Website Redesign!
By Mark Flegg
After many weeks of work, I’ve done a complete redesign of my website. Over the past year or so I have been increasingly disappointed with PHPWebsite as the “back end” of my site. While it is a very powerful package, the documentation was so heavily geared towards programmers and hard-core site developers, I felt it would take too much time to implement any new features to the site. I also was concerned that it would be too difficult to upgrade to a new version of the software, which was a concern since my version was quite out of date, and was vulnerable to several possible security problems.
So, I went searching for a new system. I considered many options, including MS Front Page, Mambo, Drupal, and others, but have finally settled on WordPress. While it’s not as hugely full-featured as some of the other systems, WordPress seems to be much more suited to the “casual” website developer. It can be set up and operated with little or no programming involved, and there is a large base of documentation and community support available if and when problems arise. It is also heavily expandable through it’s “plugin” architecture. For the last few weeks I’ve been working on the overall look and feel of the site, plus porting most of the content from the old site over to the new system. I’ve managed to do this almost entirely in 15 minute chunks of time while taking breaks from practicing the trumpet, so as not to disrupt my already busy schedule too much. So, take a look around the site and see what’s here. Please check back regularly, as I plan to add content on a more regular basis now that I have tools in place to do so easily. -Mark