I am currently working on a presentation on data- and telecommunication history and in the last part I dwell on all kinds of online services and give an overview of Web 2.0.

Whilst doing that work, I developed the desire to highlight those services that I really use on a daily basis - and out of which I also get the most benefit, be it in efficiency, entertainment or the feeling that I did something useful. So below you find my personal 23 favourite web applications. Whacky nerdy techy stuff - I know.

And yes - for most of the people who regularly spend too much of their office hours by browsing through the online parts of the local galaxy, the below list might be a bit boring. Sorry for that - maybe there are nevertheless some new things, such as the Hunger Site or LibraryThing.

In any way: Enjoy the summer, spend less time in front of the screen and don't try every link you find in a blog - it only costs time.

On May 19th 2007 Hans Wollschläger died.

He translated James Joyce's Ulysses to German.

He gave me the possibility to read the Philip Marlowe novels, when I did not dare yet to read them in English.

His way of using the German language was unique and never pretentious.

I never saw a picture of him, until I recently read about his death in a German magazine. He only existed for me in words - in the words of other writers, which he translated.

He will never translate again.

• German obituaries / Deutsche Nachrufe
• German National Libray Listing for Hans Wollschläger
• Speech given by Wollschläger ("Vom Schatten über Allem")

Children become people, Offspring become personalities, kids become permanently online. And so she did and it is my pleasure to welcome her online on flickr and at the German social network of localisten (profile only visible if you have an account and logged in).

Welcome Theresa! And may you bloom and blossom in reality and virtuality!

The "Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe" (Museum of Art and Trade) in Hamburg finally shatters all my dreams in a new exhibition on "Bunte Götter - Die farbenfrohe Welt der Alten Griechen" (Multicoloured Gods - The Colourful World of Old Greece), in which the buildings and statues from the age of Antiquity are shown with their reconstructed colours.

After reading (not yet seeing) Frank Millers graphic novel "300", I was sure that the guys from Sparta looked like he depicted them: brown-pastel shades with red being the only statement that could be made in this great time.

Now, after this exhibition, can anyone imagine the staging of a Greece tragedy in such costumes? Does anyone want to see Oedipus, cutting out his eyes, in a turquoise robe with light yellow spots? Was there any way to avoid the take-over of this culture by the Romans and later on by the Barbarians, who for sure were dressed in proper grey and earth-coloured stuff?

Ah, that's the downfall of Western civilization.

"I have a gut feeling that the way many of us report the European Union rather downplays its impact outside its own borders" writes Mark Mardell in his article on European foreign policy. I can only recommend his weekly entries in his Europe Diary at the BBC Europe News page.