I didn’t realize it as I was writing my post yesterday, but I had surpassed 100 Linux Critic posts in doing so.
I started this blog in 2009. At the time, I had several reasons for it.
Because a friend told me to
One of my good friends was starting to tinker with Linux back then, and once in a while he’d ask me how to do something. I’d usually write up some kind of howto for him and email it or send it to him via chat, to try to help out.
One day he suggested that I start posting these tutorials and howtos on various Linux and open source products in a technology blog so that others could enjoy them.
Because it’s a good reference for myself
I used to keep pretty copious hand written and digital notes for myself on various things I’d figure out in the Linux world. Now I don’t really do that. I find myself instead referring to my own posts here for reference. Whenever I figure something out that I might need to figure out again some day, I do a quick (or sometimes not so quick) writeup.
Because I was unemployed at the time
Being between jobs sucks. In 2009 I spent several months in that state. I’m not the type to sit idle, however, so I created this blog as a way to keep busy, provide some incentive to myself to keep exercising my technology muscles, and to have something to show prospective employers who might ask me about my gap in employment history.
I’d say, “I created a Linux and technology blog and learned how to promote it using Twitter and other social media.” Sounds silly, but it actually did get me a real job at one point, or at least contributed to that process. And I did learn a lot about technology blogging and promotion in the process.
Thank you!!!
I probably wouldn’t have posted much content here if nobody bothered to read it, so I wanted to say thank you to my subscribers, those who come here in search of something specific and decide to stay a while and browse my other posts, and my other regular readers who keep encouraging me to share my thoughts on Linux and technology.
I’d also like to thank my good friend Joe, who guest-wrote some really good content here as well (some of which still brings in a ton of traffic on a daily basis) for contributing to the success of this blog. At some point I’ll see if I can sucker him into writing some more!
Last but not least, I’d like to thank Susan Linton. She founded Tuxmachines.org, and before she sold the site to Roy Schestowitz, Susan used to pick up and run almost all of my posts, which brought Linux Critic to a much wider audience. Not sure what you’re up to these days, Susan, but if you’re reading this, thank you!!!
If anybody reading knows Susan and is in touch with her, please pass this along!
Thanks everyone!
The Linux Critic 