That Funky Webmonkey is Alive!
While I was in college a good friend of mine put me onto a website called webmonkey.com to begin learning about web design and development. I was rather a novice to web design and the site had a lot to offer beginners as well the skilled. I used it often but then it went dormant one day and no more new content appeared one the site and for all practical purposes died but the site it’s content remained online. Sometimes I’d find it popping up in search results when I’d google for a tutorial or look for code but as time marched on the tutorials became more and more outdated as new web standards became commonplace and Web 2.0 revamped much of how the web is structured. The webmonkey was all but dead… hanging on by a thread of existence… motionless floating in the space of the internet.
Then today I picked up the latest issue of Wired magazine only to find an advertisement stating that the webmonkey is back! It appears that the site which was once driven by webdevelopers who may have been paid for their contributions is now seemingly an open-source site where you, the reader-user and designer-developer, can post your own articles, tips and tricks about designing and developing for the web. The ad says the newly remodeled site has tutorials, beginner’s guides, cheat sheets, daily news, tips and tricks for designers and developers.
So… if you’ve been feeling lost without your webmonkey or you’ve never been introduced… you’re in luck because he is indeed alive and back with his trusty orange wrench ready to wreak havoc, um I mean… teach you a thing or two about designing and developing your own content for the web and this time around allowing you to share your webmonkeying expertise with the rest of us!
No commentsIs Bill Gates afraid of Gmail?
The first web based email I ever used was Hotmail. I used it exclusively for years until a tech savvy friend of mine sent me an invitation to create a Gmail account. I had reached my 2 MB limit with Hotmail at the time and was tired of trying to manage my inbox so I created the account and started trying it out. I became so enamored with the amount of free storage, fast interface, and ease of using Gmail that I eventually switched completely. Though at first I was switching back and forth between the two accounts trying to keep them both going but eventually my Hotmail account expired.
Recently I reactivated my old Hotmail account and because I found that some people were still trying email me through it. To make things simpler for myself I wanted to set my Hotmail to forward messages over to my Gmail account so I wouldn’t miss out on those people who inadvertently continue to use my old Hotmail address.
So, I fumbled around for about 10 minutes until I finally found the forwarding option under the “more options” link under the “options” button. Yet another reason I don’t use Hotmail anymore. Anyhow, I forge ahead and plug in my trusty Gmail address as the forwarding address and hit the save button upon which I am greeted by the following message;
“You’re only able to forward mail to a custom domain or an e-mail address that ends in hotmail.com, msn.com, or live.com. Please try again.” (Click here to see for yourself)
“Are you kidding me?”, I gaffed aloud at the screen.
This must really show that Bill Gates knows his new Windows Live™ Hotmail is worthless. I thought, “Well lets see if Gmail will allow me to forward emails to Hotmail.” I sign in, go to forwarding, plug it the Hotmail address and hit save… No problem! I know Google and Microsoft are at odds with one another but this is definitely a telltale litmus test that shows whose really afraid of who.
I guess I could short circuit the anti-Gmail feature by forwarding my Hotmail to a custom domain and then forwarding it from there to my Gmail account but this begs the question, “Why is Hotmail making my life harder while Gmail is making my life easier?” Could it be that Bill is feeling threatened by Gmail?
What do you think?
