What’s New at Hack N Mod – May 2009
Just thought I’d write a quick post to let everyone know the “State of the Union” if you will. I’d first like to apologize for the recent downtime this past week. We’re in the middle of a server upgrade and transfer so please bear with us. It will make the site run faster and stay online through large traffic volumes so it’s worth it 
.
T-Shirt Contest – We started a t-shirt contest a while back and didn’t decide on a design. So we’ll be re-opening the contest to submissions next week and have public voting shortly afterward. Shirts will probably be priced at about $15.99 but we’ll have a pre-order option available for a discounted price of about $13.99.
Store Sales – We had such fantastic feedback after our sale last month, we’ve decided to have a sale every month! So each month, new items in the store will be discounted, allowing you to pick up your LEDs, lasers, and other project supplies at even lower prices than we already have. So don’t miss out! – Subscribe (if you haven’t already) and stay updated.
User Feedback – We added a tab on the right side of every page which allows you to submit a suggestion for the Hack N Mod community to vote on. We’re also considering installing a real time twitter-like service where you can submit feedback and have a conversation with us and other Hack N Mod users. See a demo of the service and let us know if you’d like to see it live in a new Hack N Mod section.
Future Upgrades - What’s coming to Hack N Mod in the near future? We have listened to your user feedback and are adding the following new features:
- A new section dedicated to 100% hacking, modding, and DIY project videos. We’ll allow you to be able to upload your own videos and we’ll feature them on the site.
- Hack N Mod Challenge! I’m really excited about this, should be loads of fun. Brilliant idea whoever suggested it. So we’ll suggest a “challenge” for a two week period presenting you with a general concept for inspiration and let you run with it. If you have some ideas for the first challenge, please let us know in the comments below.
- We’re beginning to hire a few more writers (currently I write about 30% of the posts and we have four part time writers as well). With more writers, we can post several hacks each day so your RSS feed is always fresh.
- Making it easier to distinguish external links. Since we typically link to several other Hack N Mod posts in each article, it can be sometimes difficult to see which link takes you to the actual tutorial. So we’ll be making it easier to see external links to project tutorials.
- More to come! – As we receive more feedback, we’ll go through your list of suggestions and add new features to Hack N Mod.
Slightly new design – Also, if you didn’t notice, we’ve made a few tweaks to the sidebar and backend programming in order to speed up page loading. We added a popular search section allowing you to view what people are searching for in real time and also view the most popular searches on the site. Of course, at the top right of each page we’ve displayed our subscriptions options so you can follow us on twitter or through RSS, whichever you prefer.
Become part of HacknMod
As always, you can submit your project ideas by emailing us. If you submit an entire tutorial build, we’ll pay you as much as $40 to feature your project. Feel free to contact us with any suggestions or questions.
Your founder,
Joe Langevin
joe@hacknmod.com
May 13th, 2009
Awesome update! I wish Hack N Mod had more public info like this. I’m definately looking forward to the sales and HnM challenges for sure. Keep up the great work fellas!