| Chinese Tools Online [jump here] | ||
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A website that aims to introduce you to Chinese language and culture. A visit to this website feels like excavating a long forgotten world, just like how the nation of China reaches time immemorial. There are some Java applets which are long unsupported in modern web browsers, but there is a Chinese name generator that is still functional; it takes your English name, combines it with your zodiac sign and goals, and renders a possible Chinese equivalent. It also has a downloadable Perl module that helps identify Chinese dialects. |
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| Heaviness: Light | Eccentricity: 6/10 | |
| Submitted: 05/01/2022 | Visit Chinese Tools Online | |
| Toastytech [jump here] | ||
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Nathan Lineback's GUI Gallery, aka Toastytech.com, has been online for as long as I can remember. I don't know how I first found it, I'll guess it was in 2006 or earlier. And it has always been the same; the style hasn't changed once. That, with the strong opinions, makes it the dowdiest of all sites. Here you can see screenshots that document the development of graphical user interfaces, all the way from the 1980s until now. Toastytech details many UIs and systems, like Unix, Windows, Macintosh. And certainly many you'll learn about for the first time. The author is very inventive, often showing screenshots of the systems in unusual configurations. An absolute gem is this page: IE Is Evil. At least Ballmer was spared crucifixion. And if you believe IE is evil, for your own sanity please keep your innocent eyes from MS Edge. |
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| Heaviness: Lightweight | Eccentricity: 9/10 | |
| Submitted: 01/12/2021 | Visit Toastytech | |
| The Well-Tempered Computer [jump here] | ||
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A website with a wealth of knowledge on all things PC audio. It has a focus on Windows and OSX but I see Linux and Android mentioned too. Detailed are all the aspects of sound APIs, optimal configuration, opinions. Also reviews of many music playing applications.
What's an ASIO? Why would I want to use WASAPI? The answer to these, and many other questions, may be found here. |
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| Heaviness: Lightweight | Eccentricity: 6/10 | |
| Submitted: 30/11/2021 | Visit The Well-Tempered Computer | |
| IRT [jump here] | ||
| If you're planning to time travel back to 1998, bookmark this website. Hither you will find enough information to be employed as a webdev should you find yourself trapped in the past. It provides tutorials, reviews and opinions on a variety of web technologies at the turn of the millenium. IRT proclaims that XML will soon supercede HTML, as it seems that many back then believed. A highlight is this news piece on the release of the Gecko engine my Mozilla, which would eventually become Firefox. Such things as DOM and CSS were just breaking ground then. |
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| Heaviness: Light | Eccentricity: 2/10 | |
| Submitted: 26/10/2021 | Visit IRT | |
| IwayNet on FrontPage Express [jump here] | ||
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When I was ten or eleven years old, I read of 'FrontPage Express' in a book. I yearned to build my own website and put it on the Internet for all to see. But this elusive program wasn't available on my PC. In the days of dial-up, finding it online proved quite the task too. I asked a distant relative and months later she visited, presenting a 3.5" Floppy Disk bearing the FrontPage Express installer. Overjoyed, I set about building this website (which still exists online but is well hidden). Years later, I find scant mention of FPE on the Internet, except this very old website of an independent ISP detailing basic usage. My favourite part is the screenshot of the UI, which shows an estimated download time of 9 seconds for one small JPEG. How far we've come. |
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| Heaviness: light | Eccentricity: 4/10 | |
| Submitted: 25/10/2021 | Visit IwayNet on FrontPage Express | |
| The Jargon File [jump here] | ||
| An invaluable guide to hacker culture. Hackers aren't driven by malice but by curiosity, a desire to get more from their hardware and software than its makers intended. Unfortunately in common parlance, the term 'hacker' is now synonymous with 'cracker', which is what hackers call those who break things for dishonest gain. You can learn more of the hacker culture here, which has given rise to everything we value in the world of computing. There are many good quotes here, like: "Compromise is not particularly a hackish virtue, but the honest presentation of divergent viewpoints is." |
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| Heaviness: Light | Eccentricity: 8 /10 | |
| Submitted: 24/10/2021 | Visit The Jargon File | |
| Hackles [jump here] | ||
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An old web comic poking fun at the tropes of the early 2000s OSS and Linux culture. I had a leaf through and got a few laughs. I award a worthless and yet-unnamed award because the server-side code is in Perl! |
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| Heaviness: Lightweight | Eccentricity: 4/10 | |
| Submitted: 17/10/2021 | Visit Hackles | |
| Norfolk Churches [jump here] | ||
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This gentleman has meticulously documented all the churches he can find in Norfolk, past and present. As of October 2021, the website is still updated each month. The website's understated style gives proper focus to the words and photographs. Each church is given a generous amount of research. A website like this is an example of passion done properly. These pages will abide long after anything on Facebook. A plain styled personal website is much better suited for preservation, which is a perfect fit for presenting historical research, because it shares the same goals. |
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| Heaviness: Lightweight | Eccentricity: 5/10 | |
| Submitted: 17/10/2021 | Visit Norfolk Churches | |
| The Shorland Site [jump here] | |
| Two gentlemen have created their own website dedicated to Shorland Land Rovers. If you're interested in APVs and APCs from the 1960s-1990s, this is the site for you. It features scans of detailed schematics of all the prototypes. It has been lovingly crafted in MS FrontPage. | |
| Heaviness: Lightweight | Eccentricity: 2/10 |
| Submitted: 01/09/2021 | Visit The Shorland Site |
