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From: Jeff Harrell <jeff@dmpl.com>
Date: 31 May 1997 19:57:41 -0400
Organization: Digital Media Performance Labs, Inc.

I thought I'd just take a minute to tell damn near everybody I know that
my web site, Jeff's World, <URL:http://jeff.dmpl.com>, is now officially
one year old.

(Actually, it turned one year old on April 13, 1997, about six weeks
ago. But I missed it. Sue me.)

Now, I don't mean to brag, but a year is a heck of a long time in
today's postfuturistic world of microwave ovens and cellular phones. In
postulating that the future would bring fifteen minutes of fame, Andy
Warhol grossly overestimated the attention span of your average
nineteen-year-old. In a world where you can't sit through a movie
without some part of your body beeping or vibrating, a lifespan measured
in years is astounding, even frightening.

Okay, I'll stop this before it turns into something the Unabomber would
read, and say, "Woah, man. Chill out."

Seriously, though, things were different a year ago. A year ago, no
government agency was trying to tell me what I could and couldn't put on
my brand-new web site. A year ago, it was possible to post something in
a public forum without being immediately deluged with forty pieces of
junk-email, advertising everything from the dubious to the pornographic.

A year ago, I was original. A quick search just turned up over a hundred
sites that use the name "Jeff's World." I'm wondering if I should sue.

It's been an interesting year, though. I remember how proud I was when I
received my first international visitor: around April 30 of last year,
somebody from Singapore peeked at my page in the middle of the night.
Suddenly, I felt like Ambassador to the World.

Since then, the list has grown longer. I've had visitors from Mexico,
China, Spain, Malaysia, Sweden, Australia, Germany, South Africa,
Norway, New Zealand, Russia, India, Israel, Venezuela, the United Arab
Emirates, Bosnia, Switzerland, the Ivory Coast, Burundi, Greece,
Madagascar, Latvia, Togo, and someplace called (I swear I'm not making
this up) "Svalbard and the Jan Mayen Islands," just to name a few.
Yesterday, somebody from Zaire stopped by, just in time for my server to
get all confused when the name changed to the "Democratic Republic of
Congo."

And it's not just the political world, either; it's the commercial
world. People from Boeing, AT&T, Nike, HP, Apple, Microsoft, Toyota,
Silicon Graphics, Ford, and the United States Navy have all goofed off
at work by looking at my site.

And the list is growing to the tune of about 300 people a day. Not a
ton, but I'm glad they're looking at my web site instead of calling my
house.

Man. It's enough to make you feel all swollen and self-important.

So anyway, that's about it. Earlier in the evening, I had some more
philosophical thoughts about the whole anniversary-thing, which you can
read here:

<URL:http://jeff.dmpl.com/about/one.html>

Drop by, and let me know what you think.


Jeff Harrell, System Application Engineer
Digital Media Performance Labs, Inc.

--
Kate McDonnell, moderator, comp.infosystems.www.announce
<www-announce@boutell.com>
Charter FAQ: <URL:http://vader.boutell.com/~grant/charter.html>



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