Major Changes

Today I've put in place some major changes to the site. It started off as a blog, and will continue to be so, I've just added some extra features to it. I wanted to put in place several of my ideas at once, rather than drip feed them in. A quick list would be, a full text RSS feed, a wiki, a forum, private messaging and the ability to register, and a videos gallery of random videos I find online and want to share with others. The detailed reasoning? Read on.

I don't advertise, I don't solicit hits, so a teaser text RSS feed wasn't required really. I had been mulling over this change for a while but decided to do it after seeing a few people's comments in regards to their sites. I do like to read full posts in my RSS reader too, so it was an easy decision.

I am in the process of creating screencasts for both Drupal and Linux Mint, which will become another section on the site in due course. I wanted a way for people to suggest modules or topics to cover in both sections. The easiest way to do that was a wiki. Right now I'm restricting it's use to just that, although it may be expanded in future.

Anyone who knows me knows that "I'm not a forums kinda guy" so why did I add forums onto my own site? This one was a much tougher decision, but an obvious one that I really should have thought out before. The reason I tend not to like forums is having multiple accounts for multiple sites, and not knowing how my email address will be used. It's also about soaking time when I have other things I'd rather be trying to get done. I have been a member of a few forums, and a moderator in one.

I'm an ideas guy. I come up with a lot more ideas than I can possibly ever act on. One of them was "The What If Machine"; a site to discuss how stories could be different if a scene had ended differently. It grew from the Two Towers when Gollum tries to snatch the ring from Frodo and is caught. What happens if he's quiet and gets away with the ring, it changes everything.

Another idea was a site about literal interpretations of TV adverts. Advertisers know we fill in the gaps, but if we read them literally, they give bizarre and funny messages. Instead of these being separate sites they are now forums on my site. As of yet they are both empty but that's the purpose behind both forums. As and when I come up with other ideas like that, I'll create new forums when appropriate. I have several other ideas that are much more involved and will be separate projects in their own rights. Quite simply I need an outlet for some ideas, and forums seemed the logical place.

For both the wiki and the forums registration is required. I will need to approve each membership request, so let me know you're human in some way. If you haven't heard anything after a day or so, either use the contact form or drop me a quick message on Identi.ca or IRC.

I have included the ability for members of the site to message each other privately too, it's just an extension of the community idea which started from the forum and the wiki.

I have found plenty of cool videos on sites like YouTube that others have posted (mostly) of songs. I've decided to have a videos gallery listing various bits and bobs that I find. They may be taken down at any time, they are also in no particular order or theme. Over time it will be more of a random gallery.

The site was set up initially as a single person site, where only I had an account. It will likely need tweaking yet to be secure for others to use, so don't be alarmed if you see subtle changes as time goes on. Any issues you see, please let me know, and I'll do my best to fix them.

*Update*

The site has been redesigned and rebuilt in Drupal 7. The forums and wiki were not required.