It’s funny how far the Internet has come in the last few years. Web 2.0 is now practically old hat, so ubiquitous are its features, and most websites nowdays even seem to look the same, or at least conform to the same styles - clean lines, tabs, slickly integrated advertising and plenty of space for users’ comments (think Amazon’s latest makeover, for example). But while I was researching an article for Micro Mart this week, I came across several corners of the Internet I’d almost forgotten existed.

Like Usenet newsgroups, for one thing. Nowadays, they’re hosted by Google Groups (which has archives dating back to around 1981) so they’ve been slightly updated, but essentially, they’re still out there - and thriving. Since the advent of social networking and, actually, before that, the arrival of cheap and easy-to-use forum software, I’d imagined that newsgroups would have been abandoned; mere ghost-towns now, with tumbleweed whistling through them. But I was wrong. They’re alive and well.

Less alive and less well but nonetheless present and accessible are all sorts of ancient websites, built during the 1990s when services like Homestead, Angelfire and GeoCities let anyone and everyone create their own personal homepages. Imagine the absolute worst MySpace profile layout you’ve ever seen - it’s a delight compared to what most of these sites used to look like. (And I should know; I built several, and they were all embarrassingly terrible.) The templates provided by Homestead et al were pretty awful, but they were nothing compared with the monstrosities that people with the barest knowledge of HTML could come up with. The old adage of a little knowledge being a dangerous thing definitely applies here; we’re talking animated blinking gifs, pop-ups, frames, tinkling wav music files, hit counters and garish background images. The text usually came in colours specifically selected to hurt your eyes most when viewed against the patterned backgrounds, with line breaks in odd places and hyperlinks in yet another contrasting colour.

Shudder.

Say what you like about social media and user generated content, but at least the Internet looks nicer nowadays. And though some of the worst sartorial fashions of the last few decades seem to be making a comeback (neon legwarmers? Really?) we can at least be grateful that Facebook maintains its nice, calming blue template no matter what.

It makes you wonder, though, doesn’t it? In another 10 years, what will still be around, and what will we look back on and cringe?

(Edited: how did I manage to type “days” instead of “years”? Oops!)

Since I began writing this blog, I’ve started using two new computers - one at home, and now one at work. My home computer, a Vista-running laptop, has now become completely integrated into my life, but my work computer is still taking some getting used to.

On the plus side, it’s a hell of a lot zippier and reliable than my old one (which seemed to manage to run into errors if I hit more than two keys in quick succession; not ideal, really). But it seems to be taking me an age to get things set up the way I want them. Every time I think I’ve got everything sorted out, I run into another program I need that I haven’t got, or another folder or e-mail account that I need to access and can’t, or, worst of all, another Internet account that I can’t remember the password for, because it had been saved in Firefox on my old computer a year ago and I’ve since completely forgotten it. Nrghhhh.

More trivially, I’d completely forgotten how hideously ugly XP is with all its default settings in place. Changing the colour scheme and desktop background was the first thing I did. I’m getting there; before long, this computer too will be like an old pair of socks, familiar and comfortable and easy to slip into, and I’ll stop thinking about it. But before that happens, I should probably just appreciate that super-fast loading time. Ahhh.

Never one to drop a story before I’ve completely chewed the life out of it, I went to check on the Faceparty situation, and found a message from the administrator in my account. After some blather about a new webcam service, it says this:

“There have been rumours and press stories saying we are deleting everyone over 36. This is not true (as you should notice by browsing and seeing people over 36). Nobody has been deleted because of their age, but we have deleted 7 million accounts for hundreds of different reasons… most importantly to get all the spammers, fakers etc out. Our plan has been working really well, and we’ll soon be opening our doors again to those who got deleted by unavoidable accident.

If any of your friends were deleted by accident, you can apply to have them re-instated in the Gossip section, under the thread “Friend Deleted?”.

All for now,

*hugs*

Admin x”

While it’s true that there do still appear to be lots and lots of members over 36 on the site, that’s really not what Faceparty announced about its policies. Is this some rapid backtracking, then?