I’ll be frank, not a damn thing has been posted since early June. Fortunately, there’s a fine reason for playing truant. Some time ago I decided to move what had been my personal blog into an altogether different direction, namely an internet magazine that would explore sensitive and relevant issues (to young adults anyway) in a fair, open and somewhat nonchalant way. After an extended incubation period, I’m happy to report the BackWomb is once again up and running. There have been myriad changes to the way the site looks and operates as well as the content that will be contained within so I’ll try to give a brief overview.

First, I want to extend a huge thank you to my partner and the whiz behind all the technical innards that now power the site, Reza Shaffaf. As co-founder of DiligentFolk, you can expect Rez and myself to be continually updating and improving the look and operation of the site as well as developing some exciting new web apps.

CONTENT
Rather than my personal ramblings, I, along with several new authors will be writing about period issues, current news, human behavior and really everything under the sun so long as it’s somewhat controversial. The general premise is that we, as young(er) adults, have a variety of issues to discuss as we start displacing the previous generation from their positions of power. It’d be nice to sort out a few things before we become the “movers and makers.” Our parent’s generation accomplished a lot but I suspect they also screwed us over. We’ve inherited a planet where xenophobia and intolerance is on the rise, pollution is rampant, Mother Nature is dying, consumerism is the reigning philosophy, the individual triumphs over the community, etc. The idea is to discuss our shortcomings and strengths as humanity in the hope of finding the true path, so to speak; Ergo the site motto, “Back Room Disputations Resulting in Truthful Gestations.” No topic should be taboo, readers are encouraged to voice their opinions and no stance is considered automatically right or wrong simply because “everyone else says so.” As such, only a handful of articles made it over from my personal blog; They were transferred with any associated comments and form the foundation for the new site. We’re looking for well read, well written authors, so if you’re interested in getting your ideas out there, or indeed, just writing, give us a shout at help (at) backwomb.com.

DESIGN
With a lot more content to present, the design had to evolve as well. I’ve tried hard to make the site attractive and user-friendly. The main page is laid out as shown at right. I’ll give a quick overview of how to sign up, detailed instructions will follow in the soon to be released FAQ page. The first two links in the sidebar (identified at right) are for existing and new users. Essentially, signing up keeps you abreast of new articles and comments. It’s all pretty self-explanatory as long as you’re not a computer luddite. If you are, shoot us an email, we’ll help you through. Once signed up as a user, the editor (that’d be me) can upgrade you to an author if you’d like to write for us. Currently, most of the site is operational though searching via the “Archive” or “Article Topics” takes you to pages that are somewhat unfinished. That’ll be sorted out in the coming weeks. Any comments or suggestion would be most appreciated. The five most recent articles are shown on the front page, the others can be accessed (in chronological order) by scrolling to the bottom and clicking “Older Articles.” The front page only shows a snippet of the article, if you want to read the whole thing, click the “Read On!” link at the end of the summary. Commenting is open to all readers though we require that you submit your name and email address (the latter will be kept private) so you can be notified of follow up comments. Other than that, feel free to explore the existing content on the site and come back often for new stuff.

TECHNICAL JAZZ
The site was initially designed and published via Apple’s iWeb. Though a nice little application that taught me a lot about weblife, in the end it proved too slow, too dimwitted and too restrictive to be of proper use. Wordpress, a free and open source content management system now powers the BackWomb and we are very excited about that. It has allowed us to bring a lot of added functionality and move away from the previous static design. At the same time, our site design has placed some strange demands on the Wordpress system and we’ve had to work around a few issues. As such, there may be a few rough edges or non-functional links. If you come across any, please report them to us HERE. We did switch domains and can now be found at www.backwomb.com (or via a Google search for “backwomb”). Initially, duplicated links will show up in the Google results as the site was previously hosted on different domains but those should die away as I remove content from the old servers. Just be sure the domain you reach is www.backwomb.com and not some variation.

ADDITIONAL STUFF
We are also in the process of developing a Facebook application that can be added to your profile to keep you apprised of recent updates. It’s our first foray into Facebook applications and may take just a little time to put out but we hope it’ll prove useful. Look for that soon.

In conclusion, we at the BackWomb are very excited about the relaunch and hope you feel the same. Please spread the word, come back often, comment on articles or get in touch. Truly then, rebirth, resurrection and caesarean section.

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