Entry of an Era

This post goes out to all of you who were around for the 'invention' of the internet.  If someone were introduced to the internet today, they would learn that email is something everyone should have -maybe even 2 or 3 accounts.  If you want to find information just 'google' it.  Yes, google is now a verb.  I expect Webster to update their archives.  Although Webster seems to be a thing of the past along with Britannica.  The internet today is something we all utilize for information and for entertainment.  But we who witnessed the birth of email and Google remember an internet no one from here on out will ever experience.  I remember wanting the new 56k modem to get the fastest download speed.  Going to the kitchen while I wait for my web page to load, only to find it is still downloading images when I got back.  I had a Netzero account back when Netzero believed in paying zero for the net.  Unless of course you didn't want to stare at an advertisement that took up the top 10% of your screen.  Oh, and downloading a download manager so that I could pause my download in case my upgrade of Netscape Navigator got interrupted by a phone call.

I think the thing that will live on the longest are all of the colorful emails.  I'm sure you received at least 10 different chain emails that promised you bad luck if you didn't forward this to at least 10 people in the next five minutes.  I remember at least 3 about me emails that I always felt a little guilty about not returning.  Someone else was giving away $1 for each person you send this email to.  As if it were somehow traceable.  And how can anyone forget the millions of amateur comedians that would broadcast their new material in the form of spam.  I admit these were some of my favorites.  I actually printed out emails full of jokes.  I'm sure you remember the "what to say to telemarketers" email.  My favorite telemarketer response was to the soliciting carpet cleaning company. 
   "Can you get out goat blood? Human blood too?"
As a computer geek I always loved the tech support emails. A man would call into tech support complaining of a broken cup holder and finally as the customer describes his "8x speed cup holder" a confused representative would realize his "cup holder" is actually a cd-rom tray. I will refrain from commenting on just how absolutely preposterous this scenario is. Another tech support rep would take a call from a customer wondering where the 'any key' was.  The virus scare emails were the best though. I once got an email that told me about a virus that would do me a long list of  wrongs from erasing my hard drive to causing my refrigerator to malfunction!  The funniest part to me is that it was such a new technology that I'm sure more than a few readers believed it and forwarded it on to their friends as a warning. 

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                             (o o)
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So as we send emails and share photos with daily updates of our lives, let us not forget that we witnessed a part of history that a lot of people will never get a chance to experience in the same way.  We were not only witnesses but participants in the beginning of a new avenue of communication and information that changed the way the world works.