andreasviklund.com

In my ongoing online re-organization work, one of many projects is to reduce the number of domains and minor websites I manage in order to use more time and energy on a few high-priority websites. Several of my sites are non-public and used only for specific purposes, such as developing and testing free WordPress themes or showcase a custom template, theme or marketing idea for a client. It is useful to have a separate development site for WordPress themes, but impractical to have six such sites because of all the extra maintenance work it takes to keep the sites up to date.

I also have a couple of small and public sites that don't have any actual purpose. One such site was andreasviklund.se where I made an attempt at writing a Swedish blog some time ago, only to give up on that plan after a few days. Instead, I ended up using the site to promote a couple of Swedish WordPress themes and a free MP3 album with 12 short and instrumental songs that could be used as ringtones on mobile phones.

My .se site had about 50 visitors per day in average over the last 6 months, despite the lack of updates. The themes (which are hosted by the official Swedish WordPress portal WP-Support.se) were downloaded in 1.800 copies in the same period, while the ringtomes were downloaded in approximately 7.000 copies. Those are actually surprisingly high numbers. But compared to the stats of this website and the amount of maintenance that every WordPress-based website needs over time, it was a lot of work for a very limited effect.

With the Swedish blog idea abandoned, the Swedish themes hosted successfully by WP-Support (where I used to provide free theme support during last summer - something I will need to take up again) and the ringtones soon being included in the big music collection I mentioned in my previous post, I could not come up with any good reason to keep the WordPress site online. I decided to take it down and replace it with a single template-based website with contact information and links to my high-priority websites. I decided to go with my andreas07 template.

Setting up the template site

The process was really simple. I used andreas07 in its original form, changed the language to Swedish, removed everything that I wouldn't need (including the navigation menu) and added my own content. I also changed the default link color fron red to blue, and added a photo in the left sidebar. It took me only 10 minutes to create the page from the template. I know it doesn't look very pretty, but it will definitely do the job for now. I can always improve the design at some later point.

Adjusting the new site to work with the history of the old site took a little bit longer since I wanted to do it in a proper way. Before I deleted the WordPress site, I made sure to copy the generated XML sitemap. I created a custom .htaccess file where I made manual 301 redirects for the URLs in the sitemap, to make sure that people who try to reach the deleted pages of the WordPress site are automatically redirected to index.html instead of seeing an error message. I also created a separate "Error 404" file which I made into the default 404 document in the .htaccess file. And finally I added a rewrite feature that removes the "www." from the address if a visitor has entered it.

With the template-based site and the .htaccess adjustments ready, I uploaded the new site and tested it live. It worked as intended and validated without any errors, and after saving a last backup copy of the WordPress site I deleted it. The new andreasviklund.se is now live. Feel free to take a look and comment on my first own andreas07-based website!

The re-organization continues tonight with an upgrade of andreasviklund.com and the two Swedish humor blogs Tjuvlyssnat and Tjuvtittat to WordPress v2.7. There is still a lot of work left to do, but I'm on it and it feels very good since it has been needed for quite some time now..

170+ MP3 songs in various genres, adding up to more than 12 hours of music, sorted into 9 (or possibly 10) MP3 albums. Every single file is fully ID3-tagged and includes the proper cover art. And the entire package (which is still untitled) will soon be free to download from this site, free to share and free to use for non-commercial purposes.

It will be an almost complete collection of the music I have created - or been involved in creating. The collection will include almost all Lagoona releases, along with a large number of remixes, co-productions and maybe even a few live tracks. It will be my way of finally putting an end to the amazing music adventures of my past, and let me move on to the next adventure in the world of melodies.

Expect the release and a longer post about this topic in a few days.

Yesterday I realized that I will not be able to pay for monthly renewal fee to my web host in time. For almost two years my hosting account has had the 7th of every month as the renewal deadline. When I upgraded my hosting account a month ago, I expected the date to remain the same. I made arrangements to pay the monthly fee on January 5th, which is a bit ironic since I thought "I will rather pay two days early this time than challenging destiny by waiting to the last day"…

However, the upgrade was made on December 3rd, so the renewal date was changed. The four last days of my previous hosting solution (the Elite VPS service from SiteGround) had been lost along with the money I had already paid for those days. Now, I don't really care about that. It was just not what I expected.

I contacted SiteGround immediately when I discovered the changed date and asked if I could make the renewal on Monday the 5th instead, while keeping the site online in the meantime. With the lost days in mind - and given the fact that the customer support is usually great - I don't think there will be any downtime this weekend. But just in case the site would go down for some time, please be aware that it is only temporary.

Updated January 3rd: There will be no downtime. The excellent tech support at SiteGround moved the renewal date to January 7th. Problem solved, and I can move on with the suiting up!

I mentioned my idea to start blogging for real, just for the fun of it. The plan is still on, once I have got the inspiration to clean out old and outdated material from the site. I did consider to use some other domain for the blog in order to keep things calm and quiet, knowing very well that most visitors here are many times more interested in my work than in myself. But after all, this is my online home and the domain that my friends and family associate me with. It is also the site people find if they search for my name, so why make things complicated?

There will still be plenty of work around, and I will also provide a bit more insight on what motivates me to do what I do - and to keep my templates free. Anyone interested in the human behind the code will be able to find out a lot of useless and boring information, but I'll make it easy to filter out interesting and relevant content through categories and tags. Once again, as soon as I have cleaned out the dust.

I will also need to refresh the design a bit, since it is currently very static and non-personal. Having recently starting to watch "How I Met Your Mother", I'm adopting the lovely catchphrase "Suit up!" to get that work done - although in the simple and useful way that makes me who I am. Expect no dramatic changes, but atleast (hopefully) some improvement.

Thanks everyone for your support and encouragement through e-mails and comments (both on the site and offline), it has removed some of the hesitation. I hope that you will be around during 2009 as well, and that this silly idea will make me spend more time on working with the site - and the material on it. It has been needed for years, really, so you are actually helping me help others.

Now, let a new year begin, and may new adventures come with it!

Within the next couple of days, I'm upgrading my hosting plan. You may see some downtime, but if so, it is planned and for a good purpose. I will be back with news once the upgrade is complete - and I think that atleast a few of you will like the story. See you soon!

Updated a few hours later: Ok, that didn't take as long as I had expected. The upgrade has been made already, andreasviklund.com is now running on a dedicated server from SiteGround! It is a major upgrade in terms of features and performance, which at the same time reduces my hosting costs with $20 per month. I am typically wary about making changes to my hosting, but this was a fairly easy decision to make. And thanks to the great support team at SiteGround, the switch has been completely pain-free.

The upgrade is perfectly in line with my ideas, plans and priorities for 2009. I am planning to bring this site to life again, now that we (Johanna and I) have got a good start with our company and it looks like our idea will actually work very well. While I have not written anything special for a long time, I am actually planning to start blogging again. Both about templates, CSS and other topics that may be interesting to the typical visitor of this site - and less interesting everyday posts about my life in general, and the many adventures and challenges that makes life worth living.

I already know that most people will find a personal blog boring. But it will be fun to write, because I love writing, especially documenting my life and sharing my experiences with others. And I have stories to tell, if there is someone out there who care to read it all. But I'm writing mostly for myself, atleast to start with. I have learned a lot from reading my old diaries. Besides, it is a good way to practice my English, while at the same time giving you a face and a story behind all the HTML and CSS code. And this is a personal website after all!

But don't worry, I will also post tutorials, how-to:s, tips, bonus materials, site reviews, software reviews, photos (which will be released as an own image bank of stock photos, free for everyone to use just like my templates) and music. And I'll listen to requests, feedback and ideas. If you would want to see something special, then let me know. For example, I've been asked to show the post comments under each post, not have them hidden as I have now. I will definitely change that back soon.

I have not set any official launch date for this restart. I tend to miss those kinds of dates, and I have several times lost track and inspiration when not being ready by my own deadline. So I'm not setting any date. I'll just start right away, without making it complicated or dramatic. Now that I have the hosting upgrade done, the next step is cleaning out old and outdated posts and re-structuring the site content. Basically, most of my old blog will disappear. A fresh start can be worth a lot, but it will happen gradually to make sure I don't lose the inspiration this time. An upgrade to WordPress v2.7 is also planned, as well as upgrading my themes…

Good plan or lousy plan? Think I'll manage to make this happen? Feel free to share your opinions and feedback!