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Today is my one year anniversary of being a member of the openSUSE forum. Of course the cake I found has three candles, but who is counting? lol!
I have been using SUSE Linux since version 10.0 which came out in October 6, 2005 and I even purchase a copy of SUSE Linux 10.1 in May 11, 2006. Seems like I was spending some time in Linuxquestions.org forum back then and I suspect I might have been a member of the SUSE Linux forum as well, but I was never online all that much and obviously did not remember what login I might have used then and it may even have been purged, who knows really. But this last year has been different for me, for lots of reasons. For one, I decided that I am going to learn more about using Linux than just getting a copy to load and dual boot with Windows. And to that end, I do believe I have succeeded.
I did have some health issues pop up last year, sending me to the hospital twice and missing some two months of work. Oddly, the second time around, I found myself online way too much and sitting up at the computer when I could barely sit up at all. Not much telling just how good any of the help I provided then might have been. Also, I discovered it is not all that advisable to try and help online after drinking a bit too much. Without regard to if the help was any good at all, but it would seem your feelings can get hurt way too quickly then as well. As luck would have it, I got saved more than once by our outstanding moderators in the openSUSE forums. And for that I thank you very much.
I normally do not post about such milestones, such as passing 1000 or 2000 message posts. As was very correctly pointed out in another message, an active message poster does not necessarily make for a better Linux user or a better Linux user helper. I suppose it does show some sort of interest in the subject of openSUSE, though one might wonder the exact motives that user may have. I do hope that my motives for being an active openSUSE forum user are more than obvious. I like helping others and I have found out that by helping others, you yourself learn more about using Linux. Specifically, you can get outside of your Linux user comfort zone, looking up issues for others you would not normally get involved with trying to find a solution for a subject you are not familiar with. For instance, just yesterday I found out about the qt configuration program called qtconfig for qt version 4. How could I have missed such a useful utility for so long? And what about some of our very brilliant users we have here? The things I have learned from our users here just blows my mind.
So, I wish to celebrate my successes here in the openSUSE forum and I do wish to ask for forgiveness for any transgressions that I may have done in action or in words. I do not wish to have any enemies here in the openSUSE forums. I do appreciate it when you directly send me a private message with any alleged transgressions, so that we can be clear on the subject and I will do the same. While it is hard to know every possible issue, I do promise to not directly criticize your efforts in public if you can do the same for me. I shall continue to do the best I can to help others. I will continue to pursue areas where I have more understanding, in hopes that the information will be more useful to others. I greatly appreciate your help in all forum messages to help fill in incomplete or to correct the help I have provided.
Thank You,