Start, stop, restart — July 11, 2007

This is a boring short story on how I ended up making this website.

Most of the free blog-like services didn’t fascinate me. Either they offered too little or too much to deal with. So I bought a domain name – started working on my very own PHP-enabled website. I had done several web designs before but none had server side processing or at least I hadn’t done it myself. After mingling for few days I managed to establish the concepts and come up with a simple but decent looking website. The blog was made possible with a third party blogging system that looked good, very simple and easy to use.

Time passed by. The rest of the world was moving ahead and I had neglected my online presence. No socialization for several years. My blog was empty – I had no visitors – life was boring. I was still doing site modifications manually, editing my pages locally and uploading via FTP. My blog had very little features. I needed a way of creating content online and applying site-wide modifications in few steps. My site needed a serious refurbish!

By this time my PHP knowledge was sophisticated enough to review code. I started evaluating popular content management systems (CMS). Every system I looked at had one or the other feature missing or hidden down a dark alley. (I admit that I didn’t evaluate blogging systems). I almost gave up; thought of abandoning the idea of using a CMS. I was full-time working and didn’t have time to make a system on my own. Frustration consumed my desire to have a revamped online existence.

It was then I stumbled upon WordPress 2.2. It had all the features I’m looking for. I was intrigued by its design. This system justified the basics. The Dashboard was so compelling. It was pretty and easy to use. The installation took only three steps – wow! WordPress revealed the way forward.

The WordPress community offer many themes (or templates as they are called), many of which are freely available. Again, none attracted me. So I made this template on my own, from scratch. I sketched it on a piece of paper – designed it in Photoshop (with the help of Illustrator) and put together in Dreamweaver. Believe me; making a template for WordPress is no more difficult than making a static HTML page. I had loads of fun designing this template. Now I don’t want to stop. I want to design more – more colorful, more fashionable, and more distinctive templates. Perhaps even beyond WordPress.