for Paris-type content, so I scrambled to get some food links... :)
When yahoo took over GeoCities, it greatly simplified the infrastructure, unified the usernaming and URLs and added some pretty decent tools. While I like being http://geocities.com/iainmcvey better than http://geocities.com/Paris/3614, I do miss the character of the old homesteads.
Ironically, I used to have a link on this page to yahoo as it was my favourite search engine and had a great feel. They sure have come a long way from the project at stanford...
I used to use the page as a set of graphical bookmarks - sites that I visited often like yahoo, but the bookmark functionality in web browsers these days is pretty useful and frankly, I had no idea how often my bookmarks would change and be added to. Keeping a page around for that would be too much work. Thus the second homepage update in 7 years...
So, without intending it, I have started making this page as much about walking down memory lane as a collection of links I think are cool. Hope you enjoy it.
I think these are fun. Here are my old
bookmarks, circa 1996. This file was generated by netscape 2.0, believe it or not...
I especially laughed when went through them and remembered the first great web page I ever saw - Lukes Hippy Dippy Nerd Page. No longer there, I'm afraid. However! I don't remember the exact circumstances, but I noticed the name Luke on a web page in 2002. I sent him a 'say, aren't you Luke of Luke's Hippy Dippy Nerd page', and sure enough, he was! Amazed (and perhaps a bit scared...) he sent me a link to his page that he keeps around for memories sake.
I just perused them again, for old times sake and amazing a couple of them are still around! Here as some of the highlights:
Basically, any link that has a ~ in it probably has a short shelf life. These days, it is so easy to get your own domain that I think links will live longer. Who knows?
Before
Netscape, there was
mosaic. Without those handy bookmarks, I
built my own
Home Page for easy access to my collection of URLs.
Best of all (or worst of all, depends on your outlook) this entire page and every page I have ever put together has the characteristic lack of sizzle that comes from writing the whole thing in HTML by hand. Oh well, at least it is w3 compliant!
Perhaps my greatest passion is movies. I love watching everything from huge productions on opening night on a huge screen and deafening sound system, to stirring dramas on dingy screens in the local repertory theatre.
If you've ever wondered who else on earth could be watching My Fair Lady or The Dam Busters at 2:30am, it might just be me...
One of the best resources on the net I have ever seen on the net is the
Internet Movie database. You can search on any Movie Title, Actor, Actress, Director, or even Costume Designer...
It was started as a project by a chap at the University of Cardiff in Wales with a mirror at Mississippi state, and was one of the first of such sites to be successfuly commercialized.
Still a great site, and in some ways even better than the original with more features and links to more information about my favourite movies, I still miss the feel of the original site with information submitted by people all over the world.
I also miss a world without pop-ups. Sigh...
It used to be difficult to find movie show times and I once had a list of sites that had them on this site. Now, they are everywhere. If you live in Vancouver, BC, like I do, just go to mybc.com...
Love that THX Sound? Check out the
THX Homepage.
Learn more about my favorite theatre sound,
Dolby Digital Theatre Sound, and the home version,
Dolby AC-3.
You can also find the closest Dolby Digital equiped theatre near you, a
list of Dolby Digital encoded movies, and a list of AC-3 encoded
laser disks.
Another digital standard,
Digital Theatre Sound (DTS)
- The 'other' digital standard.