Comments on: The Year of the Monkey? Hardly

The Year of the Monkey? Hardly

planetkyoto — Sun, 29 Feb 2004 16:07:09 -0800

Ave, Webmonkey, old friend. You were a great source of new tricks for self-taught old dogs.

By: rough ashlar

rough ashlar — Sun, 29 Feb 2004 16:34:31 -0800

So where is the tarball of all the info the site has?

By: i_am_joe's_spleen

i_am_joe's_spleen — Sun, 29 Feb 2004 16:41:14 -0800

Yeah. Amen. Thau's Javascript tutorials in particular helped me enormously. And they were a great resource to point other people to. I ought to have been annoyed by their cutesy folksy cheesey tone, but I was too grateful.

By: krinklyfig

krinklyfig — Sun, 29 Feb 2004 17:36:33 -0800

Webmonkey was my textbook when I was learning development and design in the late '90s (in fact, I think I was reading and studying it from its beginnings), and I give them a lot of credit in being able to become employed professionally as a web developer. The people who wrote for them knew what they were talking about and weren't going to fall for the latest glitzy, unworkable trend in design. Unfortunately the dot burst not long after I moved to the Bay Area, and after being laid off three times in a year and a half, Fuckedcompany.com replaced Webmonkey as my most visited industry site of choice for a while. I must admit that Webmonkey's breezy, gee-whiz tone grated on my nerves after having my techie dreams shattered. Now I drive a tow truck for a living. I work less hours and make almost the same money, at least when it's busy (sometimes more). I still do web development on the side, and I still have an e-subscription to Webmonkey (guess that will end soon, with a whimper like everything else in the dot bomb world). However, it took a while before I wanted to work on any more websites after the third layoff and so haven't checked out the funky monkey much since then. Sort of makes sense that it's folding, as I, too, noticed that there was hardly any new content announced in each e-newsletter in the last year or two, if any at all. I do miss them days sometimes, but it's best to move on. Now, I am wondering if I should get my skillz up to snuff to become a network admin, which is much more my style than web development, which in its heyday became like a factory job on an assembly line, and the finished product was always just marketing copy when it came down to it. Ugh. Why didn't anyone tell me that web design was essentially a marketing position? Guess you figure it out sooner or later. Marketing was definitely not where I ever wanted to be. Still not sure if networking would be worth the time - I know most of it already from hacking around on my machines, and there is no great demand for it, especially for someone with no pro experience as a sysadmin on the resume. Ah well. For now I like driving around in my tow truck, helping people who are genuinely happy to see me when I show up. It's much less stressful, my boss is way cool as are most of my co-workers, and it's a good feeling knowing that, even during the slow periods, there's no chance I'll get laid off ... and I'm actually doing something people need. Imagine that. However, the industry mags and teaching tools for tow drivers aren't nearly as cool as Webmonkey was.

By: Slagman

Slagman — Sun, 29 Feb 2004 17:46:12 -0800

Wasn't there already a link on this?

By: gd779

gd779 — Sun, 29 Feb 2004 17:51:29 -0800

...

By: SweetIceT

SweetIceT — Sun, 29 Feb 2004 17:53:12 -0800

By: dg

dg — Sun, 29 Feb 2004 18:00:42 -0800

[this is very sad] For non-industry, non-tech people like me, WebMonkey has always been a good resource that bridged the gap between being too technical for dummies and too dumb for (mildly) technical people. A real shame, but no surprise, I guess.

By: RubberHen

RubberHen — Sun, 29 Feb 2004 18:29:37 -0800

Does tarball mean archive??

By: Hildago

Hildago — Sun, 29 Feb 2004 18:51:00 -0800

Editorial founder June Cohen described Webmonkey's voice as "the smart, sassy friend you wish you had." Why is June Cohen making fun of me?

By: cell divide

cell divide — Sun, 29 Feb 2004 18:57:35 -0800

I too relied on it in the earlier days...I hope the people who created it know that they helped a ton of people. They did great work and presented in a great way.

By: kaibutsu

kaibutsu — Sun, 29 Feb 2004 19:19:06 -0800

This is where I learned to do mouse roll-overs and image maps. oh, useless javascript of days now passed, how I doth miss thee...

By: Electric Jesus

Electric Jesus — Sun, 29 Feb 2004 20:44:17 -0800

Does tarball mean archive?? Yes, it's a term that Windows users employ in a vain attempt to not sound like Windows users. Those of us who are secure in ourselves use the term "zip file," or, as you said, "archive". At the end of the day, they're really all the same.

By: Mars Saxman

Mars Saxman — Sun, 29 Feb 2004 21:21:12 -0800

...or maybe it really does mean tarball, as in "an archive file generated by the unix 'tar' program", which would make sense given most web servers run some form of unix and thus many (most?) web people have at least a passing familiarity with such standard tools... ...anyway, yeah: I learned everything I know about CSS from Webmonkey. They were always the first place I looked for web design information. I'm sorry to hear they are gone, but not surprised; the time for that sort of new-media, new-economy coolness is long past.

By: spilon

spilon — Sun, 29 Feb 2004 21:36:01 -0800

sniff.

By: Dennis Murphy

Dennis Murphy — Sun, 29 Feb 2004 21:50:09 -0800

Wasn't there already a link on this? It was covered extensively about a week ago on every other blog in the world, but I think its the first time on mefi.

By: internook

internook — Mon, 01 Mar 2004 03:00:42 -0800

I'm a UNIX user and I refuse to say tarball.

By: MrMoonPie

MrMoonPie — Mon, 01 Mar 2004 07:07:19 -0800

Wow. I learned html with their tutorials in 1997. I don't think I'd be where I am today without them. and I like where I am

By: Kip

Kip — Mon, 01 Mar 2004 07:45:56 -0800

There was a 125MB 'tarball' posted to one of the BitTorrent sites last week.

By: quadrinary

quadrinary — Mon, 01 Mar 2004 07:54:24 -0800

so, when will the site actually be taken down? (looking at what's left, i'm impressed. i only wish i had learned of it, oh, 8 years ago when i started learning that crap.) has anyone found an archive, or at least a mirror that will be up for some time to come?

By: password

password — Mon, 01 Mar 2004 07:59:12 -0800

Yep, I learned basic HTML & PHP from the monkey in the late 90s. These guys really did help out alot of people. Whenever anyone mentioned an interest in learning web development, I always pointed them to webmonkey to get them started. Thanks webmonkey.

By: nonreflectiveobject

nonreflectiveobject — Mon, 01 Mar 2004 08:57:28 -0800

got a link to that torrent, perchance?

By: Ufez Jones

Ufez Jones — Mon, 01 Mar 2004 10:20:32 -0800

WebMonkey was a lot of help for me too. Much more so than my professors in introductory computer classes. Can anyone recommend some other quality tutorial sites? I'm sure that webmonkey was far and away the best, so anything that's say, about half as good should be decent. Thanks.

By: dnash

dnash — Mon, 01 Mar 2004 10:54:05 -0800

I read a lot of Webmonkey years ago too. But eventually I noticed that the articles were getting old, and while useful for grasping some basic concepts, they weren't current tech anymore. These days I tend to head to W3schools.com when I need some pointers.

By: Kip

Kip — Mon, 01 Mar 2004 18:03:52 -0800

http://www.torrentz.com/torrents/view_1091

By: Ufez Jones

Ufez Jones — Mon, 01 Mar 2004 18:16:39 -0800

Score. Thanks dnash. Looks like a good site.