In the context of all the website-looking and preparing updates, I've also installed a link checker on the blog. And, lo and behold, it has found broken links... quite a lot of them, actually.

About three hundred of them.

It makes me realise, once more, how short-lived quite a lot of things on the 'net are. Some of the links were easily fixed (old, abandoned blogspot profiles, for instance - I just unlinked them); some others pointed to sites that don't exist anymore but have an wayback archive link, which could be used. Finally, some are just going nowhere and there's no record of anything anymore.

This blog has been running since 2008, so it's a small wonder not all links are working anymore. Also, being around like this time here on the net, somehow I feel like that makes me a weirdly ancient something. It's a nice feeling, on the other hand, to be a weirdly ancient something still going on, and still there, and still blogging!

When I started out with my first steps on the 'net, with a little private homepage on Geocities, it was coding html by hand in a text editor. After starting pallia as a company, I did my website by hand as well. At that point, frames came up as the newest hot shit on the block.

Then there was the day when I looked for proper shop software, and found Joomla!, and consequently used that as well. That was also the point in time when I stopped doing everything myself, and instead relied on templates by others. I can sort of do CSS, but have never really practised it; I understand a tiny little bit of how php scripts work, but that's it, and I'm not up to writing anything from scratch anymore, and haven't been for a very long time.

Then the time came for the relaunch of blog, website, and shop all in one... then, a few years ago now, the big migration from one version of Joomla! to the next one, and soon that is going to happen again.

Things certainly stay interesting that way. And though it's a lot of work, and eats up quite some time, I'm still fairly happy with being my own IT department. After all, it means I have a good overview of what is up on my webspace, and lets me fix some things easily and quickly. Plus, admittedly, I think a lot of it is fun work too!