Tada! I have decided to move away from Blogger and instead leverage features afforded to me by my new web host, DreamHost. I have now acquired the tekArtist.org domain name and set myself up with a WordPress instance to run the present site.
Besides having imported my previous Blogger posts to the new blog section, you can now also browse through two new main sections:
The base page is mostly there as a soft landing pad for visitors just stumbling upon my site, but also serves as an OpenID delegate through myOpenID.
Please bare with me in regards to the domain-wide search, as I’m only using Google’s most basic site search feature. They have not yet picked up my pages in their index, since I just turned off the temporary password I had setup at the root level this morning.
Technologically speaking, the new site features tools and options such as:
- LAMP environment: Debian Linux, Apache httpd, MySQL, PHP.
- WordPress as a blogging and CMS platform.
- MooTools compact Javascript framework to enhance the client-side experience when possible, but without relying on it for the core functionalities (see Unobtrusive Javascript).
- As close to valid XHTML and CSS as I can, with an emphasis on relative sizing to accomodate a wide array of screen sizes.
- Universal access through proper document structure and adapted stylesheets (EG: try printing or disabling all stylesheets).
- Microformats, where and when valuable, such as hCard, hAtom, XFN, rel-license, rel-tag, etc.
- Sitemap protocol for search engines to easily pickup my pages in their index.
- and more, as the site evolves.
You can read more about the WordPress theme I custom develop for this site in the related labs page. Since there is nothing really private in it (sensitive values are protected through more appropriate means), I have also decided to make the theme’s source available publicly, fact which might change at any time if I realize that this leads to abuse or security issues outside of what I originally planned for.
I have been relatively quiet online in the past few years while primarily focusing my energies on my responsibilities as a dad and as a professional. I obviously never stopped playing, but limited my personal publishing activities to blogging and participating in online communities, rather than releasing products or experiments.
Now that my beloved children are starting to require less of my attention (IE: less then 24-7), I now have the opportunity to revert closer to previous levels of contribution to the web and Open Source spheres. Don’t get me wrong though, I still have clear priorities. :)
As a final note, I just wanted to mention that my moving away from Blogger had nothing to do with necessity, as they truly have an excellent blogging platform, but stemmed from a desire for the increased flexibility that only a full on web hosting account and a product like WordPress can provide.
tekArtist 