Blogging on BillDay.com

I’ve completed my cutover for the BillDay.com homepage to version 2.0. Thanks for coming and please let me know what you think of the new look (or anything else about the site) via the Comments link below this blog entry.

Things I wanted to accomplish with the re-design:

• enable more interactivity (comments from others, third party contributions, etc.)
• find a better way to syndicate information on updates I’ve made to the J2ME Archive
• try out new tech and ideas on the site
• simplify things, especially searching the site

I decided that I needed a personal publishing system. I looked at several available options (portal software, blogging, etc.) and ultimately decided that the simplicity of an RSS enabled blog was the best way to go given my goals, the size of the site, and the amount of time I have to commit to ongoing site maintenance.

Since I’ve been wanting an excuse to learn PHP and dabble a bit more with MySQL anyway (not to mention the fact that my ISP supports both out of the box), I decided to try out a neato PHP/MySQL powered blogging package known as WordPress. Thanks go to Russ Beattie for first bringing WP to my attention in his blog.

What’s next? Well, I’ve cutover my homepage but I’ll be integrating blogging features and the new CSS powered look into the other areas of my site in the coming days. And from now on, watch billday.com for ongoing blogs and updates on the latest in wireless tech (Java and otherwise), programming tips and tricks, and whatever else suits my fancy. Even better, subscribe to my RSS 2.0 feed and the updates will come to you!