The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Interesting that a lot of people used to be concerned about computers separating people. People were concerned about teenage boys spending hours hidden away in their bedrooms playing video games and having no contact with sunshine or other living beings. The latest way that the Internet is being used is showing that computers are doing exactly the opposite. Social software of all types is the hottest thing going. Social software started off as simple things like chatrooms and online dating databases. These were the places that brought people together when they were online. Strangers hung out together, discussing all sorts of things they were interested in and making friends thousands of miles away. Later, the explosion of instant messaging software such as ICQ and MSN Messenger started to bring a lot of people together in real-time conversations online. Family and friends miles apart now only had to log onto the Internet and they could speak every night for free. Now we are moving further along that line. A lot of websites are popping up that are meant to bring people together. A perfect example is flickr.com. This site allows people to post their digital pictures online. It is searchable, allowing other people to search for pictures, post comments about them, and share their lists of pictures for others to see. Another site along the same vein is del.icio.us. This site basically allows people to construct an online set of bookmarks. You can capture lists of sites that you are interested in for use anytime you are online. The advantage of del.icio.us is that no matter what computer you are using, you can access your set of bookmarks that you might need. Once again, at the del.icio.us site, you can work through lists set by other people. It is amazing what you find trolling through these sets constructed by others who have the same interests as you do. A lot of gems emerge. Finally, a site called 43 Things is bursting at the seams after only being online for a short time. 43 Things is a site that simply allows you to set a list of up to 43 things that you want to accomplish in your life. I think it is more interesting to just surf through sites like these rather then post on them. I don't really have the urge to post my deepest lifetime goals online for all to read, but it is interesting to browse through these sites that allow people to post there bookmarks and their life goals just to see what people are thinking about. A poll conducted just before the New Year showed that over 45 per cent of North Americans who are regular users of the Internet post material online. The Internet is not a place for the few to create, while most are just lurkers. More and more we post our thoughts, share our lists, and upload our pictures for thousands of other people to see. Two other sites that are much needed if you are interested in sharing your stuff are dropload.com and streamload.com. How many times have you wanted to email a large file to someone else only to have it bounced back because it overfilled their mailbox? These two sites are the solution. You upload your file to dropload or streamload's servers and they automatically send a nice small message to the email address you provide them with and your intended receiver simply goes to the site to retrieve the file you wanted to send them. The net isn't about hiding out in your bedroom away from other people; share your stuff, you'll be surprised who you hear from. ([email protected])
