This post was published 1 year 10 months 27 days ago which may make its actuality or expire date not be valid anymore. This site is not responsible for any misunderstanding.

Today is the 5th Birthday for Aximsite.com and about the 4 1/3 year birthday for Mobilitysite. Since the sites are nearly one site now, I am rolling them into the same.

Anyhow today is the 5th year and I am so happy to be around to share this with you all!

To celebrate this day, we’ll have some special contests over the next week. Prizes will include an HTC Hermes, iPod Classic 80gb, some Sansa e200 mp3 players, software, cases, and more. Stay Tuned for these to start up soon. We are still getting some of them lined up. Read on for some history…

A little over 5 years ago, I decided to go back to college and wanted to get a new device to help with scheduling and note taking. I bought a Casio BE300. Mistake. I returned it 2 days later and ordered the Dell Axim X5. Had some issues with the ordering process and I sent an email off to some folks at Dell to complain and 2 days later, I had my Dell Axim X5. Keep in mind, the roll out on these from Dell was a cluster%^&. After messing around a bit, I started to look online for ways to make this thing do more. I found some great sites, but nothing Axim specific. I started to post a little on a couple of the sites. Well, some of the folks at the sites were rude and less than helpful, so I decided it was time for an Axim Only site where being rude to members would not be allowed. Aximsite was born. We went through 3 design changes and 3 different hosting plans in the 1st 2 months. If I remember correctly, we hit 20,000 members in the 2nd month. The growth was amazing and over the next 4-5 years more than 200,000 members signed up at Aximsite.

When Dell botched the Pocket PC 2003 upgrade with the Dell Axim, HP came out with the iPAQ 2215. This one had PPC 2003 on it and working great. It also did something out of the Dell playbook… It added CF and SD slots. This device was quite popular and caused quite a few Axim owners to switch. I got emails asking for iPAQsite.com to be born. If I would have listened at that time, there would have been an iPAQsite.com, but I didn’t and had to settle for iPaqHQ.com when I finally caved to bringing a sister site to Aximsite online.

When I decided that I would look into making an iPAQ sister site, I searched around and saw that none of the other iPaq only sites were terribly active and decided what the heck. We did pretty good, but we had some issues with HP and a PR person that was a little shady. We refused to sign their limiting CDA, so we were out of the loop for more than a year. Frustration got to me and in January of 2006, I merged iPaqHQ with Mobilitysite (which was my personal blog / tech blog).
Earlier this year, I merged the Mobilitysite and Aximsite forums to create a massive set of forums (which I trimmed down a bit recently).

That is the short version, maybe one day you’ll hear the long version. It’s more interesting and has some serious drama that goes along with various parts of the growth. In fact, there was a point where I got an email from Dell telling me that I had to take Aximsite down because of the word Axim in the domain.

Things have evolved, times have changed, I have tried to transition the sites as the times chaged. I feel we still have a great site today and happy to see a 5th year online. Still strong and I am very proud of what we have all accomplished.

100’s of staff members have helped make these site a huge success and I want to thank all of them. On this special day though, I want to make mention of a couple staff members. Cheryl, JakeRich, Gigi, Silentknight, ceej13, and Ikehiker… These folks have been on the Aximsite staff since basicly the 1st week. There are other veteran Aximsite members that have been here since the beginning and came on to the staff a year or two later too. Everyone deserves a great deal of gratitude for making this site what it is today. Take a look at the staff page and make sure to send someone a PM thanking them for what they have done for this site.

So, I want to thank the Academy for this award… wait… no, I want to that 1st and formost, my Wife and Kids for dealing with this. I work a full time job. When I started the site, I was going to classes at night too. They have put up with a lot.

Next, I want to again thank all the moderators, reviewers, news posters, and Admins. Without you guys support and tireless efforts, this site would never had made it through all we have been through to get to 5 years. We have been fortunate enough to keep many of our staff for as long as they wished to stay around. Don’t forget CageyJames either… He was our very 1st retired admin. Believe it or not, we have only “let”3 staff members go in all this time too.

I am in the rambling mode now… Sorry.

Next, I want to thank all 200,000+ members of the forums. Not all of you have posted like Frenchy or Mr.K, but each and every one of you have made this site worthwhile. Without you, there is no reason for the site. (trust me, I’d still talk even if you all weren’t here though). Where is MR.K at anyhow? Come Back Home Sir!

Seriously, the members have molded Aximsite. The feedback and suggestions helped me to create this community in the image of it’s users and I appreciate it. Words cannot say how much I really do appreciate everyone being here. (in fact, today is reach out to a long lost member day… go out and find someone that used to be here and get them here for today… yes, that means SOMEONE find MR.K)

Next, I want to thanks all the advertisers that have come and gone through these doors. They have made the hosting portion of the site a non factor. Without the advertisers early on, I would have had to fold. I would have never been able to handle $1000/mo out of pocket to host the sites.

Last but not least, Thanks Dell for making the Dell Axim!

I have so many words, but so little time to say them all in… So anyhow… Happy Birthday Aximsite/Mobilitysite!

Chris Leckness (3530 Posts) - Website | Twitter | Facebook

Chris Leckness is the Owner/Administrator of Mobilitysite. He is a Microsoft MVP, Mobile Devices and a member of the exclusive focus group, Mobius. Chris runs a Mobilitysite, GotZune, and a few other smaller sites and blogs. His personal blog is chris.leckness.com.