The Blog Friendship and Community Project

Click on the link with the graphic above. Find out what the project is about and consider becoming part of it.

Firefox is Broken

For the past few days my browser (Firefox) keeps dumping out all my logins. So that each time I want to do anything like add a bookmark to del.icio.us or see myself appear on bumpzee, etc I have to re-login. Even though I already logged in more than once today to the very same site. It is really getting highly aggravating. I have tried to find the cause for this, thought I may have changed some setting, but nothing is working. It's really bugging me. So much that I am going to try another web browswer today. Not that I am going back to MSIExplorer, that became too much of a clunker. I had a look at Opera but it is full of warnings for all kinds of little things and that got to be a pestery nuisance. So, something new, something... else.

Pink Raygun

Pink Raygun is a webzine for the modern fangirl. It’s a smart and savvy place to discuss and read about science fiction, fantasy and horror in all of their forms, be it television, movies, books or comics.

Every day at Pink Raygun, you’ll find interviews with the women (and some men) who make genre film and television awesome: writers, costume designers, hair and make-up artists, and special effects crew. We’ll also talk to women (and some men) who are working in manga, comics and fiction.

Other features of Pink Raygun include genre news, a message board forum, opinion pieces addressing issues within scifi, fantasy and horror and an extensive section dedicated to reviews of print and visual media, events, websites and music.

The artist of the ray grrl above is Travis Hanson of Beanleafpress.com. The Pink Raygun graphic was sent in email by the site owner to add a linkback graphic for their site. Pretty nice, eh?

Blogger tip: Find more colours and their codes on the web. Type them in as three number, just as Blogger does. This way you can use colours not available on Blogger, so far. I needed the right neon pink to link to Pink Raygun, Blogger only had a faded pink I couldn't read.

Guardian Unlimited: Websites that Changed the World

An article about the mega sites.

1. eBay.com
Founded: Pierre Omidyar, 1995, US
What is it? Auction and shopping site

2. wikipedia.com
Founded: Jimmy Wales, 2001, US
What is it? Online encyclopaedia

3. napster.com
Founded: Shawn Fanning, 1999, US
What is it? File sharing site

4. youtube.com
Founded: Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim, 2005, US
What is it? Video sharing site

5. blogger.com
Founded: Evan Williams, 1999, US
What is it? Weblog publishing system

6. friendsreunited.com
Founded: Steve and Julie Pankhurst, 1999, UK
What is it? School reunion site

7. drudgereport.com
Founded: Matt Drudge, 1994, US
What is it? News site

8. myspace.com
Founded: Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe, 2003, US
What is it? Social networking site

9. amazon.com
Founded: Jeff Bezos, 1994, US
What is it? Online retailer, primarily of books, CDs and DVDs

10. slashdot.org
Founded: Rob Malda, 1997, US
What is it? Technology news website and internet forum

11. salon.com
Founded: David Talbot, 1995, US
What is it? Online magazine and media company.

12. craigslist.org
Founded: Craig Newmark, 1995, US
What is it? A centralised network of online urban communities, featuring free classified advertisements and forums.

13. google.com
Founded: Larry Page and Sergey Brin, 1998, US
What is it? Search engine and media corporation

14. yahoo.com
Founded: David Filo and JerryYang, 1994, US
What is it? Internet portal and media corporation

15. easyjet.com
Founded: Stelios
What is it?: Budget airline

So many sites are not here. Whether they were bought out or busted or just didn't grow enough, there must be a million other sites which had good ideas that didn't take off. I worked for several pioneer sites which are no longer around. I still volunteer at Dmoz (The Open Directory Project) which has been owned by Netscape and AOL and used by Google and assorted other big and small search engines and web directories. Yet, Dmoz didn't make this list. It's too far into the background I would guess. There, but unknown.

I sometimes still write for BackWash which had the concept of presenting the "Internet by personality". I thought that idea had potential. It did really if you consider the popularity of weblogs. However, the site didn't grow enough, not enough push to become known so it could rise above the pack. So now it is still there, kind of dwindling, but there like a dinosaur lurking, not ready to give up and yet not having the energy to push itself out into the world any more.

I worked for HerPlanet which was a network of sites for women. That one died off, sort of mysteriously. After years of sticking it out and beginning to build traffic and a following of readers the money supply just ran out. Dottie found a buyer who let her continue to run things, more or less. The new buyer killed HerPlanet. They just never did anything to get the sites back up and online. A year or so later (long after I knew HerPlanet was dead) the domains all became 404, one by one. It was sad. Now and then I check to see if anyone else has begun a site for those domains: HerPlanet.com or HerCorner.com (which was the site I managed) and so on.

What sites do you think could have or should be on this list of world changing sites?

Old Ribbon Campaigns

That Internet Thing:

Save the...

What comes to your mind first?

I think the oldest campaign of "Save the..." was for saving whales. But, I could be wrong and likely I am. Causes and issues are as old as time. I'm sure cave people had some kind of 'save the...' campaign with the start of the wheel. People either want to avoid change or want to bring change.

Every campaign has it's passionate supporters looking for new ways to promote their cause and get it noticed and kept in the public eye.

Ribbon campaigns had their heyday. Then they spread into a fetish almost on the web. You still see a load of pink ribbon graphics around the time for the breast cancer campaign.

There were endless others. Some real causes and important issues but a lot of them were rubbish, useless campaigns and campaigns against having ribbon campaigns. Some people just have too much time it seems.

What would your cause be? What do you feel that driving kind of passion about or need to change?

Three campaigns which I most remember as web ribbon campaigns were Save the Dragons, Fight the Fear and the ASCII Artists Ribbon Campaign. Save the dragons was about dragons, of course. Fight the Fear was about Pagans supporting religious tolerance. The ASCII Artist Campaign was about keeping the initials on ASCII art, keeping the artist credit on their work. The ASCII art campaign is still going, at least, the site is still loading and perhaps active even. The other two have disappeared as far as I know.

FAQ - Content Infusion

FAQ - Content Infusion

Automatic updating content. But, I'd rather hand pick each one myself. How else can you make sure you hit the right notes, have new ideas and actually agree or at least feel ok about what each writer has said.

I like content brokering sites but I don't think this one would work for me.

nameZake

nameZake - Where you meet people who have your name

Deja vu? Have you been here before or was that just someone with your same name?

Conversations by Invite

Brainstorms

Brainstorms hosts a private webconferencing community for knowledgeable, civil, adult, fun conversation.

We are a few hundred people of all kinds from all over the world. To get in, either I invite you or you email me and explain why you would be a valuable addition to the conversation.

Former About Guides

Former About Guides

Looking for E-card Freeware

I'd like to run web greeting cards from my site. It would be much simpler with some kind of software but so far I haven't found anything freeware that lets you do it from your site. There are a few which run like affiliates. I really don't want to promote someone else or use their art/ graphics. I have my own in mind.

It will be cute once I stomp on all the bugs.

evhead

evhead

Evan Williams has left the building. Good luck with enjoying life and finding something to do next.

All Info About

All Info About

Still fairly new topical network. I was going to do a Pagan topic here but backed out. Just not enough time. I'd still like to do something but the areas I'm most likely to do are already covered. Besides, it's too easy to take on too much and then realize how swamped you are when it's too late.

ShopGrrl.com

I have a domain again. Nothing there yet as I am working on it tonight and tomorrow. I want to have my personal stuff and a site for other women working in retail: cashiers and etc. It's not an easy job and it seems we should have some place to chat, compare experiences and whatever comes along.

I'm happy to have a place to put my site again. I just couldn't proudly give out the Geocities page I stuck up. I didn't even have much interest in keeping it updated.

Anyway, coming soon... ShopGrrl.com

Canada Post Powered by Internic.ca

Email Hosting Packages | Canada Post Powered by Internic.ca

Canada Post does the web. It's not a bad deal. For about $8 a month I can get my domain and 3 email addresses and keep my site on the same Geocities free host. The only downside is staying with Geocities and those limitations for space.

I may do it, I miss having a real email address (not webmail).

GMail

It sounds interesting. But I don't have the link through Blogger. Others seem to have it. Anyway, here was a Gmail Swap site. Maybe it will work for someone.

Yahoo Mail just went up to 100MB of space. Co-incedence?