Hello! Welcome to garytaylor.xyz!
Six weeks from start to finish, which included that week when I was swapping service packages around and nothing worked properly, all done (nearly done, anyway) in what counts as spare time.
Not to mention that week where I started doing some template changes, didn’t like them and scrapped the lot. Never be afraid to throw something away and start again, especially if it’s your own work.
This is a three-part process, none of which were dependent upon the others. The web space move meant I got an SSL certificate, and I’ve nothing to pay now until 2021 (unless I want to retain the static / dedicated IP address – way too soon to decide on that). And I got more web space… though the number of subdomains I can have has been reduced to 20, from infinite. A bit of a step back. I’ve never had ‘unlimited’ space before though. What shall I fill it with?
The second part was to make some changes to the site itself. The non-blog and home pages look slightly different, the content there is beefed up a little and easier to find and – you never know – it might help prospective employers find out more about me. Along the way I’ve accidentally broken a few things on the existing blog template, which means I’ll have to go through the .css file one line at a time to work out the whys and wherefores. Of course, the only person that might read my nonsense on an iPhone 5S or iPad Mini in portrait mode is me so I’m only doing that for my benefit, but you know what I’m like.
And finally: the new domain name. Names, actually, I got a new one for short URLs (call it personal branding) and some email addresses to cut down on the junk emails. I’ve written before about how much I loathe Nominet’s policy regarding the .uk namespace. Since I can’t get no satisfaction in .uk I’ve decamped to .xyz. My old domain is still active, as are the old email addresses, but they will start to be replaced soon… as soon as I work out what I want my new addresses to be. Simply changing ‘.org.uk’ to ‘.xyz’ seems far too easy and obvious.
And, if you look carefully, you’ll see that Eeyore’s Gloomy Place is no more. It was starting to smell too much of damp donkey… although the ‘grumpiness’ tag should cover most things that EGP was about. I’ve gone full circle and brought back my original ‘acquis’ moniker; partly to annoy the brexiters, partly because it makes sense when you think about the meaning of the word and the kind of person I am.
Right. What’s next?