It’s hard to believe, but three years ago today I started The Loop. We’ve gone through a lot of changes since then, many of the biggest in the last year.

I suppose the most significant change the site has seen was moving from a cluttered ad-filled design to a clean, mostly text site. I removed 99 percent of the ads on the site and joined The Network, which allowed the site to run with only one small ad.

Peter Cohen, my best friend and colleague of the last 20 years, has continued to help a great deal on the site with his writing and advice. I can’t thank him enough. This year we also added Your Mac Life’s Shawn King to The Loop, bringing a different perspective to the posts you see on everyday.

With the site design changes I also launched a membership option for readers. I know that $3 a month doesn’t sound like a lot, but it helped me buy new servers and have the site on one of the best content delivery networks in the world. These changes brought page load times down from over 10 seconds to 1 second in many parts of the world.

A membership doesn’t offer you fancy gifts or coupons, but it’s not about that. It’s about supporting independent writing. Thank you for your support.

My biggest thanks goes out to you, the reader. By helping to spread the word about what we do here at The Loop, traffic has increased, sponsorships from companies and independent developers have increased and we are successful.

Thank you.

Jim

CNET: While the Intel representatives wouldn’t allow us to hold the unannounced device or talk about in-depth specs, we were able to pry out some information. How, and in what goddamn world, is that a ‘Hands On’?

Dan and Jim discuss next week’s WWDC, the LinkedIn password leak, MacBook Air copycats, and much more!Sponsored by Appsfire, Squarespace (coupon code DANSENTME6), and Hover (coupon code DANSENTME for 10% off).

Nathaniel Beard, of the world’s premier beard-faced band The Beards, has hit back at Victorian top cop Ken Lay who wants to ban beards and ponytails. Mr Lay is facing an investigation into whether his campaign to defoliate the entire police force is a breach of human rights.

Get ’em beard-faced Aussie.

During Airtime’s launch event, Parker and Fanning said they wanted to recapture the excitement and energy of the popular AOL chat rooms of the 1990s – which strikes me as a dubious goal at best – but still provide some safety for users.

Two slots just opened up for the balance of June on our advertising network, The Deck. We’ll do a nice price for an advertiser who can pull the trigger quick.

This is the ad network used by The Loop.

Today, consumers, businesses and schools use Google Apps to get stuff done from anywhere, with anyone and on any device. Quickoffice has an established track record of enabling seamless interoperability with popular file formats, and we’ll be working on bringing their powerful technology to our Apps product suite.

Donating your old discs to CDSweep will help advance cutting-edge scientific research into the causes and treatment of autism and provide the fast-growing number of affected individuals with the gift of hope. You can even request that your CDs be digitized and sent back to you as MP3s for free.