And We Are Back! Welcome To The New Site

Welcome to version 3 of the website. I will get into the reason why it's version 3 in a bit. First, I want to introduce you to what this "new" site is all about.

Sections

You may have noticed that the site has different sections. On the top navigation, there is a button SWITCH which allows you to jump to different sections of the platform.

Right now you can only access The Self-Development section and START HERE which is my main landing page. You can check it out to get a brief introduction to the site.

So... the question you probably have on your mind is why?

To which I will reply with a "why not?".

I have been interested in different things for a really long time. I have often talked about it on the blog and podcast... plus I have left a digital trail all over the internet on various sites, but for some reason, I had never thought to create a "hub" for all that I'm interested in and passionate about.

Well, there was a reason.

The reason was that I was worried it would confuse the heck out of people mashing all my interests in one place.

Back in the day (not that long ago), it was conventional wisdom that if you decided to publish a personal website, then make sure it had just one focus/purpose. To not be all over the place. This way, you can more easily develop a brand about 1 thing very well.

Times have changed.

I don't visit youtube.com to just watch cat videos.

I don't go to twitter.com to just learn about what latest trend has broken the internet.

So why should I have a site that focuses on just one thing while it's clear that the rest of the world has learned to get so much from one source?

So now I'm going all in and giving you the REAL me online. I'm going to pull together everything I have ever put out there on various websites and have it all connected here.

If you followed me because you enjoyed the self-development content, then you will not only get more of it, but you will also get a better experience than you previously had. That's my goal.

If you know and follow my game development journey, then you will get to understand how I go about that process. I will teach you how to get started and I will share my creations in a more accessible way.

If you know that I run a software business and that I have been developing apps since 2007, you will get my thoughts about the industry as it continues to evolve. I will teach you how to get started. I will share productivity tips and tricks. I will give you what I have learned about developing apps for businesses.

If you know that I am a digital artist that has been drawing for as long as I can remember, you will get to see what I'm working on. I will teach you how to use some of the tools I use. I will share on my blog what I think is cool that other artists have published.

And if you know that I have been making music since 2003, then I will invite you into the crazy world of music. I can show you how to get started and we can both enjoy tunes when the world thinks it's okay to keep stressing us out. Music is life after all.

So yeah.

But it's not yet done

As I said in the intro, it's not yet complete. I'm continuing to update and fix things. Some things don't work properly. Pages will be updated.

But rather than just wait till everything is 100%... I felt it was better to start with what I have so far. At least the self-development section is mostly done. I also need to start getting real-world feedback on how the website is performing. There's only so much testing you can do in an offline environment.

I have been working on this for over a year. It took a while to design what you see in front of you. I always used WordPress to power my site, but for technical reasons (which I will talk about in the Code section of my site in the future), it made more sense to just build it from the ground up instead of customizing an existing content management system like WordPress.

It would have been a nightmare to create and manage a WordPress theme for this project.

That said, WordPress did have its advantages. Especially when it came to security, content management, and SEO (Search Engine Optimization). I needed to make sure that I got those right if I developed my own kidando.net specific WordPress.

That means that there are things that are incomplete, and bugs. So bear with me as we try to stabilize things and get things to the done state.

If you run into a bug, please don't hesitate to let me know. I was hesitant at first to add in a "report a bug" feature on the site, but I might as well do it. In the meantime, just use the email bugs@kidando.net.

For spam-related reasons, I can't make that email address a link. Bots are a headache I have had to deal with for years. But again, I will create a feature that allows you to report bugs in case you run into some.

There's a lot to be done. A lot of tools I need to put in place to help manage the platform more and so on. Content... a lot of content that needs to be published and updated

If you have wondered why my podcast isn't like on Google Podcasts or Apple Podcasts, it's because I never submitted my RSS feed to them. The way my previous site was set up, it wasn't really going to work. I would have to wrestle with WordPress which I wasn't interested in doing. But now that I have rebuilt things in a way that gives me full control, I will create a podcast RSS which I will submit to these big platforms.

Why did this take so long?

The obvious reason is that the project was a bit ambitious. It's a complex design. You will see that when I unlock the other sections over time.

But other than that, as I said, I had to build things from the ground up and not use a content management system (CMS) like WordPress that comes with a lot of key features already working. I mean in 20 minutes you can get up and running with a fully functional website with WordPress.

However, to customize WordPress so that you get your website looking and functioning the way you want... you will have to do a lot of work. Especially if you have a complex design. It requires you to understand WordPress and keep up with its evolution. That's something I enjoyed doing in the early 2010s but for building more complex sites, it's easier for me to create things from scratch. Again, I will talk about this in the future in the code section of the site.

Another thing I had to do was migrate existing content.

I had to migrate all the content I have been publishing since 2014. That's more than 7 years' worth of content.

And I had to do it manually because it was also a way for me to do some quick editing where necessary and to update the formatting. This was painful, but I'm a very patient person. So no biggie.

Hesitation was also another reason why I took so long. At the time, there were things happening in this country (Tanzania) that didn't make much sense to me. I won't go into the details, but essentially the parts of the government responsible for communications and what not were introducing all sorts of changes that got me worried.

I'm glad that some of the policies have now been rolled back and scrubbed but at the time, it was stressful stuff.

Finally, the last reason why things took so long... the pandemic.

I am sure I have mentioned more than a couple of times that the blog and podcast were not on the top of my priority list. Meaning it was not responsible for my daily bread. So when the pandemic hit, the business I run needed my full attention because this pandemic broke things for a lot of businesses.

I needed to get to a place where I could at least have my business in a stable situation before coming back to kidando.net.

I regret that. I mean, I could have definitely found a way to keep things going on the site, but hey... it is what it is. We live we learn.

What's up with the version 3 thing?

When I first started this blog back in 2010, my focus was on digital art. What I was doing and what I was learning.

(by the way if you head over to https://web.archive.org/web/*/kidando.net you will see snapshots of how the site used to look like over the years.)

I published articles, tutorials, and my own work all about digital art. Again, it's one of my passions. That was version 1.

But in 2014, I got to a place where I felt like I was stuck and struggling to make sense of the life I had led up to that point. I was miserable and felt like things would be that way for the rest of my life.

Fortunately, I had found people online that helped me get out of that state of mind and to find renewed purpose.

Before you knew it, I was on my feet again and determined more than ever to see my goals through.

I also decided to share my experiences and what I was learning about that very thing... pursuing goals and dealing with challenges.

I knew that there were so many folks all over the world that we're going through the very ups and downs I faced. I wish I had a resource to have helped me navigate life after college. So why don't I fill that void by providing my experiences especially for those that can more easily relate to me?

Version 2 was born. The focus was Making Progress Towards Goals That Matter Through Self-Development.

But it wasn't a well fleshed-out idea.

It was just a thing I did on the side that was just a service I was doing for those interested.

Version 3 picks up from that but adds a whole lot more.

This is me going all out and really taking what was essentially a blog and converting it into a platform.

This is not just where I occasionally blog. This is me online. This is me turning a website into a business. This is me taking my piece of real estate on the internet and converting it into something that works for me.

Thanks to the experience I have gained over the years, I finally felt it was time to take the training wheels off the BMX. I need to make new mistakes and quickly overcome them. I need to be a lot more productive and value-focused.

The world is constantly changing at a rapid pace. And I have always known that the internet was always going to be the one place where I could definitely build the kind of freedom I require for myself.

You may have noticed a Buy Me Coffee link on the site. I know have been providing a lot of value for folks over the years and there's more to come. But I want that to be something permanent... as in, have me focus on just providing value, then it obviously can't be for free. So I'm going to integrate things like Coffee into my platform to ensure that I put more focus on making the content better and better.

So yeah... a new site. But in many ways... also a new me.

So... What's next?

Well, more work needs to go into this... obviously.

But for the most part, let's see where this goes.

If you have read up to this point... thank you. My hat off to you.

If you have been following me over the years and have secretly wished that kidando.net gets better... I don't know what to say than just... I appreciate you.

I know that I'm not perfect. I often struggle with doubt especially when it comes to publishing content on self-development. But I'm not trying to be perfect at it. I just want to start conversations around things that matter to us as dreamers. That's it.

Nothing is easy in this world. We are all going through our own personal challenges. On related topics such as pursuing personal goals, I just want to do what I can to help us make as much progress as possible.

I think the future looks bright. I want to help as much as I can to ensure that for both you and me.

This is a one on one conversation between two people that I want to see evolve.

Anyway, have yourself an awesome rest of the day. We shall talk soon.

Remember, in life, you have options when it comes to working towards goals that matter...

Choose to make progress towards them... and not excuses that prevent you from doing anything productive at all.

Let me know what you think so far. Like what I have done with the place? Is this your first time here? Have you been with me since 2014? Do you have a favorite blog post or podcast episode? You can leave a comment down below :)

#makeProgressNotExcuses