The addition of a forum to the site was something that I’ve been thinking about doing for more than a year, and mentioned that near the end of this blog post. Today, I’m pleased to announce that the day has finally come. I put the game in overtime last night to get it finished and linked through from the homepage at 1:36am.
In all honesty, I had the majority of it set up nearly two weeks ago, but I get apprehensive about these things, thinking something catastrophic will happen and cause the whole house of cards to come crashing down. I had that same feeling when I first started this website, when I opened the first plan sales page, and nearly every time I upload a new video. Blessed and cursed with an over-active imagination, I guess.

On to the reasons why I added the forums: first, I really like the idea of creating a community around this site and the people that visit it. Having a forum makes it easier to post pictures of the projects (from here, your own or from elsewhere) you are working on or completed. I believe it will also be a valuable resource when building one of the projects on this site, as more members post details on their experiences and can lend advice to those just starting out.

My old (really old) homemade miter saw

On my end, I will post regular updates to the forum on various projects, including some long term ones that I have planned. I will also use the forum blog section to replace this one, and that will be more frequently updated and less formal than this one. I’m thinking a brief daily wrap-up type post covering anything new and noteworthy.
To that end, I will stop posting to this blog permanently, but it will still be here for those that want to go back read through it.
I have also removed the “contact me” link from the site, as any contact going forward will be through the forum, or other online social media, such as Facebook or Google+.
The forum will also replace the “Reader Projects” section, and I will eventually merge the individual projects from there into the original project article as an addendum.

Something else that is no more is the RSS feed for the main site. I had stopped updating that altogether a few weeks ago, as I found the process to do so very tedious. Besides, I think it’s redundant with all of the other, more accessible methods of promoting the site updates. My apologies to anyone that has relied on that and I would suggest signing up to the email update, if you haven’t done so already.
Also, updates are posted for each new article and project on Facebook and Google+.

So, a few changes and the upside, but there is a downside (of course). My time is stretched pretty thin, and adding the forum won’t improve that. It’s difficult to find the time for everything, so I won’t be spending a lot of time on there, but will check in to post updates and look through what has been posted. At this time, the membership is still very small, so not much of a problem to stay on top of everything. As more members join in, it will be difficult to “see” everything that’s been posted, so forgive me in advance if it seems like I’m not paying attention.
I’m looking forward to this new chapter in this website’s history and hope you do as well.