So here it is.  Rolling out the new dustinfarris.com with a new look and a new blog engine.  After having gone through 4 very different revisions, I’ve settled on a front end design and a back end database structure that I’m happy with.

Featured in front is a bright and trim menu bar that’s easy to reach, but not in the way.  On the side there is a collapsible companion bar providing quick links to recent blogs, a (not functioning yet) search bar, and Twitter posts (cough keyword plugs cough).   Still work to do here obviously.  Lastly, I’ve added some subtle jQuery with more on the way.

PostgreSQL code

Behind the scenes I’ve hammered out a blog engine that is finally at least close to on par with the likes of wordpress and such.  Why am I not using word press, you ask?  Because I didn’t write it.

New engine means new database structuring, new dynamic content generation code, and a fresh off the press upgrade to Django 1.3 (woo hoo!)

Finally, I’ve added some bells and whistles including a “follow-up” option that notifies commenters when new comments are added, and an auto-twitter-post method that shortens the URL using my own custom service, updates Twitter (which in turn updates Facebook), and updates the RSS, all automatically!  Now I just need to automate the actual writing of a blog and I’ll be set. :-)

Well that’s it for Dustin’s Blog version 4.0.  Stay tuned for actual blogging.

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