A little over 15 years ago, Chris Dickman and Arlen Bartch created the Xara Xone as part of their graphics website i-us.com and asked me to be the host. A few years later when i-us.com was sold, Xara Group Ltd., agreed to sponsor and host the Xara Xone on their servers and have done so ever since. Kate, Charles and the rest of the crew at Xara have been absolutely brilliant to work with.

The "Xone" has provided myself and others a chance to create tutorials and provide resources, such as the Shareware section, the Links page, and Tips and Tricks for the Xara community. Creating monthly tutorials and content over the last 15 years, has given me the opportunity to share some of the things I have learned about this fabulous product we affectionately call Xara.

It is with a mixed amount of sadness and elation that I am retiring from the Xara Xone. I will miss the creative challenge of providing timely and challenging content each month, but I am happily looking forward to spending a few less hours a day glued to my computer screen.

Over the years I have had the opportunity to meet (virtually) many members of the extremely talented and loyal community of Xara users. I have enjoyed getting to know users from all points of the globe and seeing fumbling new users progress into talented, experienced users. And I have been extremely proud to showcase Xara-created artwork that I sincerely believe is as good as any found in the professional graphics business.

I plan to stick around TalkGraphics as a moderator and to try to help users when I can. And I will of course, continue to show off my latest stereograms in the TG Xara Gallery forum.

While you will not see this Gary around the Xara Xone after 31 December, you will see my old friend, the Other Gary, Gary Bouton. Gary has generously offered to take over the hosting and content creation duties and I am excited to see what fun and excellent things he comes up with. I leave the Xara Xone in good and creative hands.

It's been a fun 15 years!