It is amazing to consider that it has been just over two years since I received my "First contact" AmigaOne X1000 from AmigaKit. Has it been that long already?

Writing this blog has been a big part of that, sharing my experiences with the X1000 and provides various tips and tricks I found along the way, that hopefully would help other X1000 owners, and myself when I inevitably forget how I did something!

Some people have let me know that this blog was a big influence in their decision to buy an X1000 - I am so glad to hear stories like that! :-)

Although expensive, the X1000 is a good system, and offers Amiga users the fastest AmigaOS4.1 experience available right now. If you can afford it, please buy one - they are available from AmigaKit here with no pre-orders needed as I write this.

To my surprise I also got a lot of interest in the X1000 blog from lots of different countries, spanning many different languages! David Brunet from French Amiga website Obligement.free.fr has an agreement with me, and translates some of my blog posts into French too!

Wherever you come from, I am really glad if you find this blog interesting! I enjoy writing it!

The feedback and comments inspired me to try even more things, and push the X1000 as far as it could reasonably be pushed (within my financial means) during the last 2 years.

In the last year, some of the highlights for me included playing around with Qt4.7 and it's many new applications, NTFS support (taught me lots about Amiga file systems), Odyssey 1.23 with YouTube support, Directory Opus 5.9, Digibooster Pro 3, Catweasel Mk2 for X1000, Kryoflux, Games like Ace of Hearts, MACE, Huenison, Amazing Voxel Bird Saga, and of course having full screen 720p video playback with Liveforit MPlayer!

My blog entries on Qt4.7 framework on AmigaOS4.1.6 were by far the most popular over the last year, and indeed the most popular since I started this blog. I hope we see even more Qt4.7 applications in 2014 on AmigaOS4 as programmers get more familiar with how to use it.

My only regret over these past 2 years was not being able to go to the yearly AmiWest show to spend time talking Amiga with fellow X1000 owners (and other Amigans too).

This year is different! I have booked to attend AmiWest 2014 this year (including the programming seminar before the show itself), and can't wait to meet as many passionate Amigans as possible! If you are able to go to AmiWest this year, please go! I look forward to meeting you there!

I am also making an effort to be present on IRC reasonably regularly on the AmigaWorld channels, so maybe I'll chat to you there soon! I also keep a regular eye on Amigaworld.net, Amigans.net and amiga.org English Amiga forum websites.

Recently I have been working on Classic Amiga projects (especially Amiga 600) on my other blog http://classicamiga.blogspot.com.au, which has proved to be quite a distraction using a lot of time, but a project I wanted to finish as I have tried a few times to get it done in the past! I plan to get back to focusing on the X1000 again shortly I promise!

I was reflecting that with my other computers (Mac, PC) I average around 3-4 years before replacing them with the  next generation model (where available). Probably when that time arrives for the X1000, we may have the new AmigaOne X5000 (Cyrus) system available to buy (no pressure Trevor!) - it is exciting to know we have an upgrade path for AmigaOS4 for the future.

For the present time, the AmigaOne X1000 is here now, and running AmigaOS4.1.6 on it is a lot of fun, with plenty more software and updates to come no doubt.

So now is a good time to get on board if you are not already, especially if you are a current or former Classic Amiga user who wants to try the latest AmigaOS4 on modern hardware - it really is a quantum leap forward.

Here's to the next year of the AmigaOne X1000!