Ten years ago, this blog was created. Sure, I had written a few posts on another platform. However, it was ten years ago that I made my first post within WordPress (version 1.5 at the time). JD had just setup a WordPress install for me on Weblogs.us, and the post was a simple “This is my new blog” type post (no longer available).
Since then, I adopted and rewrote a plugin that is now approaching 2 Million downloads and an estimated 300k active users. By no means was this my first plugin, and it is not the last one I will create (something new will be arriving late this summer). While I had been playing with (x)HTML and CSS for years before WordPress even existed, I learned PHP through extending WordPress—some purists may cringe at the thought, but that is not my problem.
Additionally, I have had the opportunity to be a server administrator for Weblogs.us, starting back when we still ran Apache on Windows. Since that time, we’ve moved to Gentoo/Funtoo Linux VM guests on top of the hardware. And, in late May, we will begin migrating select Weblogs.us users to new Nginx+PHP-FPM setup running on top of some new hardware.
Lastly, I’ve attended 6 WordCamps, and have presented at 5 of them on 6 different topics in 8 sessions. This includes all 3 times WordCamp Minneapolis has been held, thus far. This year, I plan on attending more WordCamps than I’ve been able to in the past (really want to get to Austin and out to the West Coast). Not only are they a great excuse to see new cities, they are a great place to meet members of the WordPress community in person.
-John Havlik
[end of transmission, stay tuned]
Congrats on ten years of pressing words, hopefully you’ll be making another post like this in 2025!