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Here's a fun way to pass the time if you get a quiet moment: visit the Wayback Machine at Internet Archive. It's great if you want to revisit those websites you built (or used) yesteryear to ponder the changing fashions and the evolution of webdev technique.

I've written elsewhere about the history of my online presence, with a few contemporary screen captures to preserve my design efforts. I was amused today to discover that the Wayback Machine had been visiting my sites since 1996 (the beginning of the archive), multiple times per year up to 2006 (oddly missing 1999 and 2000—and of course 1994 and 1995). The cached websites aren't always feature-complete: JavaScript-loaded images, off-site images, and sometimes other site elements refuse to load. But it's good enough to bring back the memories, and to give pause for contemplation on how things have changed.

Blast from the past: my homepage in 1996

Trends in my own sites are a fair reflection of the evolution of the web in general over the last 10 years:

• Built with frames and nested tables, to CSS-based layout;
• Static HTML-only pages, to dynamic websites built with PHP, MySQL, and ever-more complex JavaScripts;
• Pixellated .gif graphics, to transparent .png;
• Increasing integration with third-party services (del.icio.us, Skype status, Amazon API, Mint, etc.);
• Increasing commercialization (AdSense, Text Ad Links, iStockPhoto, Amazon, etc.);
• Use of RSS to syndicate content;
• HTML to XHTML;
• Mosaic, to a choice of browser (with associated testing requirements);
• Page load times optimized for "high speed" 14.4 Kbps modems, to "max" ADSL/ cable;
• No interaction, to "community" via reader participation (e.g. comments);
• No spam, to floods of e-mail and comment spam.

One of the few things that has seen little change is my dependence on BBEdit. Although I have a license for TextMate and have tried various WYSIWYG editors (most recently iWeb and RapidWeaver), I can't seem to break away from this faithful companion.

Why not visit the Wayback Machine and view your past works? What do they tell you about where you've been, where you are, and where you are going as a web developer?

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