Two days ago I was talking with a fellow co-worker, he asked me "do you remember that website with the world map?"

Such a silly question naturally might not ring a bell for most people since there are tons of websites with the world map. However, I responded instantly: "Are you asking www.worldofmerix.com ?" Yes, he was (Luckily that great site is still alive and kicking).

Of course I remembered the site and the url quickly because at the time it suddenly made to most of the css galleries. I remember how amazed, how excited, how curious I was. Back then, I had spent a lot time trying to figure out "how they did it". I didn't have 10% of my current knowledge back then and that site inspired me to investigate, to learn more.

Anyway, after talking to my friend I felt a sudden rush of nostalgia. I am most probably over the average age of this community (I am old enough to remember browser wars) so maybe legends of my past are different than yours. I remember spending days trying to figure out "how they did that trick in Flash". I was trying to find out "how they did that javascript animation" (There was no jQuery back then). I suddenly felt the need to check k10k.net and polish those good old memories. Unfortunately the legend is long gone but the kind people of "Cuban Council" are still hosting some screenshots. I believe the content of k10k is more valuable today, if we are to learn from the past.

I started browsing css galleries like http://bestwebgallery.com , http://cssnature.org , http://designshack.net starting from the last pages. It was like re-uniting with long forgotten friends. Unfortunately most of my favorite sites back then are either down or re-designed (If I were running a gallery page, I would archive at least the homepage of every item) but some of them are still alive and it is so exciting to see the little details in them, that led to today's trends. Some of them are so timeless. Take genius Shaun Inman's site which was submitted almost 9 years ago: http://designshack.net/design/shauninman If it was published today it would definitely make to all css galleries and be a great hit again.

Anyway, the point is, I strongly recommend you to check the ghosts of the past. You sure will be surprised to see some of the items that are long forgotten but still highly inspiring.