THE PREVIOUS WEB

an ode to the old internet

HANDMADE PAGES

SIMPLE SOLUTIONS

CONTENT OWNERSHIP

BLOG

Weird pages, owned servers, and a web where everyone got to show up differently.

005

Hunt for the Web Design Index

In my early webdesign days I got a lot of inspiration from the book "The Webdesign Index". Yes, I see the irony of getting website-inspiration from a book. But hey, at least it also included a CD-ROM!

AUGUST 22, 2026
004

The monolith is making a comeback - thanks to AI

AI agents love to have every part of your application at hand: the logic, the templates, the server config, and yes even your database is best kept locally, so the agent can check and update it directly.

AUGUST 15, 2026
003

Zero dependencies: all you need is an index.php

Modern webdevelopment has gotten out of hand, frankly. You don't need hundreds of dependencies and node-modules just to get your `Hello World` up. All you need is an index.php

AUGUST 15, 2026
002

You can now run Flash on mobile!

Years after Adobe killed the Flash Plugin, ending an era of endless creativity, it is now back, and it even works on mobile!

AUGUST 14, 2026
001

FTP stands for Freedom Transfer Protocol

Platforms rent you a profile. FTP gave you a folder. Here is why that still matters.

AUGUST 10, 2026