keeping the community informed…

Wow! the DaniWeb community has grown to more than 540,000 members in size. That is truly amazing. What's more, you can usually find more than 2500 of them online at pretty much any time of the day or night thanks to our global user base. Together you have contributed more than 850,000 posts to our online knowledge database, incredible! Then there is the editorial team which work hard to bring you the best in IT news and opinion every day courtesy of the DaniWeb news blogs which are viewed by hundreds of thousands of people from across the Internet every month. As the Community Leader here at DaniWeb can I just take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you for helping make us far and away the best IT Discussion Community on the web!

have you said hello yet?

Given the size and nature of DaniWeb, we do not expect everyone to be a prolific poster. Indeed, we include those of you who come here to read and learn as being as much a part of this community as those who share their knowledge with you. That said, just because you might not yet have the skills or confidence to share your own IT knowledge with others right now, that does not mean you cannot take part in some of the areas of DaniWeb devoted to chat such as our ever popular Geeks' Lounge for example.

A good place to start would be with a simple hello, and yes we even have a forum just for that called Community Introductions. Think of this as being a kind of virtual lobby where you can say hello and get a friendly welcome in return. This is one of those 'the more you put in, the more you get out' type arrangements, so if you give a little of yourself here, explain who you are, where you come from, what interests you and why you have found yourself aboard the Good Ship DaniWeb the chances are that you will soon find yourself engaged in conversation with any number of friendly members. Don't think that the Community Introductions forum is just for new members, it's actually for anyone who has not introduced themselves before and that could be you even if you have been a member here for months but just never got around to saying hi. Speaking with my administrator hat on for a minute, could I ask that you help the moderators out by not posting technical support questions in this forum, nor advertising your website or online business in your introduction though. Thanks people!

introducing another deserving 'member of the month'

Please welcome our newest member of the DaniWeb hall of fame, stephen84s who has made in excess of 1100 forum posts and earned a community reputation score of more than 500 since joining our community. His signature reads "Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand" so we just had to find out what makes this Veteran Poster tick...

Where are you from originally, and where do you live now?

Well I have been born brought up and lived almost 99 percent of my life (until now) in Bombay, a place which has provided me with everything from the best in education to a job without venturing too far from my home.

How old are you?

Twenty Five right now, missing the teenage years and dreading the thirties.

What is your current occupation, ever done anything unusual in the past?

I am a Software Developer, Speaking of unusual I am actually a Team Leader but without a Team to lead.

What is your favorite OS?

Well honestly my favorite OS would be Windows XP (Hate Vista, just too much eye candy there), most probably I guess because it was my first OS. But I would find myself equally at home on Open Suse or Ubuntu or Fedora and I am just starting my adventures on OpenSolaris.

What first brought you to DaniWeb?

Right now its not clear, but I remember searching something about InnoDB vs MyISAM database engines for MySQL. I came across some thread where Dani herself was asking and discussing about the performance issues of InnoDB and MyISAM tables.

What makes you stay here?

Well honestly until then I had only been exposed to places where the quick and dirty approach to programming was always endorsed. DaniWeb was the first forum I found where members were actually more interested in helping others using the sacred "slow and organized" approach and more importantly the beginners were given solutions in a manner in which they would learn how to program better rather that just fed the "code". Also sometimes its fun when we take a go at some beginners who plainly disregard all rules, announcements etc and just post begging for code. Gives me a chance to take out some of my frustrations ;-)

What is your favorite forum and why?

Well it would have to be the Java Forum. Mostly because whenever Ezzaral, or Masijade or ~s.o.s~ or their likes post, I always get to learn something new and whats great is that their advice although directed at someone else, I have used many a times directly at my work place.

What are your interests outside of IT and outside of DaniWeb?

Huh!!! Is there another world out there?

Any fascinating facts about yourself that you would like to share with the DaniWeb community ?

Fascinating I dunno, but here some that sound "different" -

I format my home computer at least three to four times a month, sometimes its to try a new OS or at other times to remove an OS or undo some screw ups while messing with system files.
Also Since the past few years I have never stuck to one single Operating System especially to finalize my development platform, I started out with Windows XP, moved to Vista, Hated it, so decided to try some linux distros of which Fedora was the first. Fedora held me for sometime, but due to poor hardware support for my Laptop, I decided try Ubuntu which I loved. Unfortunately due once again hardware issues and the poor quality of the 8.04 release initially, (although I did love the 7.10 release), I decided to give OpenSuse 11 a try, I loved it (just as I did Ubuntu maybe even more), no hardware problems, no wireless LAN issues, an excellent KDE 3.5 GUI .... but I am still itching to give OpenSolaris a real try.