May 14th, 2009

10 Year Anniversary

Today marks the 10th anniversary of Sharpened.net. What began as a small computer glossary back in 1999 has slowly grown into the full computer and Internet resource you see today. Besides a Glossary, Sharpened.net now includes a Help Center, a collection of Resources, and a Reviews section. You can learn more about how Sharpened.net has evolved over the past ten years by viewing the History of Sharpened.net.

I originally developed the website using GoLive Cyberstudio, which later became Adobe GoLive. Each page was developed using standard HTML, which I soon found would not be sufficient for the rapidly growing site. Therefore, after about two years, I rebuilt the Glossary section using PHP and a MySQL database. This allowed me to add definitions without creating new pages for each one, which was a huge timesaver. In the following years, I also migrated the Help Center, File Extensions, Acronyms, and Emoticons sections to the database.

For the first couple of years, the Sharpened.net database only included a few hundred entries. But as the site grew, so did the traffic. Therefore, I began updating the site much more frequently, adding new content almost every day. Now, after ten years, the database contains over 7,000 records, including computer definitions, acronyms, emoticons, file extensions, updates, and other information. While it has been a lot of work, the Sharpened.net visitors also deserve credit, since most of the entries have been from your suggestions!

Since day one, my goal has been to create a useful, easy-to-use computer and Internet resource. That means I have strived to design the site for visitors, not for search engines or advertisers. Though Sharpened.net has gone through many changes during the past decade, I have done my best to stay true to that commitment. After all, without visitors, there would be no point in building the website, let alone maintaining it everyday. =)

So thank you for ten great years. I look forward to many more decades of sharpening your knowledge of computers and the Internet.

The Internet Files for Bankruptcy

The economic downturn claimed another victim today as the Internet announced it is filing for bankruptcy. The global organization stated it has run out of bandwidth reserves and cannot continue to operate.

According to inside sources, the primary factor that led to the Internet's downfall was the purchase of too many sub-prime domain names. The U.S. government recently denied the DNS's request for a bailout, saying the organization had already been given billions of IPs, many of which are still not accounted for. The Internet's restructuring plan has also been criticized as simply virtual reality and nothing more than cyberspace. The last glimmer of hope faded when merger talks between the Internet and the intranet broke down last week after a combined subnet mask could not be finalized.

Several e-commerce companies that rely heavily on the Internet had lobbied tirelessly to save the global network, saying it was too big too fail. They emphasized the fact that the Internet is deeply linked to millions of websites across the world. Lobbyists also pointed out that if the Internet were to fail, it would negatively affect the pharming and phishing industries. However, many analysts have questioned the viability of the Internet, saying the organization's site map is far too complex and outdated to be successful. Some politicians supported the idea of breaking up the Internet into smaller entities, including the Web and E-mail. However, these and other anonymous requests were blocked by a firewall.

While the collapse of the Internet will change the world as we know it, some see a silver lining. There will be far less jargon too keep up with, and words like spam and cookie will go back to being food items. Social networking can once again be done in person and blogs can be written using a pen and paper. While the transition may be difficult for some, many are looking forward to taking some much needed time offline.

Read previous April Fools stories.

Twitter Me This

I recently added a definition for Twitter, the latest vogue in social networking. If you don't know about Twitter, it's an online service that allows you to stay connected with others through frequent blog posts that answer the question, "What are you doing?" You can post your own updates (a.k.a. "tweets") and follow the updates of others.

Basically, Twitter allows you to stalk others while they stalk you. And the crazy thing is, it's completely voluntary. In an age where people are so concerned about their privacy, I find it rather surprising, if not ironic, that Twitter has been so successful. For whatever reason, people seem to enjoy broadcasting the most trivial details of their day for the world to see. Whether it's doing the laundry or taking out the trash, it's important enough to twitter about.

While I don't fully understand the appeal of Twitter, I'm concerned that some users may not fully understand the effects of their twittering. I worry that some people, especially the younger generation, may twitter details about their lives they may later regret. While Twitter allows you to block your "Followers," or those who can read your updates, you never know who might see what you write. Furthermore, anything you post online is stored digitally, meaning its as good as permanent.

So whether you are twittering about your thoughts, feelings, plans, or past experiences, remember to use discretion. You'll be glad you did.

Maintenance Mania

Sharpened.net is a relatively large website with several thousand pages. When a site has thousands of Web pages to maintain, it is inevitable that some pages will get neglected. These poor pages fall through the cracks and don't get updated for months or even years. It is a sad but true reality of being a webmaster of a large site. Therefore, I make a point to occasionally go through the different sections of Sharpened.net and update pages that have fallen out-of-date.

Most recently, I covered the Resources section, which had been dormant for quite some time. I updated several sections and added a bunch of new and exciting information. Well, at least new informaton. One new page I added is an FTP Commands Reference, which contains a list of commands you can use when accessing an FTP server via a command-line interface. While I realize that many FTP programs are available with nice graphical user interfaces (GUIs), it can be helpful to know some basic FTP commands. After all, who knows when you'll be stuck working with a terminal interface, needing to download crucial files from an FTP server? I've seen it happen in movies, so that means it could happen to anyone.

I also made some cosmetic changes to some other pages to make the site look more uniform. It is amazing how easily things can get out of control if you start using too many colors and different layouts in a website. While I realize most of these changes won't be obvious to the untrained eye, hopefully you can at least appreciate the effort. But even if you don't care (and why would you, really), I'm still glad you visited. ;-)

Business or Busyness?

Well, it's that time of the year again. It's the time when people start making resolutions to change all of the things they have been putting off this year. As some regular visitors may know, I am not a big fan of New Year's resolutions. After all, why wait to change something until a new year when it would be beneficial to change it now?

But here we are at the end of 2008, and I have to admit a new year does seem like a good time for a fresh start. Therefore, I am making what I guess could possibly be considered somewhat of a resolution. I have set a goal to run my business with less busyness. Yes, I know it seems like an oxymoron to run a successful business without being busy, but I believe it's possible. It doesn't mean I'll be lazy (which you were probably thinking), it just means I will need to use my time more diligently.

I've found that if I am disciplined with how I use my time, I can accomplish a lot each day without feeling like I am too busy. However, if I waste too many hours at a time, I get stuck in the all-too-familiar catch-up phase, which is far more stressful than working proactively. At times, I end up juggling more than I can handle, and all of the sudden life becomes too busy. Therefore, I will strive to be diligent with my time in 2009. Hopefully it will lead to more business and less busyness.

I'm always curious to hear what resolutions other people are making, no matter what time of the year it is. So if you are determined to change or improve something in the coming year, I love to hear about it. Happy 2009!