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Go Web 0.5 With The Wayback Machine

Here’s a little news flash for everyone. Just about everything that was ever on the web could potentially still be found on the Internet. I don’t think many people realize that as they do what they do on their favorite websites.

wayback-machine

The Wayback Machine is proof of just how far back you can go to find something you’d thought was hidden from everyone from now on. That’s not the case. As with the example shown in the screenshot above, each of those links are a snapshot of my personal website going back as far as 1998. A snapshot was taken each month and you can see how the design has changed and progressed through that time.

The text is all visible that was on the site each of those times, but any images that were part of the webpage are not available if they’re still not on the server in the locations specified with the original page.

It’s so crazy to go back and see these old versions of sites and how they looked all those years ago. You can use the Wayback Machine to find an old version of just about any website.

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Make Yourself Feel Better – Read FMyLife

A friend of mine told me about the FMyLife site. I hadn’t heard of it before I don’t think. A quick warning to you though, if you’re not sure what the “F” stands for in the title, think about the worst word you could pick and you’re probably on it or close.

Fmylife-website

Here’s what the folks behind the FMyLife site have to say about it. They cover it pretty clearly I think.

Fmylife.com is a weird and wonderful addition to the web. It’s a collection of everyday anecdotes and stories likely to happen to anyone and everyone, sent to us exclusively by our users, which we then publish on the site. This is a space where you can let it all out and unwind by sharing the little things that screw with your day, and maybe realize that you are not alone in experiencing day to day crap. Posts start with ‘Today’ and end with ‘FML’. The site is meant to be fun to read and can be enjoyed on a daily basis.

As a follow-up to my earlier warning, you’re going to read some stuff that may shock you. People are going to be brutally honest with you. Be ready for it.

The good news is that most of the time when you read what’s ruining other people’s days, you find yourself a little more accepting of your own day and situation.

UPDATE: Can’t believe I published this post and forgot to include an actual link to the FMyLife site. So I’ve updated the site and given you some links to FMyLife site.

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The Best Computer Books for Learning Something New

I continue to learn something new on a regular basis. My experience has been to grab a book on a topic and try to read through it as much as possible. That’s not always successful because the challenge with computer books is they’re usually huge and not too easy to carry around with you and pull-out whenever you’ve got a couple of minutes.

tech-library

When I was first learning and teaching myself HTML, I always enjoyed the way information was presented in the "Bible" series from Wiley. I felt the way the book was organized and gave the reader a nice overview of the information was very helpful. I’ve also read through a couple of O’Reilly books and also enjoyed them. The "For Dummies" series are really popular, but I’ve never used one to learn something.

Here’s another question for you, the readers, what books have you enjoyed. Which ones have you read that helped you really grasp and understand that topic at hand with whatever technology you were trying to learn and teach yourself?

If you were going to buy a single book to learn a topic, what series would you look for first on the shelf? Let us know in the comments below.