PersDev.com – Neal's Personal Development » Blog Archive

The New PersDev

Tuesday July 20 2010

Hello World!… again.

I’m pleased to announce the relaunch of PersDev! A bunch of changes have taken place:

I’ve switched domains from persdev.sidecoder.com to persdev.com.

After waiting 7 months for the domain to expire, I’ve managed to get a hold of persdev.com, which I’m super excited about! Since last October, when I decided that I wanted to blog about personal development, I wanted a new domain name, instead of piggybacking via a subdomain on the SideCoder domain name. PersDev was everything I wanted: short, easily remembered, and instantly understandable. In other words, something that portrayed personal development from the first glance, a lesson that I learned from the Toastmasters name (when I talk about Toastmasters to someone for the first time, they always inevitably say, “Is that where you learn to make great toast?”). However, all of the domain names that I could think of either didn’t fit the criteria, or were taken. The only exception, persdev, was my first choice. It was in the process of expiring when I first discovered it, and I was instantly hooked on the name.

Be sure to bookmark PersDev.com!

A new updated theme and feel for PersDev

Ever since the launch of persdev.sidecoder.com, I’ve been dissatisfied with the green “Mondo Zen Theme” that I had. While that theme was ok, it wasn’t what I wanted for my site. I wanted something that was contemporary, visually stimulating, feature robust, and easy to use. My current theme, “Inanis Glass” satisfied that.

The new theme allows for user chosen themes, quick and intuitive access to the RSS feeds, and the ability to search the site. Plus it just looks nice.

I’m changing the feel and style of the posts

I’ve come to realize that there was a fundamental error in my thinking when it came to posting blog articles. I was focused on providing value, and therefore talked a lot on what I thought others could do to improve themselves. This was a mistake. Although that format does provide some value, it can come across as authoritarian, which doesn’t fit my personality.

From now on, I’m going to write primarily on my own achievements, insights, and goals. This has many positive effects:

Original Content – I’m not going to use other people’s concepts and jargon, since I’m not going to be researching my articles. This allows for my true perspective to come through, not one that has been tinted by someone else’s experiences.
Posting Rate – In the past, I stuck to a posting schedule, which didn’t work out for me. That led me to not posting for several months. By posting on my own experiences, not only will I post when I get something new (a lot more often than going a few months without a post) but I will be much more motivated to post.
No BS – These are my own experiences. There’s no fluff. If I’m trying something out, and it doesn’t work out like expected, that’s what I’m going to report. The vegetarian experiment really showed me this – vegetarian websites made it sound so awesome, while my experiences showed me that it was a difficult lifestyle. If I just researched vegetarianism, instead of experiencing it, I would’ve never been able to talk about it.

Another thing about No BS that is great is that it is so rare on the internet. I think that not only will it keep you here, it will also drive more traffic to my website.

An optional user registration system

With the new theme, user registration is a breeze and it comes with a variety of benefits:

It allows you to post comments without typing in your information over and over again.
You can edit how your comments appear on the site.
You’ll be automatically enrolled for our newsletter. – Although I don’t have any current plans for a newsletter, I would eventually like to have one. If you don’t want this, you can always opt out of the newsletter. I guarantee that there will be an unsubscribe link at the bottom of it. The newsletter will have exclusive content to it, as well as letting you be in the loop of what’s happening on PersDev.

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