New Year, New Blaaaahg!

WHAT DO YOU THINK, GUYS?

It feels so great to finally be able to show you what we've been working on for weeks! Shane and I spent days choosing the right elements for this blog to make it a) prettier b) faster and c) more user-friendly. And of course, we also spent days getting it up and running in time for the new year. Happy New Year, everyone! Welcome to a new (p)age of 22 Nelson Street where we have a lot of new things to share with you. This is the first time since we launched that we took the time to change things up on such a massive scale. In the past, we’ve made changes and implemented new features along the way but nothing like this. And to give myself a little New Years treat, imma gonna make a list. Here’s a list of New features you’ll find on the New 22 Nelson Street website this New Year.

  • Logo: It took me 15 months to decide to design my own custom logo because I’m dumb. That’s why. When we launched Desi Outsiders, one of the first things we did was create the custom logo. I’m pretty sure our logo was almost ready even before we started recording the pilot episode. However, with 22 Nelson Street, I just didn’t care. The fonts and designs kept changing with every masthead I created in the past year and I was pretty happy with that. Not anymore. With this new year, not only do we have a new blog, but we also have a brand new logo. And this one’s here to stay.

  • Favicon: You know the little icon at the top of the page when you open other tabs while reading my blog? Or the little icon that gets saved on your phone after you browse through this website? That’s been updated based on the logo as well. This is how it’ll appear based on the device you’re using.

  • Speed: You might notice that this website loads faster than the previous one. We’ve gotten rid of a lot of unnecessary elements that used to make it slow.

  • Archive: Guess who has an archive now? 15 months. I’ve wanted this for 15 months. And finally, we have an archive of all the posts ever published. A lot of you have told me that you wanted to go back to the very first post published on this blog and start reading from there till you catch up with everything that’s going on now. I totally get that because I myself have done that on other blogs. Now, you get to do it on mine too. The Archive button on the menu bar will take you to a page with a) a Tag Cloud (A TAG CLOUD ZOMG FINALLY!)...

...and b) a calendar.

This calendar is the important bit. Type in whatever year, month or date you want and all the posts under that category will show up. Type in whatever tag or keyword you're looking for and all the related posts will show up. Try typing in whatever date or month format you want! Your results will still appear. Basically, you have full access to all my posts without having to painstakingly click on the “next” button” on the homepage.

  • Dates: You might remember that one of my major gripes with the previous blog was that the dates were never displayed on posts. You could only see how many days/weeks/months ago a post was published. Now, we finally have dates on each and every post. It makes things so much easier and less complicated.

  • Google AMP: For mobile users, we have good news. The website is INSANELY faster to load because we implemented Google AMP. All my Google+ users were already enjoying this feature although, it never picked up Disqus. So now, you can use it and still be able to comment on individual posts.

  • Caching: Our servers are now backed by a CDN (Content Delivery Network). So based on your location, the content will be delivered to you via a local server in your location/country. Long story short, everything’s a lot faster now.

  • Liking and Sharing: If you like what you read, all you have to do is click this button at the bottom of each post. The buttons below the "like" buttons allow you to share the posts as well.

  • Buy me a coffee: You might be wondering what this button in the image above does. I’ve shared earlier that it basically lets you buy me a coffee for my efforts in maintaining and updating this blog regularly. But now, I’ve decided that all the proceeds generated from your contributions via this button will go straight into building a home for 12 orphans in Kenya. Please do contribute and help us out :)

  • Mail: We have a new custom e-mail address now! It's [email protected] It's easier and more straight-forward. But those of you who've already been sending me mails and have saved my details, worry not. All your e-mails get automatically redirected to the current one :) Pretty cool, huh?

The basic gist is that now, this website is a hell of a lot faster than it used to be. It's also cleaner and more efficient to give you a wonderful user experience. And if you're reading this from your mobile/tablet device, do check it out from your desktop to get a full idea of what the website currently looks like. Also, we would love to get your feedback, be it in terms of design or user friendliness.

This year is already off to a great start, don't you think? May it bring all of us happiness and tons of progress in all the areas we're looking to improve upon. See you on Monday!