Past, Present, and Future of This Site
Here’s a quick update since I have been slow to the updates recently:
First off, my wife is finally getting a little belly which has me pretty excited. She is due January 27th. She is busy with school and work — but of course had time to put up all of our Christmas decorations around the apartment (including 2 Christmas trees fully decked out).
A big congrats to the guys at Clear Function for launching Cal Wineries. I have had a chance to login and play around a little bit and it is slick. The overall interface and design make the site very easy to use. Getting involved took no time at all with a quick registration process and then diving in. The site is full of great content, pictures, and a growing user base. Again, congrats guys on launching yet another great site!
I have been busy at work working on some new features to have in working order by the first of the year at www.barbourbooks.com. It has seen a growing amount of visitors since we launched in January, and we are ready to start building onto the foundation. We have a strong understanding of our users and their patterns as well as feedback received. We will be adding small features as well as enhancing a few other sections.
Thanks to some help from Stephen, I have been diving into RoR and building a few small things with that. I really like the framework and ease of implementation and rapid development. It makes programming fun!
I have been reading some more books lately. I will have the reviews posted within the next week. The list includes Unleashing the Ideavirus by Seth Godin, Designing for Interaction by Dan Saffer, Designing the Obvious by Robert Hoekman, Jr., Designing Interfaces by Jennifer Tidwell, Agile Web Development with Rails by Dave Thomas and David Heinemeier Hansson, and The Art and Science of Web Design by Jeffrey Veen.
I am looking to take this blog in a new direction after the first of the year. I will be switching hosting and working to build from the ground up. I like Wordpress, but I am in need of a better data structure. I have been reviewing my blog and looking at what to add and subtract in the future. Here are some of my findings:
The book reviews seem to be visited more than the majority of the rest of the site. I am going to look to give this more structure and a cleaner way to sift through all of the information. It will be much easier for me to organize the books, reviews, and supplementary information.
People like code examples. Now, it’s not that I don’t like code examples — I just think that too many get taken out of context and can be abused by those not understanding the context. I don’t want to advocate a certain script or setup that wouldn’t work on a different environment. I have many custom configurations on the server I use, so I want to make sure that the scripts will be helpful and filled with extra resources.
I haven’t written much lately, because I want to make sure that I am writing something of value to the people taking the time to read. I have found that rants and links to other’s blogs simply aren’t effective. I am going to have a new section devoted to extra resources or links to blogs to leave comments in the context of the original writing. I feel this will be much more effective.
So, I hope you stick with me as I make some much needed changes. My personal site has been one to take the back seat as other projects take precedence. I feel that my current site is not a representation of me as a developer or my ‘personality’.
Lastly, feel free to give me any input on what you would find valuable. I want to make this a useful resource, not just a direct copy of other blogs out there. What do you think?
6 Comments Add your comment
Brad November 15th, 2006
Nate,
I haven't been reading your blog for long but I thought I'd speak up even if I don't have a lot to say. I think re-evaluating things every so often is good. So I will be looking forward to the changes to come. For the life of me I can't figure out how you get through so many books so quickly but good for you.
I have a couple of questions for you though.
What is it that you don't like about Wordpress? What will you be using instead?
Thanks,
Brad
Nate Klaiber November 15th, 2006
Brad,
Thanks for the input. I love to read, especially about things I am passionate about or relate to my profession. Last year I made it a goal to read a new book each month of something I didn't know much about. This included several different topics. Once I got to reading them, I couldn't get enough. It's somewhat like research - he. Also, my wife works in a hospital - so when she's working on the weekends, I sit down with a book.
In regards to wordpress:
I like wordpress, I just don't think it fits a model of how I want my site to be structured. Book reviews, for instance, are sort of 'shoved' into a blog post. However, there is other data that i want to associate with book reviews. Sometimes I read books that have the same author, so instead of constantly repeating myself and manually putting in links - I will have an author table that holds their information and all books associate with them. Books, by their nature, have different information attached to them as well. I want to make sure that I can structure everything to my needs.
Also, I have decided to switch from linking to others blog posts to simply referencing them with a link. This way they get the traffic and the content stays in context. So many people are talking about the same thing at any given time, and it doesn't do good to repeat it here when the conversation is over there. So, I want to build a structure associated with this.
These are just a few items, but there are actually many others. Like I said, I like wordpress - but I want to do more than just 'blog' and I want to give more solid information. Yes, I can attach all book reviews to a category of book reviews, and I can tag it or give it custom fields - but I want to take it a step further.
So, I hope that helps you understand my goals and my reasons for making the switch. Nothing personal against wordpress. :)
Chris Hattery November 15th, 2006
I know you don't have time for it, but Daily Reads would be awesome. Otherwise, I think the new direction sounds awesome. Keep up the great ambition to do great things.
Chris Hattery November 15th, 2006
Man, I wish I'd re-read my comments before I post. So, just to irritate someone with lame exclamations... aweseome, awesome, awesome. :-p
Brad November 15th, 2006
Nate,
I agree with you 100% on just referencing other blogs with a link. Makes perfect sense to me. Gives them exposure and keeps it in context like you said.
I'm not attached to Wordpress I was just wondering what you were looking at doing. I like change and am always interested in new things. I think you make good points about the book reviews. A blog is definitely not ideal for that. I'm looking forward to the new site.
Thanks!
Nathan Smith November 15th, 2006
Nate: Congrats on the bun in the oven. I appreciate when you do write, so keep it up, at whatever pace is feasible for you.