Bengfort.com

Just an update for those of you still reading, the Bengfort.com Dell Server has shipped after some delays and contract negotitions with AtlanticASP (or possibly the Canton Group, I don’t know which). Needless to say, I have signed a 2 year contract for around $2k per year for a dedicated server on an education related plan. This means that I am going to be spending July and August working on revamping the site and making changes.

Probably in the next week or so the Server (which is going to be a Gentoo Linux LAMP) will be installed and I will be given SSH access to the server, then the interesting work will begin. For the time being, I am going to have development happen on a development server, while keeping the site as it is up. I will then slowly insert the new parts of the site into the exisiting site, so there may be some design incongruities, etc.

As for the plan for my development, it is as follows:

Phase 1: Revamp blogs, create blog engine, migrate existing blogs to blog engine. Initial redesign of individual blogs.

Phase 2: Revamp homepage, and smaller accessories to the site (meet the family, etc.)

Phase 3: Revamp the albums page, allow a more facebook like use of album uploading and downloading, etc.

Phase 4: Revamp the cookbook pages, allow for better sharing of recipes, etc.

Phase 5: Design integration- tie the site together visually.

Phase 6: Add-ons, including twitter and other applications, security review.

So you can expect this all to happen in the next couple of months. Hopefully with school starting in the fall, I can manage to put this all together.

One other hold up is the fact that my laptop that I ordered from Dell won’t arrive until after I have already left for Washington. Considering I need it for consulting in NY, etc. I think this could be a big hold up. Hopefully we can resolve that situation with some quick shipping, etc.

Ben