Announcing version 2.0 of richardflynn.net! If you tried visiting the site in the last week or so and were greeted with the rather austere (and buggy) ’site down’ message, I apologize. As you see, the site is now back up with all of the same content as existed before.

The first thing the returning visitor will notice is the new design. I think this design is cleaner and easier to read than the blues and greens I had before, and this design now stretches to fill the width of your browser window (it is a ‘liquid’ design).

As I say, all of the content that was previously on this site is still here, although it is now being driven by rather sturdier means (as I’ll explain in a moment). You may find a few links to photos in the Travel articles which don’t work right now: I’ll be fixing those over the next few weeks. For now, you can always find my photos in the Photos section of the site.

The old site was cobbled together with two WordPress installations, an installation of iPAP to manage the photos, and a number of static pages running the back-end, which made things quite difficult to update effectively, with the consequent result that I didn’t update often. I have now brought all the content into one installation of WordPress—I never cease to be impressed by quite how flexible WordPress is when it comes to individual site customization. My photos are now all hosted at Flickr, and are displayed within this installation of WordPress using the WordPress plugin FAlbum.

Let me make my intentions clear (as mud) on the subject of content on this site. I’ll continue to publish photos in albums that I think will interest friends and family around the world, as well as some to interest casual (unknown) visitors. I’m going to make the effort to produce a greater amount of written content. Previously I had very high designs for the Articles section of the site, wanting only to publish material of a certain (long) length and of a certain (high-falutin) style. That is going to change now: I’m not going to let myself be restricted by such lofty aspirations. I’m going to be writing about all things that interest me—technology, music, current affairs, goings-on at Oxford, whatever. As a result, you’ll be able to describe the site’s content as ‘eclectic’ and I daresay that no one person will be interested in reading everything, but there should be something for everybody every so often.

I’m going to try and publish at least one written piece a week. I firmly believe that the act of writing and publishing such diverse material is a good exercise for me in exactly the same way that it is through the very process of preparing and writing my essays at University that I actually learn anything. The style and content of articles I post here will naturally be very different from that which form my weekly essays. Of course, it remains to be seen how closely I keep to my proposal, but I already have a number of ideas for articles over the next few weeks. If I set myself a requirement to publish at least once a week, then there can be some hope that some of these articles will actually get written.

I’m not quite sure whether or not I approve of this site being described as a ‘blog’. On the one hand, it is published using blogging software (WordPress), but I did nevertheless carefully ensure that no trace of the word ‘blog’ remains in any of the templates which control the display of the site. I have always wanted to steer clear of writing posts along the lines of ‘this is what I had for lunch’—which is one of the reasons for my original high aspirations for the articles on this site—but we all know that serious blogs these days don’t actually occupy themselves with such inanity. So, if you want to describe this as ‘Richard Flynn’s Blog’, then I’m not going to stop you.

You will see a few holes around the site—particularly at the bottom of the front page. I’m planning to get some new little snippets of ‘current information’ about me made available to the site. So, you’ll see what I’m reading, what essays and other University work I’ve been set, my ratings for films I’ve seen recently, links to the sites I read regularly (a ‘blogroll’, if you will), links to sites and pages all over the Web which I’ve happened upon and which I find interesting enough to point my site readers to, and possibly even what I’ve been listening to recently in iTunes. I know that my stalkers all over the world are waiting in excited anticipation for me to roll out these features. Everyone else is probably just yawning by now.

That’s all for now. The first site update will be to add new photo albums—photos from my time in Australia April–June this year, from John’s ordination in July, and from this year’s TTP production, Come On, Jeeves. I wanted to get the new site opened up as quickly as possible, to minimize downtime, so I settled for only bringing over the photos that were already posted on the old site. My new system for displaying photos—which I’ll explain in the next article, for those who are interested—means that I can title and caption photos very easily before uploading them to appear on the site, so it won’t be long.

Happy Christmas to all. How is everyone?