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Essays about the World-Wide-Web (WWW)

The Articles

Choice of Document Formats

About the choice of various document formats available today for publishing on the web.

Create a Great Personal Homesite

Why and how to create a great personal homesite.

Revision 2

Revision 2, published in 2009, with many updates, and corrections:

It’s amazing how much has changed since I’ve published this article a few years ago. The most important trend was probably that personal blogs seem to have become much more prevalent than personal web-sites up to the point that some people referred to www.shlomifish.org as a blog. I have been annoyed at this to some extent, and even wrote an entire essay about the distinction between a home page and a blog and why this homepage is not a blog.

Nevertheless, as an active blogger, it’s not that I hate blogs or try to underrate them - it’s just that I think that I invest more effort and rigour in writing articles or essays on my home page, than I do on the various random stuff I post to my blogs. (Or to other similar public channels, such as mailing lists, web forums, comments on other people’s blogs, etc.). I also feel that it is easier to find posts on my personal web-site than on most people’s blogs.

Homepage vs. Blog

About the difference between a homepage and a blog and why this site is a homepage.

Reflections on Online Communities

Do’s and Don’t’s for online communities - how to structure them and grow a community.

The “Use qmail instead” syndrome

Someone has a problem with technology A and other people tell him to use technology B instead. Please don’t do that.

Which Open Source Wiki Works for You?

An overview of some popular open-source wiki engines.