Erik_
So much good/bad stuff from back then.
Wed Jul 05, 2023 2:28am

I miss the days of people actually creating their own website/homepage. Just using QB as an example, there were so many random sites that had maybe a handful of programs someone wrote that aren't hosted anywhere else that have now been lost to the sands of time. We have archive.org but most of the time the downloads don't work on there (even more so for stuff pre-2000). It's pretty cool that Lycos is keeping the old Angelfire and Tripod pages alive so the sites still work, or at least as well as they did before being abandoned.

I don't think it was Neocities doing that. Neocities came in to fill the gap that Geocities left but a few years later. People don't seem to be interested in making their own little places on the web as much anymore so while there's some cool stuff hosted on Neocities, it's still tiny compared to free simple hosts of the past.

https://geocities.ws/ was one that I remember that was archiving all of Geocities (aside from archive.org). I don't think they got NE or not all of it at least. A lot of archives just have my 'Website Down' version of the NE Geocities site due to most archives being from ~2007 or so. Also, I had a bunch of sub websites in sub directories that never made it to any archives. There's I think a blip of my Resident Evil Total Conversion for Duke Nukem 3d, my old skateboarding website, and pieces of the Wry & Doomed Qbasic projects pages on archive.org. I also had a video game review website that actually had a good amount of reviews that's gone (I used to post them to gamefaqs.com before making my own site) and old band websites that are also gone. I really should have just downloaded a copy of my Geocities account before it closed. I knew it was coming and didn't do it for some reason.

Welp... started rambling again!

  • Oh wow, those sites look old - Puckdropper, Tue Jul 04 2023 2:58am
    No mega menus, no navigation, no high CPU usage. I do like their simplicity, though! Wasn't it neocities that intentionally tried to archive all of Geocities? (And isn't there a NE somewhere, too?) I've left notes for me and gone back and tried to understand them... sometimes it doesn't work... more
    • So much good/bad stuff from back then.- Erik_, Wed Jul 05 2023 2:28am
      • Knowing you'll be left out of Google - Puckdropper, Wed Jul 05 2023 4:53pm
        and buried kills a lot of writing spirit. Everyone dreams of success in some form or another, it's rare that a site like NEMB survives with just two active people and another few that pop up every year or so. Hi Retna and Joe. I doubt you'll stumble on to Puckdropper's Place anywhere, even though... more
        • I didn't even think of that... - Erik_, Thu Jul 13 2023 9:05pm
          You're absolutely right. Back in the day, there was a decent chance to get new people finding your site via links or search engines. Now everything is condensed into Facebook, Reddit, discord, etc there's no chance really except for the few people who go out of their way to look. I know back when I... more
          • I'm now running an Ad on Facebook - Puckdropper, Sat Aug 05 2023 4:22am
            Trying to get more interested eyeballs on one of my models. We'll see if we get anything other than someone impersonating Facebook (uh "Meta") saying my page had been reported 7 times. (Funny, I reported the post to actual Facebook and they've left it up. I'm sure they would have taken it down by... more
            • A new retro web ring is a neat idea. - Erik_, Sun Aug 06 2023 1:27pm
              This Retro Website Web Ring site owned by $site_name . Want to join the Retro Website Web Ring ? [ Previous 5 Sites | Skip Previous | Previous | Next | Skip Next | Next 5 Sites | Random Site | List Sites ] That would sort of be fun to throw together.... more
              • Looks pretty easy, even for my rusty skills. - Puckdropper, Mon Aug 07 2023 3:58pm
                All you need is a database or CSV file with websites. When they click the link, you move them on. A preview would be nice. Maybe not the picture preview common on most sites, but just the title of the next page. "Next: Pete's QB Site" "Previous: Nukem Enterprises" I'm paying them... They're... more
          • Remember the excitement of finding a cool new website? - Puckdropper, Mon Jul 17 2023 3:32pm
            Someone would come across NEMB and be like "Wow, this guy's got a lot of stuff! Maybe I should call in sick?" Social media could be great, but my Facebook is 1 non-ad post, 2 ad posts, and then a bunch of nonsense while random things from days ago or randomly selected (but useless) posts from a few... more
            • Yeah it was great when you found something cool - Erik_, Sat Jul 22 2023 3:24pm
              Then spending the time checking out all the pages and usually saving the link somewhere to visit later again. Too bad a lot of times you end up finding a page and it was like 'wow I can't wait for this QB game to be released!' and then you see it hasn't been updated in a few years. Or worse, you find... more
              • I can't remember the last really cool site - Puckdropper, Mon Jul 24 2023 6:52pm
                I found. Well, it was probably priuschat.com Great for when you need information on the car, lots of discussion and minimal assorted junk. They saved me a few hundred dollars and weeks of down time by telling me which capacitors I needed to replace instead of having to take the car to the dealer for... more
                • I'm worried old.reddit.com will go away soon. - Erik_, Wed Jul 26 2023 11:32pm
                  They had the old flip phone mobile version of the site up and running up until they made the much hated API changes and silently killed it. It was pretty crap and I'm sure almost no one used it but it does seem to be completely dead now and redirects to the main site. Archive link as recent as 03/23:... more
                  • That's my worry too, but I do still see a lot of momentum - Puckdropper, Fri Jul 28 2023 5:03pm
                    on the old site. Is there a way to monetize things without ads or stupid gimmicks? Webapps do seem to be all the rage. I found one the other day that's a complete CAM program. (Takes a drawing and converts it to gcode.) Kiri:Moto. It was part of an open source package, so if I did really like... more
"Forces act when not restrained" - Puckdropper