TODAY'S TOURBUS TOPIC: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOURBUS!

Woohoo! This month the Internet Tourbus turns 10 years old. So we'll do a little retrospective, look at some Internet history, and move on to the latest and greatest. Read on...

Back In My Day...

When Patrick and I began publishing Tourbus in July of 1995, the Internet was 25 years young, but the Web was a mere two-year-old. Our mission then, as now, was to highlight Internet resources that are cool, fun or useful, and to help people understand and use the Net safely.

Back then, it was still largely a text-only world, and we would have given anything for a 56K modem. Computers are now 50 times faster and sport hard drives that are 1000 times bigger. Spyware was unheard of. Spam was something that happened to other people. Internet Explorer did not yet exist.

Fast forward to 2005... we're still having a blast driving the world's biggest bus, and we have to say THANKS to those of you who have been faithful riders since Day One, to our sponsors who make this free newsletter possible, and to over 100,000 readers in 130 countries around the world. We appreciate your kind words of support and encouragement.

A History Lesson

The history of computing and the story of how the Internet came to be are fascinating subjects to me. But it's too big a story to tell here, so I've pulled together some excellent links that you can use to explore it at your leisure.

The HISTORY OF COMPUTING PROJECT offers a timeline of the major events in the history of computers, biographies of computer pioneers, and even a history of video games.

http://www.thocp.net/

HOBBES' INTERNET TIMELINE gives a brief history of Internet milestones from 1957 to present.

http://www.zakon.org/robert/internet/timeline

"WHERE WIZARDS STAY UP LATE: THE ORIGINS OF THE INTERNET" tells the story of the origins of the Internet, based on interviews with the people who made it happen. Perhaps you've never heard of Bob Taylor, Vint Cerf or J.R. Licklider but after reading this book you'll want to thank them. Search for the book here:

http://www.bestwebbuys.com/books/compare/isbn/0684832674

Snapshots of the Web

The Internet Archive has been taking "snapshots" of Internet sites since 1996 and stashing them away for posterity. To date, more than 10 billion pages have been stored in the Internet Archive's database.
Using the Wayback Machine is a wonderful walk down memory lane if you've been online for a few years.

http://www.archive.org/

Back to the Future

Two questions I see often on my AskBobRankin site are "Why does it take so long for my computer to start up?" and "Why is my computer running slower than it used to?"

I have this theory that sludge builds up inside a computer over time, much like an automobile engine. After a while, it doesn't start right up like when it was new, it stalls unexpectedly, and performance is sluggish on the (information) highway. Wouldn't it be nice if there was something like engine cleaner you could pour into your PC to restore that "like new" performance?

Well voila! My new recipe for Cyber Sludge Remover is guaranteed to make your computer start quicker and run faster. And of course you can get it at no charge. Read my article "Making Windows XP Start Faster" and then tell me how it worked for you.

http://www.AskBobRankin.com

Pop in and browse around, you'll find details on this topic and other questions as well.

That's all for now, see you next time! -- Bob Rankin