About this site
This website is powered by Expression Engine, which is an advanced Content-Management System (CMS) for publising content on the Web. Previously I was using WordPress, which is very popular, and good as far as it goes, but is not nearly as flexible as Expression Engine. Expression Engine has a moderate learning-curve when you switch from WordPress or some other system, but once I’d worked out how the templates are designed, and how the whole modular system is designed to run, I found that Expression Engine is enormously flexible straight away, unlike WordPress (which is flexible, but the flexibility often necessitates compromise elsewhere).
The site is coded to conform to published Web standards. The content is written in XHTML and is styled using CSS. Because it conforms to Web standards, the site should be viewable on a large number of browsers, operating systems, and devices. If you have problems viewing any part of this site, it could be because your browser is out of date and doesn’t itself conform to Web standards. If you are using a current version of a browser, however, and are still experiencing problems, please get in touch.
The photos section of the site is powered by SmugMug, which is a professional-level photo hosting and management service. SmugMug has a number of features not available on many other photo services (previously I was using the hugely popular Flickr), and they have a fairly easy—even if at times head-bangingly arcane—system for customizing the layout of the pages of photos they serve on my behalf. I develop and catalogue my photos using Apple’s application Aperture, where I store captions, keywords, and location information. I then upload my photos direct from Aperture to SmugMug using David Holmes’ Aperture plugin, ApertureToSmugMug.
The site is hosted by Pair Networks in Pennsylvania. After contact with a number of different Web hosts, I have found Pair to be very professionally run. They don’t place a huge number of restrictions on their users, and allow you to set up your hosting to work the way you want. Although they are not a bargain host—and they certainly never advertise themselves as such—their prices are competitive, especially considering the level of service they provide. They have always responded to my email support requests within hours, sometimes minutes. Having been so happy with their web-hosting, I recently transferred the registration of the domain richardflynn.net and others to Pair’s subsidiary, PairNIC.