Exciting news! My my beta site is live on the interwebs now. You can even read this article on beta.charlieharvey.org.uk. I decided to launch an incomplete version with bits missing and imcomplete in the hope of getting some feedback from the internets (i.e. you ;-) ).
Changing webhosts
I have always hosted charlieharvey.org.uk at domainsrush. But it seems like it was getting too popular for the hosting package that I’d been using. Rather than pay a one off fee of fifty quid and a continuing fee of £25 a year for unlimited hosting, I decided to try something new and move my hosting to Digital Ocean. They provide SSD based virtual machines very cheaply and I have been impressed so far. You have to build and maintain your own server infrastructure, which won’t suit everyone, but you get a terabyte of bandwidth with the entry level $5/month package.
Server setup, dev process
Server setup was fairly straightforward. Set up apache and fastcgi, pull down the various perl modules I needed using a combination of aptitude and cpanmin.us. And then clone my frontend code from gitorious.
Your feedback
During the dev process, I’ve had lots of free UX advice from nor; it has been extremely valuable to have a pair of fresh eyes on stuff.
Nonetheless, beta.charlieharvey.org.uk is still likely to change a lot. It is far from done. And I would really value any feedback. I have a UserVoice forum to aggregate specific ideas for features. Alternatively, please share your thoughts in the comments below. I am particularly interested to hear your thoughts on the navigation and info architecture, things that don’t make sense to you and any bugs you find.