![Photo courtesy of birdfarm [Flickr]](http://www.thepracticalnerd.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/519230710_c2a38f0cf81.jpg "Photo courtesy of birdfarm [Flickr]")
It’s a time of maturation for The Practical Nerd. As you can see, a lot of changes have been made to the site, and I’m really excited about where it’s going to take us! There have been some problems on the backend in the last few months or so, and I took some time to finally clean them out and update the site. Let’s take a look at what’s new:
Cleaner site design
I have a soft spot in my heart for the last design – it was an uncommon theme and it grabbed the eye. However, the theme itself caused quite a bit of problems for the way the site ran. After a while, it felt like the site design was getting cluttered and bogged down. I was not a fan of that.
This new theme is simple, but still has a nice splash of color to it. There’s a sophistication to it – just like us nerds. I think this will go a long way in making this site more pleasant to spend some time on.
The return of the podcast
You bet. The podcast has been strangely absent, but that has mainly been due to a month-long battle with bronchitis that saw me fluctuate between endless coughing and sounding like Barry White. The fiance and I both had to load up with antibiotics and cough medicine, and it just wouldn’t make for a very good podcast to listen to. I’ve since cleared up and I’m excited to record one this week. I also have since upgraded my microphone, so we will have a nice, clear sound – again, a little more professional!
ACTUAL related posts
One of my pet peeves over the past few months has been the "Related Posts" section of each post. Previously, it would just list the most recent posts for some reason. I have since fixed that, and now you can see posts actually related to the one you’re reading from the full Nerd Archives! How cool is that?
Condensed categories
As a baby blogger, I thought having a bunch of categories would help in organizing the site. Now, I realize simpler is better, and tags are where it’s at. So I pulled back on the categories for a more streamlined approach to organization.
New tagline
I have retired the "Helping Cooler People improve and enjoy their lives." I had a dream that I could make "Cooler People" the official buzzword of the blog – a derogatory term for people who live in the mainstream. I now know that I should be focusing my efforts on the word "nerd". So now I am redefining the word "nerd" and the tagline zeroes in on that. This was also aided by the surprise popularity of my "9 Reasons Why Being a Nerd is Awesome" post.
A return to WLW
This one doesn’t mean a whole lot to you, but I have installed Windows XP on a virtual machine within my Ubuntu operating system just to use Windows Live Writer. If you are a blogger, you understand why: WLW is quite possible the best thing Microsoft has ever put out. Ubuntu just didn’t have a comparable solution. I wanted consistency in formatting and WLW is the way to do it, so we’re back in that regard.
More focused sidebar
As of press time, there are 236 posts on The Practical Nerd. That’s not a lot of content for some bloggers, but that’s a good chunk for me. And I want people to be able to navigate through some of that and enjoy all of this great content that I’ve put up here over the last year and a half (if I do say so myself). The simpler sidebar highlights the "Random Posts" section and the tags. Start browsing around and enjoy some classic Nerd stuff!
FIXED FEED!
My most hindering complaint about the site, technically-speaking, over the past year has been the broken feed, which screwed up how the posts looked if trying to subscribe to the site (via Google Reader and others). Happily, we can chalk that one up to the previous design as well, as the feed is fixed! This means I will be setting up the Facebook feed once again, and those looking to subscribe can finally see the content as it is supposed to be presented!
Cleaned up backend
Once again, I believe the last design caused a number of problems on the backend of this blog. You probably won’t notice much of a difference in performance, but all the blog plugins have been updated and the entire system is running remarkably better. To be honest, this whole update has restored my faith in WordPress, and it gives me a better feeling to be writing in a nice, clean blog again.
This update was a long time coming and is a big step for the future of this site. I thank everybody who has stuck around, and I hope to continue to see you guys (and more) throughout the near future!
Tom is an entrepreneur and freelance writer, working out of his apartment full-time, or wherever he feels like taking his laptop. He doesn't take long European vacations or blogs on the beach. He's an Average Joe that took control of his life. He wants you to do the same.
