10 Years of 512 Pixels

Tomorrow marks the 10th anniversary of this blog.¹ Excuse me while I catch my breath after writing that.

The original name of the site was ForkBombr. I bought the domain from a friend for a couple of slices of pizza. That name may seems weird, but its a programming term that I thought was clever. The idea was that a single interest could spin up into an obsession, and as it was 2008, I had to drop the e from the name.

I started the site after leaving my job at my local Apple Store, where I worked as the Lead Genius. I left that job to run the service shop at a now-defunct Apple-Authorized Service Provider. I figured my experience gave me a fairly unique perspective on things. Over the years, my time at Apple has become less and less relevant, but it still shapes how I think about the company and its products.

My first post on the site was named “Dear Reader(s).” Here’s a bit from it:

Don’t suck.

With that phrase, one of my mentors has repeatedly set me straight. And with that phrase, I’m launching ForkBombr.

ForkBombr is going to focus on the things I focus on. Seems easy enough. So be prepared to see a lot on photography, internet journalism and Mac geekery.

My pitch was pretty simple, and drew heavily from this post by Merlin Mann about blogging.

Scrolling through a decade of writing is really weird and uncomfortable at times. I have some posts that haven’t stood the test of time very well. I have others that I consider some of the best writing I have ever published.

Regardless of how a single post has aged, overall, I’m proud of what the nearly 8,000 posts in my WordPress database represent: thoughtful consideration (and some jokes) about the things that interest me. Those interests have changed over time, but they are why I keep this site going. I want to share my ideas and things I find with readers who will find them just as cool or thought-provoking as I do.

The biggest example of a new topic in the 512 Venn diagram this is my passion for Apple history. I wasn’t in that world a decade ago, but 512 Pixels has grown into a major resource for the topic as I have gone further down the rabbit hole.

In 2010 or so, I made a real push at turning 512 Pixels into an Apple news site. I published a bunch of stuff, hoping to grow the site into something I could do full-time. That didn’t work, and I got pretty cranky about having a blog, but I stuck with after rediscovering the foundation on which it is built.

512 Pixels has never paid my bills; The Age of Blogging for Profit is mostly behind us, but in a way, I find that freeing. I’d much rather have a site like this be member supported, as I want it to be a hub for nerds like me.

Thanks for an amazing ten years. Let’s keep this party going for another decade or four.