Found History

Jeremy over at ClioWeb has taken a tip from the “Design is …” wallpaper pool at Flickr and started a “History is …” pool for all us digital history geeks. I can’t claim Jeremy’s prodigious design skills, but I want to be supportive, so here’s my contribution. 1024×768 1280×1024 1440×900 1600×1200 It’s the weekend, so [...]

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Many of you know that over the past year or so CHNM has been trying to secure funding for History Here, a project designed to provide improved access to Virginia’s roadside historical markers through cell phones and other mobile devices. My primary interest in this project is the mobile angle—I think it’s well past time [...]

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Like many enthusiast communities, the legion of Mac users seems particularly interested in its history and in the history of its cause: the Apple computer. This takes the form of both casual interest by ordinary users (e.g. “Early Apple sound designer Jim Reekes corrects Sosumi myth” and “Steve and Steve in 1976″) and also more [...]

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If you ever have eight or ten hours to kill, check out CoverPop.com, a new mashup site and a goldmine of found history. According to the site’s operators, Each coverpop is an interactive mosaic, made of tiny images, such as magazine covers. These are called “micro thumbnails”. As you drag the mouse over each micro [...]

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We have seen before how timelines are a particularly attractive mode of historical production among non-professionals, perhaps especially among those interested in computer history. Here’s another example. French programmer Eric Levenez has assembled an impressive collection of incredibly detailed techie timelines and sets of annotated links. The most recent is his Unix History. The most [...]

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This one comes from Found History reader Tim, who wanted to hear my thoughts on NPR’s recent story about the Museum of Online Museums (MOOM), a directory of online collections. Aside from being a treasure trove of found history, MOOM raises the question—at least for NPR’s editors—of what constitutes a museum. Should we or should [...]

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I finally took the plunge and switched from MovableType to WordPress. So far, I’m very happy. I had a few hiccups with with the .htaccess file, I had to manually carry over and re-upload some of my images, and the theme still needs some work, but otherwise I’m really surprised by how easy the whole [...]

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Unsurprisingly, the anniversary just passed has prompted widespread historical reflection among the popular media. More surprising is the fact that much of this thinking has taken the form of virtual, or alternative, or speculative history: musings about what might have happened had 9/11 never occurred or what might still happen as the aftermath of that [...]

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