LangaList, November 9, 2006

A Very Happy Anniversary

Nine years ago, the very first issue of the LangaList was published to a small--- OK, *tiny* <g>--- number of subscribers. To put it mildly, it was pretty lame. 8-),

Times change, and today your fellow subscribers hail from all around the globe--- 80% of the world's nations are represented here! As you might expect for an English-language missive, readers where English is the native tongue (the USA, Canada, Australia, the UK, New Zealand...) tend to make up the largest part of the subscriber base; but there's a significant number of readers in places where English is not the primary language. You may be surprised--- I sure was!--- to find that the same newsletter you read also goes out to people in places like Kyrgyzstan, Mali, the Udmurt Republic, and Kiribati. Heck, you even have fellow readers inside the Vatican. <g>

And now, as we start the tenth year of the LangaList, we're merging with WindowsSecrets and will reach more readers in more places around the world than ever before. (For full details, see http://langa.com/newsletters/2006/2006-10-30.htm#1 )

This is the last issue you'll see in this format. Starting next week--- on Nov 16th--- you'll see the first issue of the new, combined Windows Secrets & LangaList newsletter. As we've mentioned before, I'll be the Editor of that publication; Brian Livingston ( http://BrianLivingston.com/aboutbrian/ ), who's the current editor, will become Editorial Director.

The infrastructure tests we've been running have gone pretty well. The few problems that did crop up were swiftly beaten down by Brian's able staff (special thanks to Brent Scheffler, the Program Director there).

The major pieces are falling nicely into place, but (naturally) there are a few details that remain to be worked out. For example, I don't know if we'll have space and bandwidth in the newsletter to talk about the "LangaList kids" (the disadvantaged kids around the world that we help through various aid organizations). But I promise you I won't abandon the kids, even if we don't have the month-by-month reports in the newsletter. Rest assured the kids will still be helped.

Those and other relatively minor issues will get worked out as best we can, as soon as we can.

In any case, as we enter Year 10 of this project, a long chapter in the LangaList's history is closing. But as that chapter closes, another opens, and next week you'll see the new, merged WindowsSecrets and LangaList newsletter. This isn't at all an end: It's a fresh beginning!

There's lots more ahead, so stay tuned, and thanks for being a part of the LangaList--- and WindowsSecrets!--- community.