Jaco’s Random Writings

Whoa! What happened to the website?

Short answer: I tore it down and set it on fire. It is gone. All that’s left are the ashes.

Long answer: I was unhappy with it. No matter what design I came up with, I disliked it strongly. And I realized that it wasn’t the designs that were particularly troubling. The site simply had too little content on it. After some feedback from several people, I realized I was stupid in making my blog and site into separate sites. I had intended to slowly blend the two, but I was approaching it from the wrong direction.

So the obvious solution was to tear down what I had and make this blog into my primary website. In here, I am constantly (I use that word loosely) updating on what projects I’m working on and my progress with them. So what’s my plan now?

1. Migrate the database from PortMS:

Right now, the database from PortMS is still intact. I’m writing an XML importer/exporter into PortMS’s admin panel to allow me to export all the data from the project table and import it using a custom XML format. This will let me migrate the data to other database setups and also create backups of the current database.

2. Write a Wordpress Plugin for PortMS:

This will allow me to add PortMS’s functionality into my current Wordpress setup without having to rewrite whole sections of Wordpress’ source code. Currently, the plugin system for Wordpress is such that with a little modification, PortMS’s modules can easily be plugged into Wordpress’ Plugin API.

3. Import the XML for PortMS:

Since I’ve exported the existing database, I can now import it again through the PortMS plugin and write the data to Wordpress’ database. This has rather big implications. It means that someone who uses either the PortMS standalone package or the Wordpress Plugin version can migrate the same data between the two. In my opinion, that’s pretty useful.

4. Create a Custom Theme:

While my current Wordpress theme is nice, it’s not mine. It’s someone else’s (You can find a link to his page in the footer). I feel that this needs to change: I can’t really make claims to being a web designer if I’m using someone else’s designs to represent my own work. It reflects poorly on me (at least in my opinion). So while it isn’t at the top of the priority list for this site, it is still a priority that needs to be addressed at some point or another. What will most likely happen is that I will slowly start sneaking in changes to this theme until there is little or no original code or traces of the original design left. It’s a bit of a more organic approach to redesigning a web site.

Reminder: Both the PortMS standalone and the PortMS Wordpress plugin are slated to be under GPLv3 once they are released.

My ultimate goal is to turn this into my own web site design using Wordpress as my CMS (for the uninitiated, Content Management System) and with PortMS as an extension of that CMS.

Finally, there is one last thing that I feel needs to be disclosed. I put a lot of work towards my previous designs and I had created a theme switcher in the process using Javascript/DOM. I would like to show that off along with my other experimental work. So, after all is said and done, I will be adding a section to be site called “Area51″. Currently, “Area51″ is a folder on my local machine where I do most of my experimentation. I would like to show some of that off (only the stuff that wouldn’t pose a security risk for my site) for the rest of the world to see. I think some of the code breakthroughs, particularly in Javascript, could be useful to someone out there. As all of my friends know, I’m all about giving back.

So, keep yer eyes peeled, many things are going to be happening here in the next few weeks.