Well, in less time than it took to get my Castle Cops Blog going, here is Charlie's Other Web Journal  Somehow, I will attempt to tie this all together in some kind of a meaningful coherent fashion.

 

 

Approximately five years ago, I created the original Charlie's Web because my digital Kodak camera came with this program called Trellix Web. As new as I was to computers in general and the internet in particular, the concepts behind the idea were a bit beyond me, and the program sat around until I found some time to put it through it's paces.

 

So, I arrived on the scene at the very tail end of the internet explosion, back when everything was free and a stupid idea backed by innovative marketing could make you a millionaire in the wink of an eye.

These were glorious times. The internet was free as long as you weren't brainwashed by the AOL hype and could put up with an advertising bar at the top or bottom of your screen. I used to connect on a 486 with a 56k modem to no less than ten different ISP's running Windows 95, Internet Explorer 4, 32 MB RAM on a whopping 160MB hard drive. From starting the PC to checking email, signing in took roughly five minutes.

 

I actually knew people that paid AOL the $19.95 fee. For free, I got html mail with pictures and the same access to the internet, perhaps in some cases better access to the internet. The banner bar was really no different than AOL's bloated Explorer.

 

 

 

was the third web page I had attempted, and combined the best elements of my other attempts, including a whole 2 page site called AcmeCo I had set up through Cosmiverse. I had planned to share what I had learned about software, security and the internet on my pages.

 

In those days, all you really needed to be safe was an anti-virus program (updated regularly - you'd be surprised how many people still don't {yes, I was talking about you in the back of the room}), and a firewall.

 

Until April of last year(2004), that simple formula had kept me safe on the internet except for the times I got careless with peer-to-peer file-sharing.

 

To be continued.....