The Current State of Cybernightlife

The Cybernightlife project is in a transition phase between a Web 1.0 project and a Web 2.0 project.

For the first ten years of its existence, the Cybernightlife project was known under numerous names. OS/2 Junction was the original title of the website. The project started in July 1996 as a two page OS/2 support site.

One thing remained constant was that the Cybernightlife project served the home and small business computing audience. Before the Fall Comdex 1998 event, the project served the OS/2 community.

The Fall Comdex 1998 event changed everything about the consumer market. This was the event that launched Linux into the mainstream computing market, and changed the way software was produced and distributed.

During the next eight years, focus on the website changed from OS/2 to Linux. OS/2 support in general was on the decline, and at the end of 2005, IBM officially pulled OS/2 from the market. Also during that time, IBM also focused its efforts on Linux, and encouraged OS/2 users to do what I did, and switched to Linux.

Web 2.0 offers some enhancements that can be made usable to the Cybernightlife project. Blogging is an example of such an enhancement, and the current usage here is the Cybernightlife Founder's Journal.

The name Cybernightlife

Back in 2002, when this website was called The 32-bits and Beyond Project, I had a need to give the entire project a name that better represents what the project is about.

I chose the name Cybernightlife based on a prefix and a word that fits the intent of the website. I used a dictionary to look up the terms and used them to create the composite name.

The prefix cyber- means anything technologically related, and nightlife means any event that takes place after hours, usually anywhere from late afternoon to late night.

Since the audience is a home and small business environment, the late afternoon to late night refers more to home life.

Though nightlife suggests a night out on the town, it is the entertainment aspect that I am bringing to the website. For those of you who object to the black background, the background is part of the design and represents the "night" in "nightlife".

The Cybernightlife project was never intended to look like any other Linux website. If I were to use a light background with dark characters, the nighttime effect would be lost, and we would not call this Cybernightlife, could we?

Linux as a Philosophy

The fact that you are visiting this website means that you either are running Linux, or are planning to run or are considering running Linux on your home or small business computer or network.

Linux really saves you money, specifically thousands of dollars in licensing fees for software.

But Linux is about much more than just saving you money. Linux is about freedom, empowerment and a sense of community. You simply do not get any of that with the mainstream commercial software.

The freedom I am talking about is the freedom for you to do what you want with the software, the freedom to adapt the software to your environment and lifestyle, and not the other way around.

If you have programming and/or system administration skills, you have complete freedom and flexibility over your workstation and/or your network. For the home user, you have complete control over every aspect of your machine. After all, you pay enough for the hardware as it is. With Linux (or FreeBSD), you can truly call the home computer your home computer.

With free software, if you have the appropriate skills, you can participate in many software projects, and hence be a part of the community that creates software that helps worldwide communities.

The Cybernightlife project is intended to be a contribution to the open source community by providing support for open source projects, including Linux itself.

Currently, the SimplyMEPIS distribution is emphasized here.