35 years ago today a determined 22-year-old unveiled a machine that would eventually revolutionize how everyone interacted with computers.

It was late spring, 1977, when the “two Steves” introduced the game-changing computer — the Apple II — to a curious world that, until this point, had regarded computers as the tools of egghead academics who, alone, understood the mysteries and complexities of operating a machine with an arcane language.

(image source: Engadget)

First, let me announce my own humble contribution to the Internet: my return to this long-dormant blog which has been a barren wasteland for far too long. But with my new site design and my current role as a Senior Copywriter I’m inspired to pick up the pen, so to speak, and continue from where I left off. So let’s just get back into it.

In case you blinked, online sharing has changed and evolved at lightspeed in just a handful of years. Hell, when I moved from New York to Sydney six years ago there was no Facebook, Google was for search only, forums were you befriended strangers online and YouTube was just a baby. Flash forward to today and it’s hard to avoid contributing your private thoughts, preferences, location and personal connections to a private, massive database; and while you don’t pay to do it the price you pay is that your information is up for sale to a horde of hungry buyers eager to learn all about who you really are — from the mom and pop business buying AdWords to governments monitoring your every contribution to the petabytes of information collected by privately-owned corporations whose interest is not to provide you with the best online experience but to satisfy its shareholders and investors.

Interesting article in USA Weekend about using online channels to “make your life better.” For the most part the sites mentioned are already well-known, but there are some other social networks tailored for specific interests and needs that are worth checking out.

The tweet life: Using social media to make your life better | USA WEEKEND | usaweekend.com.

Most of my young life is recorded on Kodachrome film. My dad, thankfully, captured most of his kids’ lives on one of several cameras (like me, he was a gadget guy, too) but, regrettably, not on video.

Having the moments of the last several years digitally captured and stored is great — for now. In time I think all these photos and videos I have amassed will somehow not endure as well as those old photos from my childhood. Hard drive failures (which I’ve lived through a few times), corrupt files and a host of other modern hazards of storing life digitally can sometimes not always be the best substitute for the so-called outdated technologies that, in essence, were working perfectly fine.

For Kodachrome Fans, Road Ends at Photo Lab in Kansas – NYTimes.com.

Apple continues to inspire both consumers and industry competitors with its brilliantly simple yet powerful products. Ars Technica takes a look back at some of 2010′s big stories.

A year in Infinite Loop: 2010′s most popular stories.

A while ago I did some writing for Suite 101, mostly as an exercise in research and writing for the Web. Here’s a snippet from a piece I wrote back in April, 2010 on Internet filtering in Australia:

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has created a blacklist of websites hosted outside of Australia that contain what it considers to be objectionable material not suitable for viewing. The ACMA calls this material “Refused Classification” (RC) and defines it depictions of child sexual abuse imagery, bestiality, sexual violence, detailed instruction in crime, violence or drug use and/or material that advocates the doing of a terrorist act.

Read the rest here.

Great video showing what people searched for in 2010. Hard to believe all this happened in just one year.