DerekAllard.com has been rebuilt… Again! : DerekAllard.com

DerekAllard.com has been rebuilt… Again!

March 04^th, 2007

Wasn’t it just 4 months ago that I rebuilt this site in a custom built Code Igniter platform? Wow time flies, but I’m proud to announce yet another change. Actually, not a change - an upgrade. What you see in front of you now is DerekAllard.com completely rebuilt using ExpressionEngine. It was actually a really painless migration, although moving the data sucked… Anyhow, there are still a series of “under the hood” improvements to be made, and some refining here and there. If you find anything on the site broken, please let me know!

I’ll start writing a few entries about using EE as a blogging platform, but I’ve been using it for some time as a content management system in other capacities. Actually, this move brings to mind one of its foremost strengths… flexibility. I was able to re-create my (old) custom url structure, so no Google penalty. I was able to implement all the features I had custom built, and easily at that. And finally, I was able to build it entirely on a local system, and move it live in the time it took to FTP the files up.

If you’re reading this and run a blog, and still use Wordpress but are looking to ditch that horse and buggy, then take a look at the free ExpressionEngine core. There are easy migration paths into EE, and I promise you that you won’t regret it. The honest truth, is that there is a learning curve, but its pretty short, and once you are up to speed, you fly!

Incidentally you Wordpress users… make sure you aren’t affected by the latest in a long line of security concerns.

This entry was made on March 04^th, 2007 @ 15:39 and filed into ExpressionEngine, Noteworthy.

Comments

Hiyu wrote on March 04^th, 2007 @ 21:01

I do notice some stuff different. This comment form for example looks nicer (what did you do?) Also, search is nicer. Good work.

jforth wrote on March 05^th, 2007 @ 1:59

Nice job looks like a pretty seamless transfer from CI. How difficult was it to implement you CI features into EE? I’m consideing moving a site built on CI to EE.

Matthew Bowman wrote on March 05^th, 2007 @ 9:34

Your RSS feed isn’t quite working properly :(

aldi wrote on March 05^th, 2007 @ 10:52

I got 404 permanent link from your RSS feed :|

Derek wrote on March 05^th, 2007 @ 13:09

D’oh!

Sorry guys, was pointing to the wrong template group. I think its fixed up now.

Thanks for letting me know!

Matthew Bowman wrote on March 05^th, 2007 @ 14:42

That it is :-D Your motivation to port to EE has made my curiosity start to itch. I think I’m going to have to start scratching it in the near, near future.

Yannick wrote on March 05^th, 2007 @ 22:12

Woohoo!!! He switched to EE!!!

Glad you got everything up and running okay. I see the diabolical robots were working overtime getting the comments transferred.

By the way I noticed the comment form has your email address and website address automatically filled in. Does this mean we get to be you? :)

Keep up the good work Derek.

Derek wrote on March 05^th, 2007 @ 22:40

By the way I noticed the comment form has your email address and website address automatically filled in. Does this mean we get to be you? :)

D’oh! (again)

Nope, that was because I had pre-cached the pages (for faster loading) while I was logged into my site… sigh… I’ll get this right ;)

Thanks Yannick, and thanks also jforth, aldi and Matthew for pointing out the RSS thig.

wouaren wrote on March 06^th, 2007 @ 5:27

I love your work on code igniter and the design of this wonderfull blog.

The best thing ni your design is the right collumn that is not static, that’s so cool to see it coming down with the page when we scroll to the bottom. (tell us how the css works !)

I hope you understood what i said.

(from France, Nantes)

Derek wrote on March 06^th, 2007 @ 8:09

Thanks wouaren, appreciate the kind words. You can find how I did the side bar in the entry Conditionally Sticky Sidebar that I wrote at the end of last year.

Lisa wrote on March 06^th, 2007 @ 20:24

... and now we can officially welcome you to the fold. *winks*

Derek wrote on March 06^th, 2007 @ 22:07

Thanks Lisa… I see you’re slumming today!

Be aware, that you don’t just welcome me into the fold… you welcome the whole robot army…

Lisa wrote on March 07^th, 2007 @ 3:18

Slumming every day, as long as the RSS feed works…

I welcome the whole robot army though, but you do need to update your email templates - the most often neglected templates in EE. ;)

Gilles wrote on March 07^th, 2007 @ 7:36

Wow! You did it! And did it smartly! Congrats!

Wordpress is bad. CI is gorgeous. EE is wonderful. pMachine stuff sounds like love :)

Lord Atlas wrote on March 11^th, 2007 @ 17:49

Nice, except that you forgot to assign a background colour to the BODY element. (I have my bg colour set to gray in my browser just to test for this.)

DerekAllard.com : CodeIgniter, ExpressionEngine, and the World of Web Design

DerekAllard.com has been rebuilt… Again!

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