Somehow, looking at the calendar, I noticed that today is October 1st. A date with historical significance, not only that today the Nobel Prize in Medicine goes to two cancer researchers.
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October 1, 60 years ago: NASA started operation
60 years ago, on 1 October 1958 the U.S. space agency NASA started its work. Since then, NASA has great successful missions, from the landing of humans on the moon to the co-operation of the International Space Station (ISS) and spectacular space missions. But NASA also stands for major catastrophes, such as the fire of Apollo 1 with 3 deaths or the crashes of two space shuttles with loss of their respective crew. More Details about the NASA history may be found at Wikipedia.
(International Space Station ISS, Source: NASA)
50 years: Nixdorf AG
It was October 1, 1968, Heinz Nixdorf foundet the new company Nixdorf AG from two former firms. At that time, Nixdorf AG became the fourth largest computer manufacturer in the world. After Heinz Nixdorf died suddenly in 1986 at the first CeBit trade fair, the company went downhill. Today, parts of the company continue to exist as Siemens-Nixdorf. An outline of the company history can be found at Wikipedia.
25 years ago: Something else happened
On October 1, 1993 there was another event, but neither Wikipedia nor other magazines will mention it. And even for me that date would have slipped almost completely through the rust. The date marks the day when I quit my management job in technical data processing in a chemical company to try something completely new. I started my own business as a computer book author. I had already written some computer books before, so it wasn't new territory, but it wasn't a fixed bank either.
(My book shelf with my books)
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After 25 years, an estimated amount of 300 books (see the image above) in the field of computer technology have emerged from my pen (I gave up counting at the 50th book). Some titles like The Fileformats Handbook has been written in English (although I'm an German autor). Titles like Inside the Registry for Microsoft Windows 95 have been published by Microsoft Press USA.
But: The computer book business has become already difficult in the last years. And in 2015 I had to interrupt the whole thing completely after a sports accident with spine injury. Currently there are only a few remaining titles that I want to maintain until my retirement.
Luckily I started in May 2007 as a blogger (first only German), but since a while I'm blogging also in English. Fortunately the income, generated from my blogs will pay may bills since 2015. That's why I nearly missed the whole thing and also didn't plan anything for an 'anniversary'. The original business goal, writing computer books, has more or less come to an end. But on October 1, 1993 I wouldn't have thought that I could look back on 25 genius years as an IT writer.
Four years ago: Windows Insider program started
And we have another anniversary: Four years ago, on October 1, 2014, the first Preview of Windows 10 has been released.
Today's the 4th anniversary of the #WindowsInsiders Program! Thank you everyone who's been here since the beginning, and everyone who's joined along the way. Your feedback has helped shape Windows into the OS it is today, and I can't wait for you to see more of 19H1 pic.twitter.com/HrfYbZHthb
— Jen Gentleman (@JenMsft) 1. Oktober 2018
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