TidBITS 2018 Holiday Hiatus: Rest, Recover, and Recharge

This marks our final email issue of TidBITS for 2018. We’ll be paying attention to industry happenings for the next few days and covering those that merit your attention, but after that, we’ll be descending into holiday hibernation through New Year’s Day. I sincerely hope that you have the opportunity to spend this time as you wish, with the people you most enjoy. The next email issue of TidBITS will come out on 7 January 2019.

During our time off, we’ll be resting, recovering, and recharging—Josh Centers and his wife Hannah had a baby a few weeks ago and undoubtedly need all the sleep they can get. (After a somewhat early and rough start, Jeremiah Stone Centers is doing well.) Plus, I’ll welcome the break to focus on recovering from hernia surgery that I had at Shouldice Hospital in Toronto the first week in December. (The surgery went well, I’m doing better every day, and I highly recommend Shouldice for anyone who needs a hernia repair. They’re the best, thanks to doing nothing but hernia surgeries—an incredible 380,000 since 1945.) We’re also working on switching our email delivery system from SendGrid to Sendy and Amazon SES—that could save us roughly $180 each month.

At this time of year, we also take some time to reflect on what it is we’re doing and why, and how grateful we are to the people who make TidBITS possible:

• TidBITS members: To the several thousand people who support us through the TidBITS membership program, thank you so much for your help—TidBITS would not be able to survive without you. It means a great deal to us that you value our efforts to create practical, useful information rather than chasing rumor and fomenting controversy.
• TidBITS sponsors: We’re always grateful for our long-term corporate sponsors: Smile, makers of the essential TextExpander and PDFpen utilities; Backblaze, our favorite Internet backup service; and easyDNS, the Canadian Internet company we recommend for domain registration and email and Web hosting.
• Staff and contributing editors: Tonya and I are also thankful for the highly capable and amiable assistance of Josh Centers, Agen Schmitz, Julio Ojeda-Zapata, Michael Cohen, Jeff Porten, Glenn Fleishman, Rich Mogull, Jeff Carlson, and Lauri Reinhardt. You’re all wonderful people, and while we try to express our appreciation regularly, we wanted to thank you here in public as well.
• Guest authors: Funding from TidBITS members enabled us to commission numerous articles again this year, and big thanks to the authors who helped us expand our coverage, including Andy Affleck, Dave DeLong, Geoff Duncan, Joe Kissell, Kirk McElhearn, Mike Matthews, Charles Maurer, and Sharon Zardetto.
• Translators: Our gratitude also goes out to the industrious volunteers who translate TidBITS into Dutch and Japanese each week and distribute their translations to hundreds of people who prefer reading in their native tongue. (If you’d like to help with either translation, let me know!)
• The TidBITS community: The technical utility of our rebuilt and reinvigorated TidBITS Talk forum has skyrocketed of late—it’s a great place to bring your Apple questions and contribute answers from your own experience and expertise. And while our SlackBITS chat group doesn’t see as much regular traffic, we enjoy having hundreds of TidBITS readers join us to watch and comment on live Apple events. Thanks to everyone who chimes in!
• Readers like you: Finally, even if you haven’t become a TidBITS member, left a comment, or participated in TidBITS Talk or SlackBITS, we very much appreciate the fact that you’ve found time to read what we write. That’s what it all comes down to.

Thank you, one and all, and may all your holiday wishes come true. See you in 2019!