This is my new blog, entitled "Paul's Free Blog @ Tripod.com (paulquek888)", bearing the URL https://paulquek888.tripod.com/blog/ (in case you are reading a hardcopy-printout of this page) ...

    This blog is closely associated with "Paul's Free Website (Version 1.0) @ Tripod.com", which itself has the URL https://paulquek888.tripod.com/ and was actually one of my first websites, started way back in the last years of the last century.

    While I have begun to re-construct the https://paulquek888.tripod.com/ website, I have kept, for archive purpose, a copy at another URL, namely http://queksiewkhoon.tripod.com/ ...

    Anyway, it was a general website whereby I experimented hard-coding with the "hypertext markup language", or HTML.

    But as is the usual case, that single monolithic website evolved into several multifarious and specialised websites, including "Paul's Free E-Scrapbook" and sites on "thoughts-and-things", zen, scanned images (playing around with handheld as well as flatbed scanners), computers, angels, spiritual warfare, fave quotes, and so on and so forth.

    This is the way evolution works: a single entity mutating into several entities due to various interests, influences and pressures. After all, in the world of the Internet (or 'Net), one's interests easily expand into many directions, branches and realms, for the 'Net is a humongous storehouse of readily-retrievable data and information, both textual and multimedia (images, media/audio, video, etc.), including software and code.

    Then, also, the number of permutations and combinations of the changes and mutations tend to multiply and explode, until eventually the whole set of websites, blogs and other so-called "web objects" tend to take on a form of emergent quality -- much like "mind" is an "emergent property" of the complex conglomerate of brain cells (neurons) and connections among the dendrites, except that the level of complexity required for a truly "emergent property" has yet to manifest in the case of the entirety of websites, blogs and other web objects.

    The emergence and introduction of numerous new technologies, both 'Net-related and otherwise (including in communications and electronics) -- such as is obvious from the convergence of, say, communication technology (e.g., in personal communication devices such as cellular phones), broadcast technology (e.g., TV with Internet capability/connectivity; and personal computers with TV connectivity), in electonics (e.g., digital camera, digital music), and many, many areas -- also contributed to the proliferation of "web objects" (especially in the realms of audio and video), including my share of these in my websites and blogs and what-not's.

    Naturally, today's high level of interactivity on the Internet has led to the so-called Net 2.0 phenomenon, especially in the area of "social networking". This has continued to change the face of the internet, starting with the proliferation of email communication (perhaps to rival "snail mail"), blogs (or weblogs), community portals (e.g., Facebook, MySpace, PerfSpot), peer-to-peer networking (of which Napster was an early portend of things to come -- and perhaps to end?), online gaming, uploadable audio-video depositories (e.g., YouTube, Flickr, Webshots' "community photos" section), and the like.

    All in all, one can easily say that the 'Net has so far been an interesting and fascinating journey and -- despite the increase in the level of commitment required to maintain the websites and blogs and what-not's -- the 'Net promises to continue to remain interesting and fascinating. The future suggests, portends, and beckons with more and more of the new and newer!

    'Nuff said!