Here is one of my favorite tools…

Thought I’d share a website that I find super useful. It is easy
for me to assume that you already know about all the cool useful
sites but as I talk to other people I find out that just isn’t the
case.

This week Archive.org came up as a solution to several challenges
we encountered. Any way you look at the site is just plain
interesting. Movies, pictures, audio, text, software, and more. All
of it free and all of it legal. You can spend a lot of time just
getting acclimated to the place. You will find the site here:

http://www.Archive.org/

The last time I visited the site it was highlighting the
commercials for the family computer – the Commodore 64 and video of
Carnival at the 1941 Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Those topics may
not be of immediate interest to you. They are an example of the
variety of content you will find at the Archive.

Maybe the coolest section of Archive.org is the WayBack Machine.
Here is what T.J. Lee wrote in TNPC about the WayBack Machine back
in 2001

“Sherman, set the WayBack Machine to Version 1.0 and hang on! Gee,

Mr. Peabody, look at that old Web page! Okay, the Rocky and

Bullwinkle references may be lost on a lot of you but by golly

this is just something you don’t see everyday, Chauncy.

The WayBack Machine page by the Internet Archive. This page relies in

part on Alexa Internet to serve up pages from the past. Type in a

familiar URL and you can look at what was displayed at this address

in days of yore. I tried it with The Naked PC site and cracked up

to see some of the old formats we used as we tried to come up

with a look we liked that was easily maintained. Or take a look

at Microsoft’s home page circa 1996. Fun stuff.”

One of my favorite uses for the WayBack Machine is to locate lost
web pages/sites. You know how it is. You are clicking through a
site and start coming across “File Not Found pages. Next time that
happens to you head over to the WayBack Machine. Most of the time
you will find exactly what you are looking for.

You can find the Internet Archive at:

http://www.Archive.org/

You will see the WayBack machine near the top of the page.

What do you find useful at the Archive? Share your finds below.

Tagged as: archive, cool, finding, tools