New Site Coming

I’m going to overhaul this website again, most likely starting in July. To be perfectly honest, writing content just isn’t as satisfying as it once was, partially because I don’t have as much to write these days, and partially because I am just enjoying other aspects of my life more (such as going outside to hit some tennis balls around or heading up to the lake for lunch). Something I’ve always wanted on this blog, and that I’ve never really been able to achieve, is to have something that’s predominantly photo-centric. So my goal in July will be transform this blog into something more photo oriented, and pushing most of my other content to the sidelines.

One thing I’ve realized is that my current content dictates a lot of the design when I do each iteration. To that end, I’m probably going to scrap a lot of the main content and start over. I’ll probably leave my current blog entries so that search engines can still get to them, but other than highlighting a few of my favorite entries from the last few years, probably won’t cater to my previous content in the new design.

Another element I’d like to incorporate are my Flickr and Twitter streams. Flickr is fairly straightforward, as I’ve done that numerous times, but I’d like to come up with a neat way to show Twitter activity as well. My main page will most likely be a snapshot of what I’ve done on the web each day, with a little slideshow showing photos or what not. The purpose of that is to put more focus on photography, and less focus on blog entries.

Since the site is called duanestorey.com, I’m probably going to put the focus on me instead of my entries. That is, more about my life, what I’m doing, the photos I’m taking, etc. That will undoubtedly appeal to less of an audience, and I’m ok with that. I do WordPress related entries on BraveNewCode, so I’m ok with putting most of my technical presence over there. It would be nice to have my blog be almost entirely personal again (which is how it started in 2000), and I think that’s the direction I’m going to go.

I haven’t even started designing it yet, so I have no idea what it’ll turn out like. But having a photo-centric site has always appealed to me, so that’s the direction I’m going to go.

Also, the first batch of speakers was just announced for WordCamp Portland — I’ll be giving a little talk on WPtouch. Portland is pretty close, so I’ll probably drive down and do a bit of camping that weekend, i.e. put the “Camp” into WordCamp.