A voyage back in time

For celebrating its tenth birthday, Google excavated the oldest index they could get hold of and made it available for us all, so that we all can travel back in time to the internet of 2001: Google 2001. It’ll be available only for one month, so go ahead and enjoy it.

I couldn’t resist, I had to do a vanity search. And lo and behold, there’s even a link to the wayback machine’s copy of my 2001 homepage. On the one hand, that is cool, on the other, it’s a little bit frightening. What happens on the Internet, stays on the Internet? (Including that little article about spud guns, which caused so much turmoil).

Time for some memories (feels like doing archaeology): I think I first read of Google on Jakob Nielsen’s useit-column, more precisely here: Bill Gates’ Shopping List to Build the Internet Desktop. I tried Google and quickly dropped my former favorite search engine, AltaVista. (Surprisingly, it’s still alive. I’ve just tried it for the first time in many years).

That was december 1998. That’s nearly ten years ago.

Ten years. TEN FUCKING YEARS! I freaked out, I joined the Rechenzentrum, went into business for myself – I’m a professional programmer.