Today I was thinking about the changes in “the internet” since I first began going online. l did not go as far back as to the online research when I was in college where connections were made using a 300 baud acoustic coupler. Then dialing into Westlaw or even earlier using wired connections in computer labs to mainframe systems using punch cards. Nor were the military or educational nets on my mind. No, my thoughts were on what I consider to be the true precursor of today’s web, the proprietary services; CompuServe, Prodigy and yes even AOL.

My first web like experience was in 1989 with Prodigy Internet when a friend gave me (and installed) a 1200 baud modem. At the time there was really only CompuServe and Prodigy. CompuServe charge by the hour and was considered more of a business network. Prodigy, on the other hand, was flat rate and more consumer oriented. I chose Prodigy. Prodigy pioneered online GUI interfaces at a time when CompuServe and GEnie were text based. Many of the features such as: images, interactive content managed by session state and platform independent objects calls were pioneered by Prodigy. ( see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prodigy_Internet) even on Dos computers.

By 1992 I had both Prodigy and CompuServe. A few of my friends had tried GEnie but returned to Prodigy. Late 93 or early 94 I become a beta tester for Prodigy Internet when Prodigy decided to offer true ISP services. Before long created my first web pages.

(Thankfully those early efforts predate than Internet archive. So unless there is someone who has the equipment to read my old tape backups no one will be able to see just how bad they were by today standards anyway.)

more to come

I stumbled across thie Accessibilty color wheel today which hleps you select background and foreground colors that contain sufficient contrast to meet the accessibilty requirements of the WCAG. This is kewl because you don’t have to try and ifgure out the math to see what is and is not sufficient contras and you are not limited to the way your screen displays color. Check it out: Accessibility20Color20Wheel

Is this cool or what?

A free IE addin that will check you spelling for all those oline forums and blog entries you make.

ieSpell - Spell Checker add-on for Internet Explorer
ieSpell is a free Internet Explorer browser extension that spell checks text input boxes on a webpage. It should come in particularly handy for users who do a lot of web-based text entry (e.g. web mails, forums, blogs, diaries). Even if your web application already includes spell checking functionality, you might still want to install this utility because it is definitely much faster than a server-side solution. Plus you get to store and use your personal word list across all your applications, instead of maintaining separate ones on each application.

When I was at MIX 06 I spoke with several people from Adobe but none said they were with the Dreamweaver team but there were Adobe nametags in the audience during the Expression Web Designer presentation. (The first Expression Web Designer CTP is now available from the Microsoft Expression site.) Other presentations were on Ajax and Atlas. Now Adobe is starting to let on what is going on with Dreamweaver 9. Could it be that Adobe has decided that EWD will be competition and spurred on their Dreamweaver developement?

Austin Adobe User Group (AAUG) Newsletter: AAUG MVP: Karen Kreps
Key Dreamweaver 9 capabilities are:
* Learn CSS as you build your web pages
* Easily create AJAX-enabled user interfaces
* Convert layered comps to web pages in less time * Visualize your CSS with style guides
* Improved productivity with file filters

If you don’t like their current site, which I will freely confess not to liking since I find it dark and hard to read, here is your opportunity. There is a CSS Zen Garden type challenge to create a new look and win:

• Your ticket to the MIX conference
• Airfare to attend
• Lodging at the Venetian
• A one-of-a-kind, MIX-themed, Xbox 360

For more information see: mix06.com/Contest.aspx