Written: October 17th 2009
So this is the first post of a new blog. There's a lot of work still to do until it is really ready for public consumption but in the meantime this post explains a little of what I'm doing, and what I plan to do.
The first purpose of this site is to act as a showcase for my 365 project which is due to be completed within the next month or so. I've posted all the photographs on Flickr, but I wanted something that I'd built, with a domain name, and this is it.
Some, but not all of my photographs are already up in the 365 section but I still need to go through them, categorise them, and add comentary on the shots and their role in the project.
After my 365 project is complete I also plan to host a photoblog here. I haven't decided exactly what format that will take yet. I may set myself shorter challenges, focus on specific techniques, and maybe right more about the process. Or I might just post photos of mine I think are particularly good. Time will tell.
I have always wanted to record my music and movie tastes. I therefore have it in mind to set up a sub-blog here on those, and to record the various recipes that I experiment with and want to be able to retrieve again. The blog system I have set up could work well in all these cases.
Finally, of course, I am sure some general geekery will find its way in here as well.
It isn't.
There's nothing in my plans that I couldn't do well with Habari or WordPress, but to do them the way I wanted would have taken a fair bit of hacking and so I decided to just start from scratch. This has given me the freedom to do things differently and add some extras in.
For example: just like WordPress and Habari I have multiple taxonomies, but what I wanted was to make use of multiple schemes, and multiple terms, within the same URL structure.
For example, to see all the HDR photographs that I took in Huddersfield as part of my 365 project I need to filter by post type, by location (selecting Huddersfield) and by photographic technique (selecting HDR). I can do all of that in a single URL:
http://www.arickmann.co.uk/365/locations/huddersfield/photo-technique/hdr/
This is a fundamental part of my 365 project showcase.
There is some other cool stuff under the hood but I don't expect you to be too interested in that. One idea I have implemented though that I think is pretty interesting is that I will be posting comment updates to twitter.
Whenever anyone comments on this blog an update will be sent via @ar_comments. Each update will contain a hastag specific to the post the comment has been posted to, so twitter can be used to track the comment updates on an individual post.
It is possible to subscribe by e-mail, but hashtags seem like a great short term way to track comments on a post without needing to give away your email address, or even that you are following the comments.
As soon as the first comment has been added to the post a link to the hashtag will appear on the bottom of this post.
I am also considering posting updates to a specific twitter account, again with hashtags relevent to the type of post. I may not do this though.
Well, if you are looking for a feed link, you won't find one. Not yet. The feed system is not yet complete. I hope to finish it this weekend, but as I am putting this live there is every chance I'll spend the weekend fixing bugs instead. Although, I will be watching the Formula 1 race from Brazil, bugs or not.
Feeds are now available.