This is it - TidBITS has turned 20 years old! In what is a bit of happy coincidence, the email issue containing this article is #1,024. That's right, we've officially published 2^10 issues of TidBITS, or, roughly speaking, 1 kiloTidBITS. Geeky, eh?

To share our excitement, we considered giving away a staff-signed Twentieth Anniversary Mac, but they turn out both to be difficult to find and, given that they're powered by a PowerPC 603e, not particularly useful.

Besides, in honor of this anniversary and in recognition of how the world has changed, we're changing our Web logo's subtitle from "Mac news for the rest of us" to "Apple news for the rest of us." So instead of giving away a relatively useless old Mac, we're going to give one lucky TidBITS reader $200 toward an engraved iPhone or iPod touch, or an iTunes Gift Card. (The choice of prize is up to the winner, since many of you probably already have an iPhone or iPod touch, and we'll have to figure out the logistics with the winner, since they'll vary by country.) Enter at this tweaked DealBITS page before 26 April 2010. I hope our server holds up! (If you have a problem, just come back later.)

In thinking about how best to commemorate this milestone, I first considered those talking points we pull out when speaking with those who aren't familiar with TidBITS - our 20 unbroken years of Internet publication and our 1992 creation of the first Internet advertising program.

While I'm proud of those accomplishments, they aren't my favorite aspects of TidBITS. When I trained for and raced 26.2 miles in the New York City Marathon in November 2008, that required setting a goal and working hard to accomplish it. Publishing TidBITS for 20 consecutive years has never been a goal, it's simply become a way of life.

And while I'd like some credit for starting Internet advertising (using an understated NPR/PBS sponsorship model), I'm uncomfortable with many of the ways Internet advertising has evolved, what with pop-up ads, interstitials, and disgustingly illustrated ads from modern-day snake-oil salespeople. On the upside, maybe I can take an infinitesimal bit of credit for Google, which would never have become what it is today without Internet advertising.

No, the aspects of publishing TidBITS that get me out of bed every morning are quite different. For one, I love being able to write, edit, and publish articles that both explain complex topics and actually make a difference in the lives of our readers. There's no better feeling than reading an email message or article comment telling you how an article saved hours of troubleshooting, brought some device back to life, or helped eliminate time-wasting tedium.

I'm proud of the elegant technologies that we've designed and implemented: the TidBITS Publishing System, the TidBITS Commenting System, the TidBITS News iPhone app, the custom ExpressionEngine back-end for the Take Control site, our still-in-beta account management system, and more. These systems make life easier for us and improve TidBITS and Take Control for you, and while we lack the budget to develop everything we want as quickly as we want, I think we do extremely well, and it's amazingly fun to work on these projects.

More generally, it's wonderful to work with the other members of the TidBITS staff. They're top-notch, so much so that they're also in great demand by other publishers. And yet, Tonya and I must have done something right, since these talented writers and technologists have stuck with us for years, some of them from nearly the beginning. You can read more about how each of them got started with TidBITS in "TidBITS Staffers Recall How They Got Their Starts" (19 April 2010). I've also hugely enjoyed working with the volunteers who have generously translated TidBITS into various languages, expanding the reach of TidBITS and teaching me about the difficulties of translating English idioms.

But the most compelling part of my daily swim in the sea of TidBITS email, article comments, tweets, chats, and phone calls is the ineffable excitement of sharing discoveries, thoughts, opinions, jokes, tips, and advice with friends, colleagues, and TidBITS readers. Through TidBITS I've met some of the nicest, smartest, funniest, most interesting people I know. I've managed to convince a few of them to work with us on TidBITS and Take Control, and I've watched with enthusiasm as many others have gone on to do great things in the technology world. And rather than tell you more about them here, I want to introduce you to a number of them in "Twenty Years of Memories from Friends of TidBITS" (19 April 2010). It's a hefty article, with each sharing thoughts and memories about TidBITS in his or her own words. Set aside some time when you want to think back over the last 20 years, and I think you'll find it a tremendously enjoyable read.

If you'd like to extend that walk down memory lane, check out our "TidBITS History" series, in which we've covered all the bases - looking backward, forward, and inward, and sharing experiences, lessons learned, and much more. In re-reading these articles, I was struck by how relevant some of them, like "Lessons from Ten Years of TidBITS" (17 April 2000), remain years later.

I won't pretend that another 20 years and 1,024 issues of TidBITS is a goal, because it's not. TidBITS is what we do, and we'll keep going as long as events conspire to allow us to continue.

Thanks to one and all for enabling us to come this far!