Chances Are, You Probably Helped Make Internet History
The 20th Century featured the greatest acceleration of science and technology in human history. For hundreds of years, the lifestyles of most societies on earth were not remarkably different than what had been common one, two or even three hundred years or more into the past. Then within a single hundred year period, sanitation, medicine, electricity, air and space flight changed the world so much that no one from 1900 would ever feel at home the night we all survived Y2K. It happened fast.
Many Millennials, Gen X and Boomers types witnessed the birth of the Internet as we know it today and most participated in some now fondly remembered relic of the early days: Prodigy, AOL, Compuserve, GeoCities, StumbleUpon, Digg - the list goes on. Take a look through these collections and see where you were and what your were doing while the Internet evolved right in your own home.
50 Old Websites: A Nostalgic Journey From Our Digital Past
10 Popular Websites: What They Looked Like When They First Started
The Invention of the Internet ‑ Inventor, Timeline & Facts | HISTORY
18 Famous and Interesting Internet Milestones [INFOGRAPHIC]
The Big Internet Museum | Communication Arts
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My wife took her sister on a celebratory trip after she finished her cancer treatments. While touring the Scottish Highlands and the Isle of Skye, Wonder Woman captured these snaps and sent them to me.
Integrity - Free Link Checker
Use the free tool, Integrity,
to quickly crawl an entire domain or subdomain and check every link on
each page within. See a report listing the URL of each page and see the
server response code for all internal and external links found. From
within Integrity you can quickly jump to any page within the domain and
with the text of the broken link highlighted.
As corporate owned social media becomes more toxic and advertising invades every space available, more and more people are adopting the ethos of the Indie Web movement and creating their own websites in the form of personal blogs hosted on various independent platforms. Some opt for WordPress sites with complicated plugins and CDN management, while others use services that are basically online editors that operate like word processors with a "publish" button, like Micro.blog. For anyone interested in maintaining their own web presence, the bar to entry is low with domain registrations costing under $10 a year and blog hosting as low as $1 a month..
One of the things that happens over time to all websites is link rot. Linking to news articles and other bloggers invariable results in links breaking over time as companies go out of business, switch URLs or simply remove content. It can be frustrating to people visiting a site to run into many broken links and if you are interested in appearing in search engine results, you'll find that sites with link rot get downgraded.
Integrity, an app under continuous development since 2007 and was updated just this week. On a domain I own that contains two blogs, the crawler found 1717 pages and 3498 links. There were about a dozen 404 errors from websites that had closed down and social media posts that had been deleted. I also found an issue with Cloudflare and the way my blog host handles hashtags that led me to open a ticket.
Integrity is a free link checker best suited for personal blogs or smaller websites. The same developer has similar tools for professional use. More features and options such as exporting your data, authentication (logging in), managing multiple sites, sitemap generation, SEO checks, spelling & grammar are all available in two related apps; Integrity Plus and Scrutiny. Here is a comparison of major features
Integrity is available from the developer's website or the Mac App Store.
Integrity - Free Link Checker
Use the free tool, Integrity,
to quickly crawl an entire domain or subdomain and check every link on
each page within. See a report listing the URL of each page and see the
server response code for all internal and external links found. From
within Integrity you can quickly jump to any page within the domain and
with the text of the broken link highlighted.
As corporate owned social media becomes more toxic and advertising invades every space available, more and more people are adopting the ethos of the Indie Web movement and creating their own websites in the form of personal blogs hosted on various independent platforms. Some opt for WordPress sites with complicated plugins and CDN management, while others use services that are basically online editors that operate like word processors with a "publish" button, like Micro.blog. For anyone interested in maintaining their own web presence, the bar to entry is low with domain registrations costing under $10 a year and blog hosting as low as $1 a month..
One of the things that happens over time to all websites is link rot. Linking to news articles and other bloggers invariable results in links breaking over time as companies go out of business, switch URLs or simply remove content. It can be frustrating to people visiting a site to run into many broken links and if you are interested in appearing in search engine results, you'll find that sites with link rot get downgraded.
Integrity, an app under continuous development since 2007 and was updated just this week. On a domain I own that contains two blogs, the crawler found 1717 pages and 3498 links. There were about a dozen 404 errors from websites that had closed down and social media posts that had been deleted. I also found an issue with Cloudflare and the way my blog host handles hashtags that led me to open a ticket.
Integrity is a free link checker best suited for personal blogs or smaller websites. The same developer has similar tools for professional use. More features and options such as exporting your data, authentication (logging in), managing multiple sites, sitemap generation, SEO checks, spelling & grammar are all available in two related apps; Integrity Plus and Scrutiny. Here is a comparison of major features
Integrity is available from the developer's website or the Mac App Store.
I rode by this house a thousand times on my bicycle before ever stopping to realize how cool it looks. Located on River Road, near Wade, NC on a farm bordering the Cape Fear River.
What Happens When You Read Too Many Books on Habits
In the fall of 2017 I got the urge to investigate self-improvement in a methodical and purposeful way after reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin, an Ivy League educated attorney and former Supreme Court law clerk who gave all that up to become a writer. I wanted no part of any self-help, psychobabble, New Age flavored literature. I decided to come up with a plan based on scientific studies of practices that would improve my life physically and mentally. Some of the other books I read include:
- 10% Happier by Dan Harris
- Diet Cults: The Surprising Fallacy at the Core of Nutrition Fads and a Guide to Healthy Eating for the Rest of US by Matt Fitzgerald
- Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength by Roy F. Baumeister
- Never Let Go: A Philosophy of Lifting, Living and Learning by Dan John
- Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence by Daniel Goleman
- Thinking, Fast and Slow By Daniel Kaneman
By January 1, 2018, I was ready. I had a list of goals, spreadsheets, apps for tracking various habits and a folder of bookmarks on the idea of the quantified self. My primary goals were:
- Average walking four miles a day for the entire year, counting only purposeful walks and not steps taken in the course of the day.
- Get a minimum of 10,000 steps every day
- Close the rings on my Apple Watch activity tracker every day requiring at least 30 minutes of exercise, 800 calories burned and no prolonged sitting over 12 hours each day
- Meditate every day in a sitting position, alone using a timer
- Read 52 books
- Deadlift and squat 400 lbs
Out of pure stubbornness, I hit every one of those goals. I once had to go for a walk during a hurricane, but I managed to get my steps that day. I was blessed with good health the entire year, maintaining a healthy weight and dealing with my arthritis successfully.
It was fun, and I am glad that I did it, but it was not the happiest year of my life, which is what I was going for. It wasn't that it was bad, not at all, but it didn't elevate me to a new plane of existence or anything. It was a series of tasks that took self-discipline and dedication, not much different than other challenges I'd given myself through cycling or long-distance hiking. Wonder Woman was her usual awesome self. She never complained about the hours I spent walking or behind closed doors on my meditation pillow or with my nose stuck in a book.
I continued some habits deep into 2019. It wasn't until August of that year that I broke the streak of 10,000-step days and closed activity rings. My arthritis flared up significantly in the spring. Between the uncaring attitude at my orthopedist's office and the weaponized incompetence and malevolence of my insurance provider, I dealt with untreated chronic pain for months while fighting to get the treatment I was entitled to. I ended up as depressed as I'd been in years, and bitter that creating the perfect set of habits hadn't made me immune to the black dog that has hounded me since my 20s.
I'm all for anyone doing the things I did. I believe in the benefits of exercise, meditation and mental improvement. My experience is that none of those things are miraculous cures or preventatives for the slings and arrows that life can throw at you.
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Believe It or Not!
I don't want to brag about my trivia knowledge, but if the British government ever finds out How good I am, they will probably ban me from the country to keep me from showing up and winning all the pub quizzes. I have studiously been assimilating useless knowledge since I was old enough to read. At a young age, I was a recognized expert on Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster and the Bermuda Triangle. I've written previously about my multiple readings of the Guinness Book of World Records. Another series of books from my younger days played a big part with my fascination in knowledge that won't do anything more than give you something to talk about is the Ripley's Believe it or Not books. The series started as single panel newspaper features by American cartoonist and amateur anthropologist Robert Ripley.
Although Ripley died more than 75 years ago, the franchise he started is still going strong with museums, known as odditoriums all over the world and books still in print.
Today on Ripley's Believe It or Not - Comics by Ripley’s Believe It or Not! - GoComics
Ripley's Believe It or Not! - YouTube
Ripley’s “Believe it or Not!” – fact check – Ramblings
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DEVONagent Lite - Free Tool to Increase Search Productivity
If you do much research in your browser, and you're past the stage where you just use Google everything, DEVONagent Lite gives you keyboard quick access to seventeen different categories of reference material, most of them with multiple sources to choose from. No longer do you need to find your browser bookmark for the website you want to use for search. You type your query right in the menu bar of macOS, choose the category and site you would like to search, and press enter. The resulting page opens in your default browser.
The search categories and some of the most useful sites are:
- Search - Google, Brave, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo
- Apple - App Store, Knowledge Base, Mac Update
- Blogs
- Computer Science - GitHub, StackOverflow
- Dictionaries - Onelook, Wiktionary, Info Please
- Directories - Open Directory, WoW, Yahoo Directory
- Discussion Lists - Yahoo Answers
- Government - USA.gov, Firstgov.gov
- Images & Videos - Google Video, Picsearch, YouTube
- Legal - Google Scholar, FindLaw
- Medical - FDA, HeathFinder, PubMed, WebMD
- News - BBC, Google News, Reuters
- Patents - US Patent Office, Google Patents
- References - British Library, Gutenburg.org, Wikipedia
- Science
- Shopping - Amazon
- Social Networking - Facebook Profiles
You cannot add or remove search sites in the free version, nor can you directly access any type of AI. DEVON offers an express version of the app with a few more features for $4.99 and a pro version for $49.99. You can check out the features for each version at the DEVON web site.
DEVONagent Lite - Free Tool to Increase Search Productivity
If you do much research in your browser, and you're past the stage where you just use Google everything, DEVONagent Lite gives you keyboard quick access to seventeen different categories of reference material, most of them with multiple sources to choose from. No longer do you need to find your browser bookmark for the website you want to use for search. You type your query right in the menu bar of macOS, choose the category and site you would like to search, and press enter. The resulting page opens in your default browser.
The search categories and some of the most useful sites are:
- Search - Google, Brave, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo
- Apple - App Store, Knowledge Base, Mac Update
- Blogs
- Computer Science - GitHub, StackOverflow
- Dictionaries - Onelook, Wiktionary, Info Please
- Directories - Open Directory, WoW, Yahoo Directory
- Discussion Lists - Yahoo Answers
- Government - USA.gov, Firstgov.gov
- Images & Videos - Google Video, Picsearch, YouTube
- Legal - Google Scholar, FindLaw
- Medical - FDA, HeathFinder, PubMed, WebMD
- News - BBC, Google News, Reuters
- Patents - US Patent Office, Google Patents
- References - British Library, Gutenburg.org, Wikipedia
- Science
- Shopping - Amazon
- Social Networking - Facebook Profiles
You cannot add or remove search sites in the free version, nor can you directly access any type of AI. DEVON offers an express version of the app with a few more features for $4.99 and a pro version for $49.99. You can check out the features for each version at the DEVON web site.
I’m curious to see how many of you well-traveled types can identify the location of the mural.
Winning with the Kiddos
Aren't Saturday's amazing? I don't work on Saturdays. I get up whenever I want, usually early and spend my morning writing and doing the kind of tech chores I enjoy: curating photographs, adding entries to Day One Journal, perusing my saved articles on Pocket and via RSS and scrolling through the feeds of my favorite people on Mastodon and Bluesky.
After a couple of hours of that this morning, Wonder Woman and I made a drive across town to pick up the only three of our grandchildren who live close by: 12-year-old Forrest, 10-year-old Harper and 7-year-old Tristen. Despite their age, we still collectively refer to them as "The Babies." When we arrived, they came busting out the front door before our car even came to a complete stop. Obviously, all three of them were standing by the front window just waiting for us to get there. Their Mom came out to say goodbye and then the rest of us were off.
The first stop was Zorba's, our neighborhood diner, which the kids call "The Pancakes," after one of their favorite breakfast choices. Tristen is mostly just a little carnivore, though. When the waitress asked him what he wanted, he looked here in the eye and said "Sausage." She asked if he wanted any grits or eggs to go with it. He thought for a minute and said, "Bacon." That's what he got, too.
We only live a couple of blocks away, so we were home immediately after we ate.Forrest teases me because my preferred perch on the couch is well-worn and obvious. All my electronic gear is on the table beside where I sit, along with coffee cups, screen wipes, and other items he relates to me. Every once in a while, he will jokingly try to climb into my spot, which generally prompts me to ask him if he's lost his mind.
We all just hung out in the living room and talked for a few hours. They told us about school, their Dad's new puppy, and who had been mean to who lately. All of them aspire to be Internet superstars and content creators. Harper already has a private TikTok channel which is shared with just us and a couple of friends. She makes videos of herself doing random things. She disappeared for a while later in the day, and we all assumed she was off in another room making a video.
In a couple of hours they were hungry again, wanting Mexican for lunch, which I was delighted to oblige. I have to work a little on Tristen's cultural sensitivity. Not only does he order chicken fingers and fries, he also complained today because the music was in Spanish and he couldn't understand it. He likes the Latino kids he goes to school with and can correctly use the Spanish pronunciation of their names, so I don't think he has ant budding MAGA tendencies, thank God.
After lunch, we went to see Mufasa: the Lion King, as promised. You have to pass a huge candy store on the way to the theater's front door, and we did not even try to skip past it. We let them get a grab bag and put it in the car before the movie started. We still got popcorn too! The kids all tease me about my proclivity for frequent naps, which I take any time at any place. I didn't know that today they'd already told their Mom they thought I'd fall asleep in the theater with it's soft reclining seats. They were right, or course. Wonder Woman punched me so many times for snoring that my shoulder is sore.
By the time the movie was over, they were ready to go back and see their Mom, who they all adore. We do too. As we pulled into their neighborhood, they pointed to houses for sale and suggested point-blank that we buy one of them because obviously, we want to live closer to them, right? Wonder Woman and I have only been back home for a couple of hours, and I am already looking forward to the next time we can go see The Babies again.
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If you are ever in Norfolk, VA, stop by the Zoological Park and see this little guy. You can walk right through the red panda exhibit, where he lives in a huge oak tree and looks down at visitors all day.
Tech Product Grab Bag
After discussing it for the last 12 years, my wife decided to begin scanning multiple albums of old family photos so that we could some to our new Aura frame and back them all up to the cloud - in three different places: iCloud, Google Photos and Amazon Photos. Our 12-year-old Scan Snap 1300i was not up to the job of scanning hundreds of snapshots. The images had lines in them and the process was slow. It was time to find a new scanner that could handle the assignment without venturing into pro territory, which we didn't need.
I also had some accumulated gift card credit and took the opportunity to cross quite a few things off my wish list.(These are not affiliate links. I'm not trying to make any money, just sharing gear siggestions.)
- Aura Mason WiFi Digital Picture Frame - My favorite gift in ages. All my kids have rights to add photos to is and that's where they share new images of my grandkids. I probably ask my wife to look at the currently displayed picture 50 times a day.
- Plustek Photo Scanner ePhoto Z300 - Our new scanner processes a standard photo in two seconds and automatically straightens any that go through crooked. It was a breeze to set up and configure.
- VENA vCommuteX for iPhone 15 Pro Max Wallet Case (MagSafe Compatible) - I've never used mag safe charging because I like using a case on my phone where I can keep credit cards. This case lets me do both.
- Magnetic Wireless Mag-Safe Charging Station - Cable management and device charging has been a pain in the butt since forever. This is a single stand using one cord and it will charge my iPhone, Apple Watch and AirPods.
- Anker USB C Cable, 4 ft 2-in-1 USB C to USB C Cable 140W Max - I've never been let down by Anker products and this two-headed cord will let me charge my laptop and phone from a charger with a single USB-C out port.
- Macally Wireless Bluetooth Keyboard for Mac - I prefer a full sized keyboard when using my iMac. The legacy Apple keyboard I've been using has an oddly placed Fn key and req1uires a USB-A connection. This MacAlly keyboard moves the FN key. It's wiress and it can connect to up to three devices at a time, useful to me since I often set up new laptops for customers while sitting at my desk.
- Wurkkos FC11 EDC Flashlight 1300Lumen Rechargeable - I've been wanting a pocket flashlight to add to my EDC and this one was recommended by several Internet friends. It recharges with a USB-C cable and is remarkably bright and useful for working in dim switch closets and when crawling under desks.
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This Week's Bookmarks - 2025 Books, Beans and Greens, 10 New Museums, 2025 Movies from Books, Trump's MAGA Makeover, Reddit Bans on X, Roman Emperor with Shortest Reign
Thrilling debuts to big-name authors: 40 of the most exciting books to read in 2025 - From the most anticipated literary debuts to the return of heavyweights like Stephen King and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, there's plenty to add to your TBR pile this year.
Barbecue Beans and Greens Recipe | Food Network Kitchen | Food Network - Easy, full-flavored sides are a must for your summer cookout rotation. This side features canned black eyed peas, punched up with spicy barbecue sauce and smoky bacon. Frozen chopped collards are a great convenience product which melt into this saucy side dish.
Ten Must-See Museums Opening Around the World in 2025 | Smithsonian - New institutions dedicated to artificial intelligence, West African art, barbeque and more are expected to welcome visitors this year
The Most Anticipated Book Adaptations of 2025: Movies and TV Shows - The New York Times - Hilary Mantel's "The Mirror and the Light," a new "Bridget Jones" and Michael Bond's Paddington Bear series are some of this year's most anticipated adaptations.
Trump executive orders list: What orders did Trump sign on first day - President Trump is carrying out his pledge to give the U.S. a MAGA makeover by signing a slew of executive actions in his first week that erase progressive policies and fulfill his poisonous campaign promises
More than 50 Reddit communities ban X links to protest Musk - The cascade of link bans came after Musk made a a Nazi salute, which many cited in their protests, among other things.
Which Emperor had the Shortest Reign? - by James Coverley - Over the past few weeks, we've looked at some interesting details about Roman emperors - how old they were, on average, how many of them were assassinated and so on - and today, we're answering a reader's question about which of them ruled for the shortest amount of time.
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The RSS Feed for AppAddict Has Changed
For those of you who are regular readers of AppAddict, I changed
the domain name to something easier to remember . Old links will still
work but if you use an RSS reader, you’ll need to resubscribe. I really
appreciate everyone who stops by.
The RSS Feed for AppAddict Has Changed
For those of you who are regular readers of AppAddict, I changed
the domain name to something easier to remember . Old links will still
work but if you use an RSS reader, you’ll need to resubscribe. I really
appreciate everyone who stops by.
Video Converter - All-in-One Video Conversion
One of the websites I keep an eye on for new to me software is Thriftmac, which currently has a
library of 428 categorized free Mac apps with short descriptions and
links to developer sites or the Mac App Store. That's where I found
today's app.
If you need a nice, simple , easy to use GUI front end for FFMpeg, , the free offering from developer Justin Bush, Video Converter - All-in-One Video Conversion is an easy to access choice, Available in the Mac App Store this app has a simple drag and drop interface.
To use the app, first drop the video file to be converted into its holding area. The options are:
-
Output formats are suitable for use on AirPlay, iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Cast, Xbox, PlayStation, YouTube and web hosting
• MP4
• MKV
• M4V
• MOV
• WEBM
• AVI
• GIF -
Codecs
• H.264
• H.265 (HEVC)
• MPEG-4
• VP8
• VP9
• Apple ProRes -
Quality
• Auto (with transmuxing)
• Balanced
• Better Quality
• Smaller Size
• ProRes Profiles
The app allows you to AirPlay your BluRay movie without sacrificing 4K quality or immersive Dolby Digital Surround Sound. It is capable of handling up to 8K video. If you input a video file with 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound for your home theater system, your output video will retain that ultra-quality format.
User reviews praise the app for its ease of use and speed on Apple Silicon, for which it is optimized. One reviewer noted that the app did not carry over subtitles or chapter markers. It also doesn’t have any features for upscaling.
You can view the source code on GitHub. The most recent update was in November 2024. The app has been in development for three years.
Video Converter - All-in-One Video Conversion
One of the websites I keep an eye on for new to me software is Thriftmac, which currently has a
library of 428 categorized free Mac apps with short descriptions and
links to developer sites or the Mac App Store. That's where I found
today's app.
If you need a nice, simple , easy to use GUI front end for FFMpeg, , the free offering from developer Justin Bush, Video Converter - All-in-One Video Conversion is an easy to access choice, Available in the Mac App Store this app has a simple drag and drop interface.
To use the app, first drop the video file to be converted into its holding area. The options are:
-
Output formats are suitable for use on AirPlay, iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Cast, Xbox, PlayStation, YouTube and web hosting
• MP4
• MKV
• M4V
• MOV
• WEBM
• AVI
• GIF -
Codecs
• H.264
• H.265 (HEVC)
• MPEG-4
• VP8
• VP9
• Apple ProRes -
Quality
• Auto (with transmuxing)
• Balanced
• Better Quality
• Smaller Size
• ProRes Profiles
The app allows you to AirPlay your BluRay movie without sacrificing 4K quality or immersive Dolby Digital Surround Sound. It is capable of handling up to 8K video. If you input a video file with 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound for your home theater system, your output video will retain that ultra-quality format.
User reviews praise the app for its ease of use and speed on Apple Silicon, for which it is optimized. One reviewer noted that the app did not carry over subtitles or chapter markers. It also doesn’t have any features for upscaling.
You can view the source code on GitHub. The most recent update was in November 2024. The app has been in development for three years.
Hard times are coming, when we’ll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope. We’ll need writers who can remember freedom. –Ursula K. Le Guin
Last year, Wonder Woman took her sister on a trip to Scotland to celebrate her recovery from cancer. They toured the Isle of Skye and sent me this wonderful sunset picture. Enjoy.
