Ghacks Turns Six Today, Lets Celebrate
When I first started the Ghacks Technology News blog back in October of 2005, I did not really have any expectations whatsoever. If it would be there after a year, that would be fine. If not, nothing was lost. I also did not really think about making money with the site, or even -gasp- quit my regular job to become a full time blogger. Well, everything changed when the site became popular.
In the beginning I worked two jobs, Ghacks and my regular one. This was a pretty hard time as I had to work before I went to work and after I went home on the site. I was lucky back then that I never experienced any serious down times when I was at work. I'd probably would have taken a sick day or day off then to be able to fix the site.
When the site started, it was all about a tool that a friend of mine had created to make advanced Google searches from the program. It was very handy at that time, but it somehow got dropped along the way. That's actually where the name Ghacks comes from, Google Hacks.
The day that changed it all was when the guide Using Google To find Movies made it on the homepage of the then popular service Digg. The site, only active for about a week, received tens of thousand of visitors from that exposure. I was lucky enough that I added Adsense some time before to the site. When I found out that the site made more than $100 on that day it made click and the idea was born to make this more than a hobby. Without that, Ghacks may have never become what it is today.
It has been six years now and Ghacks is still more or less a one-man show. Sure, I hired some authors to add different perspectives to the site, but it is me who administrates the site, watches over its financials and contributes to the site on a daily basis. It is a full-time job. Surprisingly though I'm still motivated and do not have that nagging feeling that I do not want to "go" to work because work sucks. I love it.
Now that the site has turned six, I'd like to thank each and every one of you for being a visitor, reader, guest, contributor or whatever it is you are to the site. Without your help, Ghacks would not be where it was today, and more importantly, I would still work my 9 to 5 job.
To celebrate the event, I'd like to provide you with the opportunity to win one of ten Ghacks t-shirts. You can take a look at both available shirt designs here:
The shirts are of high quality. I still have the first shirts I ordered a few years ago when I started offering merchandise.
All you need to do to win a shirt is to comment here on this thread, or mention the birthday on Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus or any other site on the Internet (that you are allowed to post on and where it is appropriate).
I pick the winners and contact them asking for their shipping address, t-shirt they want and size. Please note that some black shirt sizes are currently out of stock. It may take some time before they become available again. Good luck everyone.
Update: The winners of the shirts have been notified by email, they are: Paul(us), Ivan K., JFP, JimT, Tinwheeler, Kalmly, Mouser, Midnight, Johan Gustavsson and Matias.
Thanks to everyone for all the great wishes and praise, that was really nice for a change ;)
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Thanks for all those years. Keep up the good work
Ghacks… i remember when i first started reading this website… Now it’s been 6 years… Congrats! and i’d love to win one of those ghacks t-shirt :D
Hi,and Happy birthday Ghacks
I’d luv a Ghacks T-Shirt please
And good luck everyone…
congratulations Ghacks!..Your one of my favorite sites and Hope that you grow strong everyday!.
I’m one of those who spend as much time tweaking my system as using it for work and play. Once I discovered your site early this year, I became an addict. I check it 3 to 4 times a day and it’s a rare day I don’t find something I can not put to immediate use.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!
happy birthday ghacks, i have benefited greatly from your tips. i just wish you weren’t so anti windows 8
I would not say I’m anti Windows 8, I’m just criticizing what I think is wrong with the operating system. Microsoft has enough time to fix those issues and if they do, I will buy it on the first day it is released.
Congratulations Martin! I think you are the hardest working blogger in the tech work, and very very talented! and the main reason I started to use RSS, so I won´t lose any of your articles! If you still have a red shirt, I´d proudly wear it in Brazil! Thank you, and a virtual toast to you!
Congratulations, gHacks.
Six years. It’s hard to believe.
Including being six years older ;)
I have been reading gHacks since its start.
I’m not sure what brought me here but
it was clear this site was different.
If there ever was a must read site gHacks is it.
There are a lot of tech sites out there but for
my money gHacks is simply the best.
And the reason for that is the man behind the vision.
Martin, you have excelled where others have failed
consistently making gHacks stand for excellence.
Thanks for all the helpful advice and tips over the years.
I’ll pass on the T-Shirt pool although they do look great.
Coming here every day is more than enough reward.
Congratulations martin and Ghacks.
You have done a remarkable job on GHacks and i have been following it since i started blogging.
Happy birthday
Happy Birthday Ghacks.net. I wish you guys all the best and keep up the good works and great giveaways. Hopefully this site will always evolving and remain for another decade and beyond. Happy Birthday again Ghacks but this time I will wrote it in 10 more language :
Bahasa Melayu :- Selamat Hari Jadi Ghacks !!
Japanese :- Otanjou-bi Omedetou Gozaimasu Ghacks !!
Cantonese :- Sun Yat Fai Lok Ghacks !!
Korean :- Saeng Il Chuk Ha Ham Ni Da Ghacks !!
Hindi :- Janam Din Ki Badhai Ghacks !!
Philippines : – Maligayang Kaarawan Sa Iyo Ghacks !!
Bahasa Indonesia :- Selamat Ulang Taun Ghacks !!
Tamil :- Piranda Naal Vaazhthukkal Ghacks !!
Thailand :- Suk San Wan Keut Ghacks !!
Mandarin :- Qu Ni Sheng Er Kuai Le Ghacks !!
Also cheers to other readers, please keep up your support for this site.
Congrats Ghacks!
:)
Congratulations Ghacks on six years of innovations. This is the first website that i ever visit if i needed any application. The bandwidth of your servers is very fast. Ghacks is the best ever known, based on users reviews and tests and giveaways. Your solutions have helped millions(and me) of users understand that reviews to a new PC, software any application. which is already very good and much better and ghacks into the most easy to read and important website.
Gets the best reviews from professionals such as ordinary computer users. it’s alots of news provided my Ghacks everyday and very up to date software plus,news a very detail information.Very good promotion for the 6th anniversary Ghacks. Thanks for everything, keep up the great work!
Congrats Martin, keep up the good work.
Happy Birthday Ghacks!!!
Congratulations.
I love this site.
Great site.
Plz count me in for the T Shirt
Happy Birthday Ghacks!! I’m subscribed via rss, can’t imagine what I’d do without my Ghacks articles while I drink my morning coffee :)
Keep up the great work Martin! I’ve already got a Ghacks shirt, so somebody else can have it :)
Viel Erfolg im naechsten Jahr!
Congratulations on the 6th anniversary, Martin! And wishes for a very successful future!
Love the blog and appreciate your [and the other authors’] hard work – informative, independent, relevant, very professional and respectful in your knowledge!
Love the black t-shirt, it’d be great if I can get one – as if my friends don’t already know I’m a geek :)
Thank you for the opportunity and good luck to all participating!
Martin,
Congrats on Turning 6!!
I wish the coming years would add more glow & light to Ghacks.
The articles here are really worth reading and useful in daily life.
It would be great if I could win a T-shirt myself, so pls count me in.
Thanks, Grr
+1 That is all. (Oh yeah, and Happy Birthday)
Congratulations old friend for keeping this great site alive. Definitely one of the best source of information.
Thanx for keeping all of us up to date with the knowledge.
It reminds me the sentence I have seen in my browser everyday many years from now: Knowledge is Power.
Yes it is.
F.
My congratulations! :)
Long live Ghacks!
May the Force be with you :)
Hi, I’ve tweeted this @ https://twitter.com/#!/ecsjjgg/status/120983813613559808
And I would really love to get a T-shirt (L)…
Congrats on making it six years. Looking forward to many more years of great articles. Thanks.
Congratulations! I love your newsletters and website. Learned a lot of things in simple language. Thank you and keep up the good work.
*I’ve also
I need to proofread better
“As a computer user, I start with 0 :)”
I love it.
I’ll also just disabled ABP for this site.
It works so well that I forget that it’s even there.
Happy birthday, or anniversary (whatever you prefer).
I love your site and your works and not to think that I would ever be chosen, but if I won a lottery for a free shirt, I’d ask to forward my winnings to others.
I get enough here as it is. :)
Congrats and sincere thanks.
Ken
Congratulations,
GHacks is now a source of everyday relevant news, and as you have posted a while ago, the new “Lifehacker” to me. Again, keep up the good work, stay motivated and have fun!
A must read on Google Reader daily feeds.
WOW!! 6 Long Years… You and your blog have traveled a long time. To be honest i have been following your blog for sometime now and i must i thoroughly enjoy each and every article you publish. Not only they are informative but also well written so that anybody can understand. I would definitely like to congratulate you for successfully completing 6 years and i wish that you cross many such milestones in the future.
I would also like to thank you for this nice giveaway. It will be my honor to wear a gHacks T-shirt and i would definitely cherish that moment. I really really hope that i be among the winners but even if i don’t win this giveaway then also nothing will change……..
gHacks is and will always remain one of the best Tech blog.
Thank you :)
Wow! It’s been 6 years. I’ve been with this website for the last 3 years when I first discovered it.
Don’t stop the work now, keep on going – this website is a wealth of information that is a geek’s paradise.
Here’s for another prosperous year for Ghacks!
Well done to Martin and the crew!
Martin, Congratulations and a very Happy Birthday Ghacks. I have been a regular reader of your blog for quite some years now and have always found it to be very useful and informative. Keep up the good work Martin. I already have the red tshirt and would like to have the black one :-). Cheers once again.
Martin,
Congratulations.
You have a fantastic geek website that is both informative and simply a good read.
Thanks for the past 6 years and the next 100…
SuilAmhain
Congratulations GHacks!
Have saved many of your posts with Feeddemon synced with GReader.
Don’t need the t-shirt though.
I won this giveaway some years back…but NEVER received the tshirt martin!
:)
Ghacks is one of the best tech blogs out there. I really like the way that other writers contribute to this site. I still remember the days when i corrected typos here,Ghacks has progressed so much since.
happy birthday Ghacks…. keep up the good work Martin.
Hi Martin,
Best wishes to GHacks Team and All the best for its future endeavours.
I started my blog on the same date back in 2007 :)
Oops! *facepalm* I was thinking of Mike, sorry.
Congrats, Martin. Not only on 6 years of Ghacks, but also on your personal achievements in that time (MVP status etc.).
Here’s to another 6 great years ahead!
Thanks RD, but I never was a MVP ;)
Congratulations Martin & GHacks!
SFdude
Happy birthday Ghacks.
Ghacks was a great website, is a great website and will remain a great website as long as Martin is here. Ghacks contains tonnes of articles that I read everyday. I also thought of contributing to Ghacks forums but it looks as if the forums are dead. I have often referred people in the Mozilla support forum to your articles. And I plan to share some of your articles at My Blog.
Please don’t send me Ghacks T-Shirt.
Kudos ghacks and of course Martin et al. This is definitely one of the tech sites I make a point of checking out. Good job as always and here’s hoping there are many more years of great tech posts here.
Congratulations Martin.
I with that in the 7th year all applications reviewed will be portable apps :-)
Happy Birthday and many more to you.
Happy b-day and thumbs up! I think its time to turn off add block, because its 2-3 years… ;)
That would be nice ;)
Happy 6th Birthday GHacks. I’ve moved to a mac comp but I still read GHacks so I know the latest info concerning Windows and what not, plus I still own my windows comp. :P Would love a t-shirt but hey if I don’t win I’ll still stay subscribed to the RSS feed. :) Congrats on your success. !!!!!!
Congratulations Martin. Happy Birthday, Ghacks!
Happy birthday ghacks.i’m regular reader of ghacks since last year
Congratulations and a hearty Happy Birthday, ghacks!
You’re one of the three must reads in my Google Reader daily feeds.
Cheers to a bright future!
Congratulations for having a consistently useful site.
(I don’t want a shirt.)
Happy 6th Anniversary to Ghacks and wishing you many more to come!!
You have done us all proud, Martin with your great posts and giveaways!!
Keep up the good work!
I look forward to reading your articles every day!! :)
Wow! that black shirt is awesome, would like to purchase if available. And also congratulations. Ghacks.net is one of the few website in my Adblock+ whitelist.
“Happy Birthday: Ghacks :cheers:
Congratulations Martin and team.
You have done a wonderful job. Hope you celebrate many more years to come.
Thank you for all the hard word.
Happy Birthday!
Great great site — one of the first places i go every morning. Thank you for all you do.
Here’s to the next 6 years martin!
-mouser
Joyeux anniversaire Ghacks, que l’Esprit binaire soit ton compagnon pour l’infini.
================
GHACKS
Joyeux Anniversaire
Wow! I think I must have found your site shortly after it started up. I stop by every a.m.
Congratulations. Your hard work has paid off!
WOW! I’ve been on reading this site for that long???
Congratulations on your staying power.
And no, I don’t need a t-shirt either :)
Congrats to you for completing six years.
I can proudly say I have been a subscriber of Ghacks since past two years and quality of articles is simply getting better and better.
Keep up the good work. Congrats again :-)
Hi Martin and congratulations,
I think everything is been said already. Great Site, great News and great Work. Keep up the great Work and good luck.
happy birthday ghacks.
Congratulations! Thanks for all the great news, reviews and tips. Ghacks is an excellent site and I hope you enjoy writing it for a long time.
Congrats GHacks!
Thank you for your very useful notes/tips.
Keep going/growing for a long time.
From Argentina, best wishes…
Diego
Happy bday Ghacks
But just asking, why does it say in the “About the Author ” section, that this site was founded in 2005. (btw that would make it the 6th birthday ;-) )
Whatever it may be, continue with the good work Martin. Wish you the best for the future
Haha, well spotted. I got it wrong with the 2006 data in the article, have changed it to 2005. Now it makes more sense ;)
Martin, your selflessness, devotion & caring are some of the things that have made Ghacks the top tech blog on the net. Congratulations to you & thank you for giving me Ghacks everyday. May you have a long & rewarding life in your service to others. AND HAPPY, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO GHACKS!
Congrats and all the best sir, Ghacks is one of the popular blogs with easy-to-understand articles for novice users, happy to see you and your blog in this great position, hard work always rewarded.
“hoppy birdy, two ewes,
hoppy birdy, two ewes”
Congrats, 6 years is a long time in the IT world. Hope there are many more to come!
HBD gHacks (I always had the curiosity to know the reason behind this name)! According to my Google Reader trends gHacks is one of the top sites in my reading list. I hope the site will go a long way and remain a great source for tech tips and reviews in the years to come.
মারà§à¦Ÿà¦¿à¦¨ à¦à¦¬à¦‚ অনà§à¦¯à¦¾à¦¨à§à¦¯ লেখকদের অà¦à¦¿à¦¨à¦¨à§à¦¦à¦¨à¥¤
I’m following ghacks for about a 2 years now and i really like it.
Their is such a variety of subject that matter and show us more of what we love.
Thanks for this and long live to ghacks.
Hello Martin,
Thanks for this great work, wish gHacks many more returns of the day. I think you are ready to write your own book (if you have not ventured one already).
Good Luck!!!
Felicitations to gHacks et. al. And congratulations to your success Martin.
It’s great how ghacks evolved from its simple beginnings. I’d even dare say Ghacks’ story is one of those rags-to-riches story of fame. Who wulda thunk a mere, and from its early days obscure, Google hacks site turn out to become a wealth of technology news blog, and among the popular ones at that? ^_^
/m
Great knowing the background story of one of my favourite website.
Happy Birthday GHacks and congratulations Martin. :)
Many Congrats Martin. That’s indeed a big journey you’ve covered considering blogging is not a piece cake. I really appreciate your hard work and dedication towards Ghacks. I wish you all the best for future. Keep rocking! :)
Wow, has it really been 6 years…?
Congratulations, Martin! I’ve found a lot of useful information on your site, and I’m grateful four it.
Congratulations Martin! I suspect you’re one of the hardest working bloggers out there and I guess it’s not easy blogging in a language which isn’t your native tongue.
As a (part-time) blogger myself I know how much time goes into just one post, but you have a phenomenal output 7 days a week.
I wonder if you could give us an idea, on average, how many hours a week you spend blogging? Do you have much time off? I suspect not!
I also have a tee-shirt already so count me out on that one.
I’m probably spending about between four and eight hours per day working, which can shoot up to 16 hours when something goes wrong with the server or advertisement ;) I try to reduce the output on weekends to a few hours though to get some off-time.
And still time to read and respond to comments. A model blogger!
Great effort on your behalf, Martin.
Take some time to chill and relax! :)
I didnt know about the story behind the site. Really good to know. :)
Congratulations and Happy birthday to gHacks. :)
Congrats and Happy 6th Birthday Ghacks !!! Wishing you very prosperous future and may all of your wishes come true. Is it so great to see someone with so much determination and focus to succeed and fulfill his dream. For some reason, while I was reading the article, this so much reminded me of myself. Regular job+My blog+GeekTech Solutions it is a handful at times and I had so many late nights it is not funny.
Martin, you are a true inspiration! I wish you all the best in the future.
Regards,
Ivan K.
Nice, I read your blog every day for the past months or so. Really interesting and useful articles most of the time.
Congratulations to the creator (Martin), his vision, and the wonderful fruit; that is healthy and growing well.
Happy anniversary !
Happy birthday number six and many happy – and healthy returns. Hopefully for you and us you are succeeding the impossible and improve your website even further.
P.s. i published on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002927792676&viewas=100000686899395&returnto=profile
I have been following Ghacks since 3 years now. Its been there in the middle of my speed-dial page in firefox ever since. I check for the Firefox, Chrome and Linux tags almost daily. I really appreciate Martin for all the good work he has done. Happy Birthday Ghacks! Way to go…
2011 – 2006 = 5
As a computer user, I start with 0 :)
happy birthday, ghacks!
Martin, congratulations! ghacks has provided me lots of useful information :)
hope to continue reading for the next few years.
Happy Birthday GHacks!
One of my “everyday sites”, really enjoy your articles!
Keep on!
Happy Birthday GHacks!
Have enjoyed reading the blog for a few years now. Appreciate all the hard work that goes into it. :)
If you are ready to ship to INDIA. then i am in.
I ship world-wide.
The T-shirts designs are awesome. My preference is the Black one!
Great job on the designer’s part! :)
Time flies better with Ghacks (International Weblines) :)
I happen to be one of the many regular Ghacks readers, and also I often notice the site refereed to on several web pages. What I appreciate is the multiplicity of topics, always affordable for newbies even when the matter is sophisticated, hence an incentive to know more and better.
Happy birthday Ghacks, and congratulations Martin.
Congratulations Martin and thanks for all the good info over the years!
But NO, I do not want another ghacks t-shirt (unless you get some long sleeve ones).