the brand new site
05.26.05 • comment • trackback
The thrilling madness of college graduation and the ensuing move-in to a new apartment has kept me from posting for some time, but now that I’m well situated in my swanky bedroom, I can unwind and bore you to death with the how and why of the new site.
Ditching the Old
There are many reasons for the changeover. Sociallytangent was a generous and considerate host for over two years, but as time went on the limitations of that webspace became more and more apparent. There are many minor reasons: Typing http://blarg.sociallytangent.com is like playing a short game of Twister on your keyboard, and I’ve grown tired of the “Blarg” moniker anyway. Also, having my own domain is just cooler.
These were better motivations for getting a new site, though. At Blarg, I wrote and coded everything by hand. The piece of XHTML that I wrote is exactly what you downloaded when you visited the site. This gave me a lot of control over the site in some respects, but created obstacles as the content of the site grew. For instance, it was impossible for me to maintain anything close to usable archives, and it got tedious typing out endless XHTML tags after a while, which eventually led to decreased posting.
Most importantly, starting fresh has given me the opportunity to pick and choose which entries from the old site got ported over to the new. There were some entries that I just wasn’t too proud of for whatever reason, either they were totally irrelevant, embarrassing, or just utter crap. End result? You have a better time reading my site and I look like a reputable person. Everybody wins!
Lucky 777
I had been considering starting a new site like this one for some time. I finally got the kick in the butt I needed when I heard that Dreamhost was still running its ridiculously affordable “777” promotion. When signing up for an account, Dreamhost asks for either a setup fee (if you intend to pay on a monthly basis) or one year’s hosting fees up front. Dreamhost’s prices are reasonable to begin with, but with the 777 promotion code Dreamhost suddenly costs just 77 cents per month, or $9.24 for the year. So if the site fails, I’m out pocket change. How could I say no?
In With the New
So here we are at a new domain that took just a few hours to activate. The site is now powered by Wordpress (did I mention that Dreamhost offers a one-click Wordpress installation?). This gives me a level of control over my site that simply was not possible at the old address. Archives, RSS feeds, comments, and all sorts of geeky blog doodads are all part of the package. Wordpress also lets me forget about writing valid XHTML so that I can concentrate on actual content, which will hopefully increase the posting around here.
My goal with the new site is to really emphasize the content. Note the lack of a sidebar or glut of extraneous metadata. Honestly, if you really want my old entries, take the extra five seconds to click the appropriate link in the menu, which, if you’ll notice, has just three items in it.
The design is super simple, and I’ll probably tweak it a bit in the future. Above all, I wanted to get away from Wordpress’s default theme, Kubrik (and its mildly altered variants). While lovely and oddly soothing, Kubrik is just everywhere. Everyone from accomplished professionals to total hacks seems to be using it, and I like to stand out. Thus the clean, serifed look.
So after a month of thumb twiddling and getting my affairs in order, I hope to get some decent use out of this baby.