That's right, if you check back to the first post (which was a hello world really), it was written December 18, 2011. Should have been around 1 am-ish too. I remember it like it was yesterday.
So I know that it might not be a "big whoop" to most people, but it means a lot to me and hopefully those who decided to stick along all of these months. I started Techman's World as something that I could share my passion. There are many competing sites out there but making a profit on this isn't a goal at all, but more on profits in another paragraph. I'm happy for the readers I have, but I always welcome new ones. I'm out for building a community of people like me, not tracking pageviews and using click bait titles to attract ad hits like other websites. You know who you are.
I remember when Techman's World started out, which a hand written Microsoft Paint logo. Made under Windows XP with a purplish-reddish background an a airbrushed lime green. If you are new to this site, you can see a picture I kept:
I then updated the logo to make the green a more pale greenish color, the one you see today. Thanks to Gary Rumain for that suggestion.
After that, JMarkAfghans helped make the logo look a bit 3D and removed the pink background and added a transparent one. The Techman's World Avatar is also transparent as well, but you only see it's true colors with Ubuntu Unity integration. Disqus doesn't support transparent avatars, instead filling the transparent areas with black.
Besides logos, the site itself has also went though many changes. I went though a template a few weeks ago, and it was all positive feedback. I switched the widgets a bit though all of the months. I added the page bar too. That was a nice improvement don't you think? I hope so, and it has increased SEO points for the website.
Of course you can see the progress of all of this by looking at all the posts tagged with Techman's World. Most are announcements or something relating to the website. The announcements tag is newer but it was not added to existing old announcement posts. You can search via tag by visiting http://www.techmansworld.com/search/label/<label here>.
Now for the future. Where do you want Techman's World to go. At the time of this post I am currently reviewing a laptop, which is Techman's World's first hardware review. I actually try to review many products, but I've learned that increasingly you will have to buy your own products for review. Not many offer review units. So this got me thinking. Here the part where i said I would talk about money later.
If the community is ok with this, I could start thinking about advertising on the site. I did have an advertising page up on the site already but as a community I haven't really "gotten" there yet. My objective is not to make a profit off of the website but I can say that if any money is earned it is going towards 1) letting me get better equipment such as a new computer that I almost badly need, and 2) let me buy more products to review, and even give away every once in a while.
Sound good to you? Well if the entire community is not on board that is ok. If anything I will be looking into Google AdSense, since I heard that it's something that requires no hassle. If anything, just text ads on the site. I know that many of you use ad blockers and if I do add AdSense to the site I do not ask you to change your ways. Your computer is your computer. If you want to block ads it's fine by me. Heck, I even run AdBlock myself.
If you guys don't want this I don't add it. I don't want to make the site any heavier than what you guys have it at right now. Again, I'll repeat that if you don't want to turn your ad blocker off then that's fine by me. Unlike some websites, who basically call you names for blocking heir ads and don't welcome you to their communities. You know who you are.
Every user is always welcome to Techman's World as long as they have common sense. I do have a policy out but basically it lists stuff that should be common sense.
That's another thing, I just also wanted to mention to you that during most times of the day you can actually chat with me. I have an IRC channel, which is like Instant Messenger but different. Just click the chat tab at the top and pick a username, anyone that's not taken. I am the one with the "~" by their name, since I am the channel owner.
So, I hope you all enjoyed this post. I really do ask that you provide feedback from this article if you can. Most of this site was created better by users themselves, like I've shown. If I didn't mention something in this post, then you can say something in the comments.
So, what do you see in the future of Techman's World and/or what do you want the future of Techman's World to be like?
