Moore's Law? Or Murphy's Law?

I've been away from the computer industry media, technology, and gossip for 5 years on a bit of a sabbatical. Upon deciding to return, I started browsing the www to see what had changed. I now know how Rip Van Winkle must have felt; waking up from a long sleep whilst the world had passed him by.

Blogs? Ajax? Web 2.0? SEO? After downloading, reading docs, and playing with code, I can't help but having a feeling of deja vu. Its all the same, just re-named, re-packaged, media-driven, new and improved.

To get up to speed, I've been playing with a wide array of "so-called" Web 2.0 software and development languages/tools. Wordpress, TypePad, Blogger, Bloglines, DojoToolkit, TurboWidgets, JQuery, Moo, Moo/fx, DWR, JKoss, OCA, Ruby, Python, Linq, Microsoft Ajax Toolkit, Microsoft Web Developer Express, Adobe Dreamweaver, Notebook ++, Eclipse, SciTe, Microsoft Visual Studio 2005. And more.