MyPCLinuxOS

Where We Have Been…

I started MyPCLinuxOS.com in 2006 after seeing that there were some individuals in the main forums that wanted to give more back to PCLinuxOS.  In February 2006, I bought the domain and threw up a MyBB Forum (one of the BEST Forums out there BTW…just not bridgeable).  A month later, I launched the website to the general public.  In the first few months, we did about 70k hits on the page with about 250 unique IP Addresses.  We had a great core set of people that were getting excited about PCLinuxOS.

A month after that launch, we had 1.1 million hits with 5,500+ unique hits.  3 months later, we were averaging over 10 thousand uniques with 1.3 million hits per month.  We’ve had our ups and as of late, we’ve had our downs.

Back in May 2006, we had a lot of churn…we used content management systems like e107 to give us some organization.  By December, we were with Joomla.  We’ve constantly adapted to the high traffic and active members throughout the evolution of the website.

I resigned from overall administrator on June 30, 2007…mainly due to getting a new job and moving which took time away from operating a website that was as busy as ours.  I left the reigns in very capable hands and they’ve done a great job.  But everything and everyone has their time.  One can’t keep doing this forever.  You have to take breaks.

On March 27, 2008 MyPCLinuxOS.com turned 2 years old.  This date went quite without notice to most.  It gave me the opportunity to reflect on where the site has been, where it is, and where it is going.  It also got me posting in the forums again.

This year, we’ve had some churn in the Admin areas and Kdulcimer asked me if I was in a position to come back and pitch in.  So I return to you as lead administrator once again.

Where Are We Now?

Currently, we’re in a transition area again.  I’m coming back to take the reigns which means I want to shake up how things are done.  Why?  Because change will get people interested in Projects and MyPCLinuxOS again and because we CAN and WILL improve.  Change is what moves us in Open Source and Linux.  We’re going to take what we’ve done here at MyPCLinuxOS.com and make it EVEN BETTER.  Plus, I’ve been able to see things from a different perspective…that of someone NOT involved…and I’ve noted some things that can be made better.

I can’t do this alone though.  I need your help.  The PCLinuxOS community is the reason that I host this site, manage it, and give all monies made from advertising to projects for PCLinuxOS (or give it back to Tex).  We can make this place fantastic again.  Let’s talk about how we can do that.

Where Are We Going?

Onward and Upward.  My grandfather always said that.  Onward and upward.  Are those always the best ways to go?  I’d say on toward efficiency is the best way to go.  So, I’d like to make MyPCLinuxOS.com a well oiled machine.  I want it to become so easy to navigate and operate that EVERYONE knows how they can start a community project.  I want to make it so straightforward that there is no question what needs to happen next.  I want to make this so great that projects will be so motivated that they’ll be self sufficient without MyPCLinuxOS helping them (like PCLinuxOS Magazine and PCLinuxOS Business Edition do…they started as projects here).

As I said, change is necessary.  So I’ve changed the front page here at MyPCLinuxOS.com to utilizing wordpress.  I’ll be contacting each project leader for each project within the next few days.  I’ll be seeking the viability of each project.  Some projects will be moving to inactive status.  Others will be staying  put.  I’ll be adding in each project leader to this blogging software.  They’ll be able to communicate to their project members through posts here.

The forum will remain exactly the same…only leaner.  We’ll be leveraging the documentation wiki for all of our project wiki pages.  How projects operate will change slightly.  How projects get started will also change a bit.  I’d love to get the developers in to blog here in a “developers” category…that’s right, Tex and the ripper gang (haven’t asked them yet, but I’d love to get them in here to communicate with what is going on…what is holding them up…what is going well, etc.  We’ll see how it goes).  I’m very excited about making life more efficient and streamlined here.  I’m also very excited about how much we can do to keep this community THE BEST Linux community out there.

We’ll have more information posted about the changes in later blog posts.  For now, the main page has changed but the mission has remained the same.  Join me in welcoming in the changes that will continue to prove that the PCLinuxOS community is the best and most active small group of Linux supporters out there!

Thanks to all active members and for those inactive ones…dust off those accounts and come back