About

Updated on 2024-11-01

Welcome and thank you for visiting my blog. My name is Kurt Meyer.

Initially, I began sharing interesting links with co-workers, friends, and relatives via email in a shotgun fashion. Later, I came up with the idea of compiling commentary, info, links, reviews, and tips and sending the compilation in a weekly email. One of the recipients of my weekly emails suggested starting a blog.

I played around with the Ghost publishing platform for a few days in January 2016. Hosting costs with Ghost.org (even more expensive now), and the thought that I really didn’t have enough to write about to run a blog, quickly led me to abandon the blog idea.

In the summer of 2018, I wanted to post a tutorial in a Linux forum, but the forum only allowed a certain number of images per post. The number of images in my tutorial exceeded the forum limit, so I was left with nowhere to post my tutorial to share with others.

Later in 2018, I sent a lengthy email update about a health issue and the same individual who suggested blogging earlier, made the suggestion again and the light bulb came on. Blogging would give me a lot more freedom for sharing than a forum and I might be able to make some money from my efforts.

Unfortunately, my efforts to monetize my blog failed. I tried affiliate links and asking for donations, both of which provided no income. I then thought I’d try generating income by serving ads, but I couldn’t find an ad provider that wanted to serve ads on my blog and with whom I desired to work with. You can read more about my efforts to find an ad provider in this post. Therefore, I’ve decided that my blogging efforts will be my gift to the world.

I love to share a variety of things so Shared Bits covers a variety of topics.

I have a background in accounting and information technology. I was a member of the U.S. Air Force for almost 10 years. I officially retired from the workforce in 2023 due to complications from degenerative disc disease.

My MBTI is ISTJ.

Credits:
  • God for His many blessings, most importantly for sending His Son Jesus to die for my sins
  • My wife who has been very supportive through my financial and health issues
  • Robin for encouraging me to start a blog and for planting the seed for the Short Bits posts
  • Grayson Bell for the excellent and free Understanding WordPress online course (outdated, but still useful)
  • All of the talented individuals involved with WordPress and the WordPress ecosystem
  • WP-Royal Themes for the excellent Ashe Blog Pro theme
  • Pixabay for the blog header image
  • Crunchbang Linux (discontinued), developed by Philip Newborough, which introduced me to the joy of using the Openbox window manager, the Openbox menu, and the Tint2 panel working together as a Linux desktop environment
  • All of the users in the many Linux forums I’ve been a part of, and forum posts I’ve encountered, for assisting me in obtaining Linux proficiency
  • Keith Bell whose tough love taught me to ask questions, to seek answers, and to learn about computers, all traits that ended up serving me well during the remainder of my U.S. Air Force career, in my working career after leaving the military, as well as life in general.

There must be an inner readiness to live by texts, to transform oneself into texts, to write even when no one will read. No publisher can refuse this. If literature is your way of interacting with the world, miracles will happen. — Victoria Amelina