{"id":12364,"date":"2010-03-31T00:04:34","date_gmt":"2010-03-30T22:04:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/?p=12364"},"modified":"2010-03-31T00:04:34","modified_gmt":"2010-03-30T22:04:34","slug":"rebuilding-mamchenkov-net-step-1-ideas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2010\/03\/31\/rebuilding-mamchenkov-net-step-1-ideas\/","title":{"rendered":"Rebuilding mamchenkov.net – Step 1 – Ideas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It’s that time of the year again, when I am looking for more inspiration, when ideas are brewing, and when I feel this uncontrollable urge to change the appearance of this blog.\u00a0 However, this time I want to do more than that.\u00a0 I don’t just want to get another theme.\u00a0 I want much more than that.\u00a0 In fact, I want so much that this time I am sure I won’t be able to do it in one big step over a weekend.\u00a0 I want a re-make.\u00a0 Re-birth.\u00a0 A complete makeover.<\/p>\n

I decided I will take it slowly. Because otherwise I’ll lose passion soon and the initiative will die.\u00a0 I won’t work on it somewhere else in hopes of finishing and releasing it one day.\u00a0 Because then it will drag forever.\u00a0 I’ll do it step-by-step, I’ll do it publicly, and I’ll document the path.\u00a0 Just so that I get a better understanding of what is involved and why I decided to make certain things a certain way, and for someone else to hopefully learn of this experience.\u00a0 And there is another, hidden, you wish, hope.\u00a0 That someone will watch me suffer and will step up and help.\u00a0\u00a0 Not begging yet, though.<\/p>\n

So, step 1.\u00a0 Ideas.\u00a0 Here is what I want with the new site.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Focus<\/strong>.\u00a0 I started this blog a long time ago.\u00a0 It was about everything.\u00a0 Then it spawned a few niche blogs, which lived and died, and folded back in.\u00a0 While there will always be something outside the main topics to blog about it, I want to focus this blog around my primary topics of interest.\u00a0 Which are: technology and movies.\u00a0 Technology as in programming, system administration, Open Source Software, web work, social media, etc.\u00a0 Movies as in movie reviews, trailers, trivia, etc.\u00a0 I’ll also often blog about my personal life, things that happen in Cyprus, this, and that.\u00a0 But that shouldn’t be the primary focus.<\/li>\n
  2. Goals<\/strong>.\u00a0 This blog was always my personal place on the web.\u00a0 It didn’t really have any goals. Probably, that’s because I didn’t have any goals on the web myself.\u00a0 And now I do.\u00a0 And I want this blog to reflect it.\u00a0 So, what are my goals on the web now?\u00a0 Earn money.\u00a0 I don’t want to completely lose the personal touch of this blog, but I think it can make way more money than it does now.\u00a0 And there are two ways it can earn me money: by finding me better jobs (either full-time office jobs or once off consulting gigs or anything in between), and by ads.<\/li>\n
  3. Presentation<\/strong>.\u00a0 There are more than 4,500 posts on this blog.\u00a0 That’s a tonne of links, images, videos, and code snippets.\u00a0 But all of it buried in the archives with no easy way of finding it.\u00a0 I want to change the presentation so that posts of value swim up to the top.\u00a0 Movie reviews come to mind.\u00a0 They have poster images, and ratings.\u00a0 They are tagged with actors and directors.\u00a0 They have recommendations and comments.\u00a0 But there is no easy way of getting to them.\u00a0 I want to change that.<\/li>\n
  4. Social web integration<\/strong>.\u00a0 I spend a lot of time on the Web.\u00a0 I have a number of profiles, accounts, streams, and portfolios all over the place.\u00a0 I want to have better integration of this blog with my other places on the web, such as Flickr, delicious, Twitter, Google Buzz, Google Reader, and whatever else that might be at the time.<\/li>\n
  5. Mobile<\/strong>.\u00a0 More and more people are using mobile devices to browse the web.\u00a0 I do more of the mobile browsing myself.\u00a0 It’s a pity that I find browsing my own blog annoying when on the mobile.\u00a0 This must be improved.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Now that I look at these ideas, written, in front of me, I already have a better understanding of all the changes that have to be done.\u00a0\u00a0 There is no magic theme or plugin that will just do all that for me.\u00a0 And there probably isn’t even a combination of those.\u00a0 It will take a number of trials and errors, some hand coding, some content fixing, some A\/B testing, and some of something else to get there.<\/p>\n

    What have I done so far?<\/strong> I got some new ideas yesterday by installing a number of themes and playing around with them.\u00a0 All of them was online and in real-time, so some of you were probably confused.\u00a0 You’ll see more of that in the near future.\u00a0 I’ve also slightly rearranged the categories – moved technology categories under a parent of Technology, removed Blogging category (which fits under Web Work anyway), and a few other minor changes.\u00a0 I’ve installed some more plugins and added a few more rules to the ever-growing .htaccess file.\u00a0 I won’t go into details now, since that’s something I’ll have to re-work soon anyway.<\/p>\n

    What’s next?<\/strong> My mind is busy working on the visual concept.\u00a0 It doesn’t share thoughts with me yet, but I can feel the buzz.\u00a0 I’ll give it some time.\u00a0 In the meantime, I’ll fix and tune a few things around.\u00a0 There is a lot of mess to clean and it will take a long time to clean it.\u00a0 There is no reason to wait.\u00a0 Also, to monitor the progress, I’ll need to tune my Google Analytics setup.\u00a0 Goals, conversions, funnels, landing pages, blah, blah, blah.\u00a0 I’ll share the details with you, once I have an idea what I am doing.<\/p>\n

    Stay tuned for more news from the fronts.\u00a0 Here I come…<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\n

    It’s that time of the year again, when I am looking for more inspiration, when ideas are brewing, and when I feel this uncontrollable urge to change the appearance of this blog.\u00a0 However, this time I want to do more than that.\u00a0 I don’t just want to get another theme.\u00a0 I want much more than … Continue reading Rebuilding mamchenkov.net – Step 1 – Ideas<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1,2,1335,1334],"tags":[1157,1330],"keyring_services":[],"class_list":["post-12364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-personal","category-site-news","category-web-work","tag-web-design","tag-web-development"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":22242,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2014\/07\/21\/mobile-web-monitoring-advanced-scripting-mite\/","url_meta":{"origin":12364,"position":0},"title":"Mobile Web Monitoring Advanced Scripting (MITE)","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"July 21, 2014","format":"link","excerpt":"Mobile Web Monitoring Advanced Scripting (MITE) Reduce your test time with MITE test automation. MITE comes with a script recorder that lets you capture each step as you navigate a mobile website. Record once and re-run the script on any device profile, repeating each action and collecting unique mobile Web\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All"","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Mobile-Web-Monitoring-MITE.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12413,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2010\/04\/02\/rebuilding-mamchenkov-net-step-3-targets\/","url_meta":{"origin":12364,"position":1},"title":"Rebuilding mamchenkov.net – Step 3 – Targets","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"April 2, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Once I installed the monitoring of goals and gathered some initial data, it was time to start with the changes.\u00a0 One of the obvious problems from the previous step was that I actually didn't have my targets on the site.\u00a0 The action points were missing - no easy way to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All"","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":27619,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2017\/05\/25\/the-ultimate-wordpress-security-guide-step-by-step-2017\/","url_meta":{"origin":12364,"position":2},"title":"The Ultimate WordPress Security Guide \u2013 Step by Step (2017)","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"May 25, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"WPBeginner, a website for beginner guides to WordPress, has published an updated and comprehensive guide to WordPress security - \"The Ultimate WordPress Security Guide \u2013 Step by Step (2017)\". \u00a0Most of the things are well known to seasoned WordPress users - keep things updated, use strong passwords, remove unnecessary plugins,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All"","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":28396,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2018\/02\/19\/replacing-jquery-with-vue-js-no-build-step-necessary\/","url_meta":{"origin":12364,"position":3},"title":"Replacing jQuery With Vue.js: No Build Step Necessary","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"February 19, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Replacing jQuery With Vue.js: No Build Step Necessary\" article looks at one of the ways to migrate from jQuery to Vue.js as in almost drop-in replacement.\u00a0 It's a nice starter guide for people who have been using jQuery for years and are now looking at more powerful and modern JavaScript\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All"","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":18976,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2013\/12\/16\/adding-awesome-font-icons-to-wordpress-menus\/","url_meta":{"origin":12364,"position":4},"title":"Adding Awesome Font Icons to WordPress menus","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"December 16, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"WordPress Tavern lists step-by-step instructions on how to add icons from the Awesome Font to your WordPress menus and content. \u00a0It's really simple and the result does look better. \u00a0Here is how my menu looks now: I don't really need the icons in the content, but it's good to know\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All"","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"main menu icons","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/main-menu-icons-500x35.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":29014,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2018\/11\/24\/learn-git-branching\/","url_meta":{"origin":12364,"position":5},"title":"Learn Git Branching","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"November 24, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Learn Git Branching\" is a very cool, interactive tutorial for branching in git version control.\u00a0 It starts off with the very basic concepts, even covering simple commits, and continues step-by-step all the way to merging, cherry-picking, rebasing, and working with remotes. Super cool!","rel":"","context":"In "All"","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/git-branch-500x246.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12364\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12364"},{"taxonomy":"keyring_services","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/keyring_services?post=12364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}