snowing outside. it’s been snowing all nite. we’ve got at least 6 inches now. it’s been the biggest snow storm since the beginning of the winter. this winter is really not bad compare to other ones.

what do you do during a snow storm? i’ve been looking around at some blogs and saw more and more people are pulling their lives away from online. is your life interesting enough to always attract visitors to read and comment? i’ve been thinking about what exactly are readers attracted to. is something more emotional? or something more physical? or thoughts that people might share. it’s perhaps a combination of all. is it about fun and meaning. daynah told me that if her life is boring, she writes php lesson. what a great idea =) i wish i can be as dedicated as she is. it is strange how online journal/blog changed people’s perspectives about the internet. it brings it closer to your life than ever before. are people competing now because things like blogs, webcams, as well as webpages can give them the popularity that they could get in no other way in real life? or is webpage just a way to show one’s talent and compassion for its own purpose? is the meaning of journal changing now because of the internet? no personal journals can be as public before internet was made. one of these days, everyone will have a personal webpage. just like the purpose of internet changed from educational to commerical, it is moving toward personal too. no longer people only come online to shop, they also come online to read about other people’s lives. what a scary thought in a way but nevertheless true.

is it good? in a way. it brings you closer to people who you could never meet without the internet and also give you more opportunities to talk to your friends. but as more and more people start to join this online community, another form of competition and fighting for fame seem to emerge. of course just like in every other kind of community, you wish people to know you, support you and love you. it’s natural. now thinking of myself, the transition i went thru since i first encountered internet is also very interesting.

i first got internet access at home in early 1998. i used it mainly to write emails. i met a lot of chinese all over the world at the club yuan. i could not believe the understanding and trust i got from these friends. since my family life was constantly under struggle, i talked a lot to these friends. i used to write them snail mails in chinese. pages after pages. it’s amazing now to think about it. i have friends calling me from australia, europe, all over the US. these seemed to change a little after i started making webpages. i learned webpage making from my friend who lived in chicago. i started with aolpress. a very simple html making program which i downloaded for free. i made my first page that very night and the second day i already started to ask him how to make frames. my passion for webpage had never dimmed since.

creating webpages, i started to meet a different group of people online. people who shared the passion that i had. in those old days, i still remember kimi whose site was so unbelievably successful which i in a way followed as a role model. step by step, i started from tripod, to geocities, to crosswind, to be hosted by cafe lain and to getting my own domain. it was a trend many others followed, too. Many of, to me, the first generation left to pursue something different. of course there were those of us who stayed. i witnessed the change from people begging to be hosted to hosts begging for hostees. how strange, the world could be turned upside down just in a matter of years. now it’s blogs’ world, boards’ world. we have all kinds of gossip going on. as for me, all i wanted to do at the begining was to help people to learn html. did i keep up my goal? perhaps the existence of dnw can give me a little comfort here and there.

so where are we going next?