I am currently transitioning to a new web site based on WordPress. If you are reading this, you have probably found the new web site. Moving from static HTML to a content management system (especially one really designed for blogging) is a challenge. I am trying not to attempt too much too soon. During the transition process, if you are unable to find what you are looking for, please try my legacy web site.
A few words about why I am making the change. Having spent a number of years developing dynamic functions for the English Department web site, I have grown frustrated with the campus web infrastructure, which has been slow to enable server-side scripting and database interactions. If that’s geek-speak to you ; here is what it means in a nutshell: these functionalities allow you to interact with web pages, not just jump from one to the next. That’s all you really need to know. A side benefit is that this interactive quality makes it a lot easier for me to maintain my content, adding and editing as I go along. With WordPress in particular, I get the benefit of lots of work done by thousands of developers associated with the system, especially their design experience (which is my shortcoming).
To be fair to the CSUN IT people, they have made tremendous strides recently, and I have been able to do things I would have been unable to accomplish a few years ago. But I still haven’t succeeded in getting WordPress to install properly in the campus IT infrastructure. So I have found it worthwhile to use a private hosted environment with my own domain. Of course, I have to pay for it–and there is something wrong with my using my meagre salary to perform work for the “day job”, so to speak. But the benefits are certainly worthwhile to me because my host keeps the server environment and software very up-to-date.
Will this new approach be a success? Check back in a year’s time.