# content
Global Nerdy is 20 years old today!

The stats

Since that I posted that first article on August 16, 2006 to Global Nerdy, it’s been…

20 years

2 blogging platforms (Blogware, then WordPress)

11 million pageviews

Almost 5,000 articles (this one will be number 4,989)

2 cities/countries:

Toronto, Ontario, Canada 2006 – 2014

Tampa, Florida, U.S.A. 2014 – present

…and of course, one helluva blogging adventure!

The name

I didn’t come up with the name; at least not directly. It was generated by a program I wrote, The Duke of URL, which demonstrated the “namespinner” API made by Tucows, where I was working as their developer advocate. You enter some keywords into the app, and it presented you with a list of suitable and available domain names.

One of the available domain names it presented was globalnerdy.com. The name was a little ridiculous; it sounded like the sort of thing made by whoever comes up with names for Japanese role-playing videogames. But it was kind of catchy and I decided to go with it.

The eras

To close (I’d love to write more, but today’s a busy day for me), some photos from this blog throughout the years…

A collage of the people from Toronto’s BarCamp/DemoCamp scene in the 2000s.

Developer dim sum lunch with Libin Pan and Reg Braithwaite.

With Amber Mac and Leo Laporte at a developer event in Toronto’s Liberty Village.

Onstage at the evening keynote at RailsConf 2006.

Danny O’Brien, Cory Doctorow, and me at Cory’s wedding.

On my second week on the job at Microsoft with Jeff “Coding Horror” Atwood.

Richard M. Stallman is clearly attracted to me because he’s playing with his hair.

With “Junior” my puppet friend from my short-lived children’s show. See the video below!

The world’s only Windows Phone-branded accordion!

Steve Ballmer ran up to my table and borrowed my hat at the Canadian Windows 7 launch.

Visiting some of my professors! First, Dr. Michael Levison, who ran the Computer Science department at Crazy Go Nuts University…

…and Dr. Robin Dawes, from whom I learned a lot about algorithms and data structures.

Ah, the Windows Phone days…

Going to BarCamp Tampa changed my life; that’s where I met Anitra!

With Lyssa Adkins, Alistair Cockburn, and Anitra at Alistair’s birthday.

Anitra and I have co-presented a number of talks.

Cyber school during the pandemic was a wild experience!

I began the 2020s at Auth0…

Meeting Steve Wozniak at the first Civo Navigate.

For a little bit, I was the AI go-to guy on local Tampa news.

Presenting at BSides Tampa!

…and now I’m at NetFoundry!

# contentMap.en
Global Nerdy is 20 years old today!

The stats

Since that I posted that first article on August 16, 2006 to Global Nerdy, it’s been…

20 years

2 blogging platforms (Blogware, then WordPress)

11 million pageviews

Almost 5,000 articles (this one will be number 4,989)

2 cities/countries:

Toronto, Ontario, Canada 2006 – 2014

Tampa, Florida, U.S.A. 2014 – present

…and of course, one helluva blogging adventure!

The name

I didn’t come up with the name; at least not directly. It was generated by a program I wrote, The Duke of URL, which demonstrated the “namespinner” API made by Tucows, where I was working as their developer advocate. You enter some keywords into the app, and it presented you with a list of suitable and available domain names.

One of the available domain names it presented was globalnerdy.com. The name was a little ridiculous; it sounded like the sort of thing made by whoever comes up with names for Japanese role-playing videogames. But it was kind of catchy and I decided to go with it.

The eras

To close (I’d love to write more, but today’s a busy day for me), some photos from this blog throughout the years…

A collage of the people from Toronto’s BarCamp/DemoCamp scene in the 2000s.

Developer dim sum lunch with Libin Pan and Reg Braithwaite.

With Amber Mac and Leo Laporte at a developer event in Toronto’s Liberty Village.

Onstage at the evening keynote at RailsConf 2006.

Danny O’Brien, Cory Doctorow, and me at Cory’s wedding.

On my second week on the job at Microsoft with Jeff “Coding Horror” Atwood.

Richard M. Stallman is clearly attracted to me because he’s playing with his hair.

With “Junior” my puppet friend from my short-lived children’s show. See the video below!

The world’s only Windows Phone-branded accordion!

Steve Ballmer ran up to my table and borrowed my hat at the Canadian Windows 7 launch.

Visiting some of my professors! First, Dr. Michael Levison, who ran the Computer Science department at Crazy Go Nuts University…

…and Dr. Robin Dawes, from whom I learned a lot about algorithms and data structures.

Ah, the Windows Phone days…

Going to BarCamp Tampa changed my life; that’s where I met Anitra!

With Lyssa Adkins, Alistair Cockburn, and Anitra at Alistair’s birthday.

Anitra and I have co-presented a number of talks.

Cyber school during the pandemic was a wild experience!

I began the 2020s at Auth0…

Meeting Steve Wozniak at the first Civo Navigate.

For a little bit, I was the AI go-to guy on local Tampa news.

Presenting at BSides Tampa!

…and now I’m at NetFoundry!