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April 2005 Newsletter


INTERNET HISTORY NEWSLETTER - APRIL 2005

Welcome to the Internet History Newsletter, brought to you by the www.nethistory.info website. In this edition:

=> MAJOR SITE REVAMP AND RETHINK - TELL US WHAT YOU THINK!

=> FOLLOW UP ON MAC 20TH BIRTHDAY - DEATH OF MAC CREATOR JEF RASKIN

=> THE INVENTIONS THAT NEVER MADE IT

=> Subscribe/unsubscribe details

MAJOR SITE REVAMP AND RETHINK - TELL US WHAT YOU THINK!

If you haven't visited www.nethistory.info for a while, please have a look at the new version of the site launched this week and let us know what you think.

We were prompted to undertake a major change, based on feedback from you and a rethink of our priorities. You probably noticed that we had tried to make the site a going concern financially in the past - not a bad idea on the surface, but in the process we were withholding some key information. That meant that those who couldn't afford to buy our tapes, courses, and ebooks didn't get the basic information.

To be honest, that really didn't work for either us or you, and we have gone back to what prompted us to set up the site - to let everyone know about the rich history of the Internet, and make sure that events and people that made up its history are not forgotten.

This led us to our biggest change since launch, released for the first time this week.

Visit www.nethistory info and check the following new features:

* Ian Peter's full History of the Internet is now available on line, in 9 chapters, as a new site section, free of charge
* The Archives have been opened up for all site users
* New links have been added in many sections.

Have a look, tell us what you think, and help us develop the site.

We have a bunch more new links to add in the near future as well.


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VALE JEF RASKIN

Very shortly after out feature article on the 20th anniversay of the Macintosh computer in our last newsletter, we received news of the death of Macintosh creator Jef Raskin. Described as a wonderful spirit and renaissance man, he created the Macintosh project at Apple in 1979. He left Apple to form Information Appliances, where he designed the Canon Cat with an innovative interface. He continued refining human interface design, publishing his ideas in The Humane Interface (Addison Wesley, 2000.) The Humane Interface ideas are being implemented in the Raskin Center project Archy, where is son, Aza, is a programmer. His artwork was displayed at New York's Museum of Modern Art. There is a collection of photographs and history at http://www.digibarn.com/friends/jef-raskin/index.html

As we stated in our last newsletter, "You would have had to used a computer before the Macintosh to realise what an advance it was. For a start, it was the first personal computer to bring to market the "Windows" software invented by the Xerox Palo Alto Laboratories. (PCs waited until 1995 to adopt the same basic technology). It did many other things as well - it was probably the first computer with a friendly interface, the first to play music, the first to allow you to draw pictures and to introduce voice technologies. It was a remarkable step forward which, when accompanied by the desktop publishing software Apple introduced a few years later, saw the personal computer revolution take a giant step forward."

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WHATEVER HAPPENED TO YESTERDAY'S HOT TECHNOLOGIES?

Remember push technology? Or virtual reality for the Web? Or Microsoft Bob? Some ideas are probably better left consigned to history. And yet the roadside of the information superhighway is littered with ideas that sounded promising but never quite made it to revolution status before dropping off IT's radar. Check http://newsletter.infoworld.com/t?ctl=BEA7A9:2AEDE26 for a cute list.

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And that's it for this month - we spent our allotted time for Internet history this month on redeveloping the site, we hope you look in and give us feedback!


All the best,



Ian Peter


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This newsletter was brought to you by the Internet History Project. For more information, visit www.nethistory.info.

We welcome your feeback! Drop us a note at mailto:feedback@nethistory.info


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