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December 5, 2016

It’s been a labor of love, in a good way.

You’re looking at the new website for Ross Schmadebeck. Okay, okay, that sounds a bit grandiose and overzealous. You’re right. But, I’m excited for the next iteration of my personal web presence, as this is probably v6 of my own website over the 10+ years. Crazy, huh?

So what’s the big deal?

  • New Content Management System (CMS) – a new backend system that is more flexible for my needs. My Masters program featured WordPress and so I felt it only made sense to put my education to good use. This free, open-source platform allows for greater flexibility of options, design, and features. See below.
  • Custom template & design – again, with my education, I’ve put together a new, custom design to represent my digital presence. I’m excited because this is truly my first website where I’ve coded the front-end so directly against a database. Every page, line of code, choice of color and element has my touch.
  • Better usability – my old site template was not mobile optimized, let alone mobile friendly. This site is now designed with a mobile-first approach, not just in design but in the actual code. You should have a positive experience on any device, and if you don’t, definitely let me know (see footer).
  • Better integrations – I use a lot of third-party content and have wanted better/stronger ways to integrate them into my website. Flickr has housed my photos for years and I love music, especially with custom playlists form Spotify. Both are now easily integrated into the site for both you, my user friend, and for me, when I need a quick reference.
  • Why now? Honestly, all the above. I didn’t hate my old site and design, but knew it needed an update on the design and a huge update on the usability and functionality. WordPress seemed the logical choice for CMS, but required an entire content migration. Not an easy, or quick, task. Now seemed to be the best time, and having a few days off over the Thanksgiving holiday helped.

What can you expect? Like my old site, irregular content updates, new photo galleries from my adventures, and a collection of my favorite recipes. I am still working on some content migration and an updated digital portfolio is also in the works.

Feel free to follow me on my favorite social networks to keep up-to-date on all this exciting stuff. I know I’m nerding out on it, and so can you.

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoy, and again, feel free to send me any feedback.

Post Tags:

CMS, New Website, usability, web design, WordPress,