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Guestbooks. You know them. Or do you?

In today’s 90s-tastic episode of Veronica Explains, I go through the ins and outs of the Guestbook, one of the most influential progenitors of modern social media on the web.

We’ll even install one from the 90s - yes, from Matt’s Script Archive, on a brand new Debian 11 install. It’ll be “fun-tertainment!” Come break some Perl with me!

0:00 I say “greetings” and talk about guestbooks 1:31 How I used guestbooks as a 90s teen 5:50 How were guestbooks implemented? 8:16 Can we set up a guestbook today? 8:57 Testing Perl CGI scripts… in 2023 10:45 Installing a guestbook script 14:17 Filtering for spammers- with math! 15:15 Pining for the 1990s web, looking forward to the future