skoda.net

I’m always fascinated by the flexibility of layered networking  models.   Here is the physical layer of the OSI model using Bongo drums, while still running a proper network stack with TCP/IP.  This rules!  http://eagle.auc.ca/~dreid/

The impending replacement of my main computer has me planning out what things to load and what things to leave behind and as I look at the list of things that I want to put on my machine I wonder if I’m starting to fall behind technically or if I’m simply so used to specific programs that I don’t need to adapt to the newer-better-faster application.

The things that are tops on the list: vim, TeTeX, nmh and WindowMaker.

It struck me as odd that I’d be putting these things on a Macbook Pro that already has Xcode, iWork, Mail and a GUI, but I’m so used to being able to fire off a quick email from the command line or using one of the LaTeX templates for reports, memos, lab handouts, quizzes, exams or articles.

In many ways I’m an early adopter but there are a few core programs that I cling to in the same way that a child clings to a worn out blanket. I wonder if I shouldn’t use this opportunity to break from my dependence on very old programs…

Back in the golden age of the Internet and web 0.9, those people who were lucky enough to have a routable IP address on their desktop workstation used NSCA’s or Netscape’s web server and built their own web pages. skoda.com started out as a single index.html, written in vi, served off a DEC Alpha workstation named mina running OSF/1.

The down side of doing this desktop web server was that I had to run my own DNS, my own Web server, write my own content, and do my own UNIX system admin. Not really a down side for me, since I’m a UNIX admin, who enjoys managing Internet services, while writing html pages. For most normal people, that’s an awful lot of work that they may not want to go through to post a few pages on-line.

I’m often surprised at the cyclical nature of the computer industry. Terminals connected to mainframes give way to PCs connected to each other, gives way to web browsers connected to web servers. Now it looks like Opera is hoping to move back toward the desktop webserver circa 1996.

It’s an interesting idea and I like the de-centralized concept. I remember those days of running services on my workstation as a fun time of wild experimentation. I don’ know if today’s Internet will be as fun and safe as 1996. I hope Opera has put in some hefty security measures for Unite, we’ll need them.