The first reviews -- a batch of forty-five -- were posted at the complete review fifteen years ago today, on 5 April 1999.
Which is pretty much all I have to say -- I don't really know how to mark these (non-)occasions.
Perhaps the only thing to note/mention is that it strikes me more each passing year what a fragile and inconstant thing this Internet is, and if anything might impress about the site it would be its stability. After yet another day spent (like pretty much every day ...) updating links to outside reviews and information -- i.e. fixing broken links, trying to find moved pages, and cursing pretty much every webmaster of every newspaper/magazine/review/and, worst of all, publisher site -- (what is wrong with you people ? what is wrong with all of you ? do you not want people to have ready access to information ? not just this week but like for a reasonable length of time ?) -- the losing battle once again gets to me.
I know the complete review looks ridiculously antiquated -- but when I see what happens when sites update their look and (ha) functionality ... no thanks. But it's a problem, and a pain, because a big part of what I do at the complete review is link to outside sources of information and it's more than annoying (to me and, I'm sure, to you, when you click on yet another dead link) when very little of that proves to be very durable.
Ah, well, my exercise in futility will continue a while longer, but I have to admit that my enthusiasm does wane when I come across yet another pointless site re-jigging that does little more than render many (or all) links to the old version obsolete ..... (The Guardian had to change its URL from guardian.co.uk to theguardian.com ? That was worth it ? (And that was a relatively smooth transition -- far better than most.))
(It would help if Google did not continue to degrade before my eyes, from second- to third-rate search engine, with no viable (for my purposes) alternatives in sight ...... )
Still -- thanks, as always, for your continued interest and patronage; always appreciated.
Which is pretty much all I have to say -- I don't really know how to mark these (non-)occasions.
Perhaps the only thing to note/mention is that it strikes me more each passing year what a fragile and inconstant thing this Internet is, and if anything might impress about the site it would be its stability. After yet another day spent (like pretty much every day ...) updating links to outside reviews and information -- i.e. fixing broken links, trying to find moved pages, and cursing pretty much every webmaster of every newspaper/magazine/review/and, worst of all, publisher site -- (what is wrong with you people ? what is wrong with all of you ? do you not want people to have ready access to information ? not just this week but like for a reasonable length of time ?) -- the losing battle once again gets to me.
I know the complete review looks ridiculously antiquated -- but when I see what happens when sites update their look and (ha) functionality ... no thanks. But it's a problem, and a pain, because a big part of what I do at the complete review is link to outside sources of information and it's more than annoying (to me and, I'm sure, to you, when you click on yet another dead link) when very little of that proves to be very durable.
Ah, well, my exercise in futility will continue a while longer, but I have to admit that my enthusiasm does wane when I come across yet another pointless site re-jigging that does little more than render many (or all) links to the old version obsolete ..... (The Guardian had to change its URL from guardian.co.uk to theguardian.com ? That was worth it ? (And that was a relatively smooth transition -- far better than most.))
(It would help if Google did not continue to degrade before my eyes, from second- to third-rate search engine, with no viable (for my purposes) alternatives in sight ...... )
Still -- thanks, as always, for your continued interest and patronage; always appreciated.