Time sure flys by when you are having fun. It seems like just last week that I bought my new T-Mobile Pocket PC Phone Edition and I was searching the web for a place to get help on how to use it. In those days, PocketPCPassion was the place to discuss this PDAPhone and so I began a journey there that led me to create this site eventually. At the request of a moderator there, I took on the task of developing an FAQ for that device. That was the beginning of PDAPhoneHome. Ironically, the FAQ for that phone is tucked away in the forum here now, and we will have to rebuild that capability as the site moves to a new phase in life.

We ran for a year using phpBB's forum script and grew slowly, drawing visitors looking for help on a variety of PDAPhones. As we grew the FAQ section of the site, we found that most forums around the internet had grown to support only one device, or family of devices. Very few were trying to bring different PDAPhone owners together. That became our mission and through the acquisition of SmartPhoneSource and SmartPhoneForums in our second year, we grew and brought a balance to our user base of Palm and PocketPC members. These mergers also brought us to migrating to vBulletin and totally rewriting the site scripts. Inside the PDAPhoneHome development team, we called that phase of the site's history, PPH2. PPH2 saw the development of a site store and the addition of a downloads portion of the site.

About a year and a half ago, the work began to form what is now PPH3. We new that we needed a totally new and fresh design, that wasn't going to become outdated as new devices emerged. I was just taking note a couple days ago as we sunset PPH2 that the logo had an Audiovox Thera and a Kyocera 7135 in it. While both devices still have a strong following here, they have long ago been dropped from the sales shelves of the carriers. We wanted a design that could take us on into the future.

After two false starts with designers that took our money and produced nothing for it, I finally found the designer that worked with me to bring life to PPH3. Sheldon from http://vbulletinskinz.com and I hooked up from opposite sides of the globe and began to hack out ideas and exchange Photoshop files. I believe that he captured the heart of the site perfectly, and gave us a very usable design. But, this is just the beginning. We are now up to date on the latest version of vBulletin and are ready to roll the sleeves up and build a PPH3 that is bigger and better than those that followed.

Reflecting back on a community that began about five years ago, I still see familiar faces who have been here all along, and we also have seen many new faces that have left a mark here that will never be forgotten. As we all get used to the new "skin" that we wear, I want to thank you for the patience you have shown waiting so long for an update, thank you for the compliments the new site has received, and also thank you for the constructive criticism that will allow us to make it better going forward.

Thanks everyone for making this a community!

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Mike - Been Converged?