andrew burke
dot
me

about

contact

blog

rss

A New Start

Posted on: 2013-05-17

andrewburke.ca has been my personal website and blog since late 2005. It's so personal, in fact, that I built the entire thing myself. However, back in 2005 I was mostly working in PHP and Java, and had only just started using Ruby on Rails, so andrewburke.ca was built in PHP. 2005-vintage PHP - which in software years is like a house built in 1900, with original knob-and-tube wiring and no insulation.

So I've upgraded the site all the way from old PHP to the latest version of Ruby on Rails, 3.2.13. I also moved the database from mySQL to PostgreSQL. In the unlikely event of massive sudden popularity, every page is memcached and the whole site is hosted on Heroku, where adding extra server power is a matter of moving a web slider or typing in one short command.

Right now most of the pages are still using the same old layout, also vintage - almost charmingly so, in fact, with gratuitous tables and inline CSS. This will be changing soon as well. I'm going to be using this site to get caught up with more modern layout and interface techniques. Look for cleaner, better-looking page layout, custom fonts, and mobile-friendly responsive design, coming soon.

I've also upgraded my professional site, shindigital.com and will be reworking the look and feel there as well.

Drop me a line on Twitter and let me know what you think.

Previous: Iceberg Beer and the Newfoundland Insectarium
Next: Walking the Golden Gate Bridge