OmniNerd Version 3

It's finally here. Version 3! We admit, it's still a little rough around the edges, but it's better in so many other ways. First, the code base is 100% new. Aside from the buggy nature of new code, the new underlying design gives us something we didn't have before: a solid foundation for new development. The version 2 code that I wrote was really a learn-as-you-go project. If you've ever done a project like that, you know how it goes ... ugly. The code was very inhibiting and rather than trying to fix a broken system, we took it as an opportunity to start fresh and moved from PHP to Ruby on Rails. We understand that this means certain features aren't quite polished yet, but they will be soon. If you stumble upon a bug, please use the link on the bottom of every page to log it and try to bear with us through our growing pains.

As for the new stuff, all of you lazy readers may now have something to contribute: links. All you need is a URL and you can submit any story or article you found interesting on the net. Also, you've probably noticed the "Nerdits." This is your new voice on OmniNerd. If you think content is good, nerdit up. If you don't like it, nerdit down. We'll be developing this more as time goes on, but for now it's an easy way to see what's popular. Additionally, you'll see a little asterisk on content now. Click it and it'll turn orange, "starring" the content. On your user page you'll find a list of content you starred. Use it to bookmark content, mark things for reply, or whatever you like. We've given you a new way to contact authors too. If you don't feel like making a public comment, or would like to have a private two-way conversation, use the messages on your user page or click the link below any content posting. Lastly, you can now email articles to your friends directly from the site.

We've modified the Coffee Shop as you knew it. Instead of directly submitting to the Coffee Shop, we now have blogs. Blog about whatever you'd like on your user page. When you write something that you think is front page worthy, just click the link below your blog to submit it for review and if it's good it'll show on the front page with the Coffee Shop icon.

This is just a taste. Article drafts are better, content is taggable, searching is enhanced, comments on book, etc., etc., etc. And the best thing is, our to-do list is longer than ever. One note of caution however for our MSIE 6- users. You're using an old, non-standards-compliant browser. I am just one man and have no intentions of spending too much time ghetto-rigging things to work in MSIE. Do yourself a favor and upgrade to MSIE 7, or get Firefox. You'll find many rendering issues on this site and others will magically disappear.

Enjoy! I'd love to get your thoughts and feedback in the comments.

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