Rebooted.

An entry published by James Bennett on June 13, 2008, Part of the categories Meta and Misc. 11 comments posted.

Following up on last weekend’s housekeeping announcement: hopefully you’re noticing that things look a little different around here. There’s a lot going on, and a lot to write about (expect that in coming days), but in summary:

  1. A nice, fresh look for the site. My focus this time around was on minimalism and clean design, emphasizing content as much as possible. See Ryan Tomayko’s recent redesign work for my inspiration.
  2. Upgrades and improvements to most of the applications I’m using. These will find their way into proper releases eventually, but for now I’m using my own site as a place to experiment a bit.
  3. A switch from XHTML 1.0 back to HTML 4.
  4. A server move.

The last one bears a little up-front explaining, in case anyone gets the wrong idea.

For as long as this site’s been online, it’s been hosted at Joyent, first on shared hosting and then on a dedicated Accelerator. But now it’s migrated over to SliceHost, and is happily running on a VPS account I’ve purchased there.

This isn’t because there’s anything wrong with Joyent — there’s not — and I’m not actually moving away from their services; I still have and use both a shared-hosting account there and my Accelerator, and my mail is still handled by Joyent. But I also wanted a bit more room to consolidate a few sites I’m already running or plan to set up in the not-too-distant future, and SliceHost was offering the right size box at the right price, so I picked up an account there as well. I’ll continue running this site on both servers for a few days while the DNS records finish switching, then shut off the old version and repurpose the Accelerator.

So pull up a chair and get comfy, and over the next few days I’ll talk a bit more about some of the other changes I’ve made.

On June 13, 2008, Jeff Triplett said:

I prefer the less is more approach and good type. Nice redesign!

On June 13, 2008, Marty Alchin said:

I’ve been considering some kind of reduction in the way my site’s laid out too, even before reading the Tomayko article. I took a bit of a more minimal approach with http://prodjango.com/ and it makes my own site look a bit messy now. I like what you’ve done with the place, and I may poach some ideas from both sites in the not-so-distant future.

On June 13, 2008, anon said:

where’s the link back to the home page?

On June 14, 2008, Ben Spaulding said:

Well done James. The site looks great, though I, too, twitch when I cannot find a link back home. It’s some sort of cyber-claustrophobia.

I am anxious to hear about “the other changes [you’ve] made,” particularly your switch back to HTML 4. I have flip-flopped between XHTML and HTML several times. I currently use XHTML, but that’s just a preference. I seem to have some weird attachment to that />.

On June 14, 2008, Joshua Works said:

James, this is a tremendously cool experiment in weblog design, especially re the navigational architecture. I’m curious how the linear (contextual?) navigation approach will fare compared to the ubiquitous forms of the “tabbed” type. I, also, first felt a bit awkward by the omission of a title mark & home link, but I think that’s because I’ve been conditioned to follow the pattern: navigate to what I’m looking for; return home; navigate to second thing. With this dynamic, contextual navigation, the maneuvering seems much more fluid, and if nothing else, is refreshingly novel.

On June 14, 2008, Martin Geber said:

Hey,

Things are really different now. I like that the links are within the post list view. Well done.

As others above, I really miss the “Back to home page” link. You provide in the -section “up”, “next” and “prev”. A “start”, would help a lot.

I wonder: Why don’t you use XHTML any more? What is wrong with it? And allow me one last question: You do you use PostgreSQL and not MySQL? Everyone I ask, says it’s a question of fate, like Canon or Nikon. Maybe you have an answer other than that?

Cheers from Cologne, Germany Martin

On June 14, 2008, Martin Geber (again) said:

It seems as if it is possible to type HTML-tags here… See the HEAD tag in my entry above!

(Just wanted to let you know!)

Cheers again.

On June 14, 2008, patrick said:

why move from XHTML?

On June 15, 2008, Jared said:

Glad to have you with us, James.

On June 17, 2008, casseen said:

Ouch, I’ve really liked your previous web-design. It had been much more lucid. Nonetheless, it’s the content which brings me back here after all.

On July 13, 2008, Luis Bruno said:

Old entry, I know. Since you’re burning your feeds, why not a full content one? People (ab)using the content elsewhere?

It’s a pain to come to the website.

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