This is pretty much my first post since the soft launch of my site several months ago. I’ve been busy with other projects and I wanted to hold off on working on the site until I had a chance to become more familiar with git and decide on what web development tools to code the site with. The new style is still a first draft but I really like how it turned out. It’s now running on the technology I will be using for any future work on this site; here is what I’ve decided on so far:

• Use cutting edge web tools and technology. I’m going to develop this site as an experiment to test the latest web technology in a production environment. Everything should work in the latest versions of the modern browsers, but I’m not going out of my way to support anything else. Hopefully, work I do here will give me an idea of how viable these tools are for my other web sites (i.e. OurTownRentals.com).
• WordPress is still the nicest blog software I’ve seen and has tons of plugins. I have a working knowledge of PHP so I can get the templates to do what I need, but I want this blog to be easy to maintain and not become another coding project.
• HTML5. I’m using the WordPress template Toolbox by automattic as a starting point. This is a simple unstyled HTML5 template that should be easy to customise.
• CSS3 using Sass and Compass. I’m already sold on Sass for any stylesheet authoring. Compass was recommended to me by someone on GitHub. Essentially it’s an extension of Sass which should make ensuring CSS3 compatibly less painful. So far I like the level of abstraction it adds.
• Git is now my VCS of choice and I’m not sure how I lived without it. I might as well also mention I’ve been working mostly on Kubuntu and am very happy, specifically with Kate. Also, if you’re a Kate and Sass fan, I’m working on syntax highlighting support.

More updates about grad school and a post about my first Ruby gems coming soon.