I’m finally WordPress free! thebigreason is now unified and powered by a 100% custom content management system. My blog, my portfolio and my music now live in the same place, and there is plenty of room left over for anything else I want to put here as well.

I originally created my blog on a whim. It was my birthday, I was at work, and I thought it would be more fun to play with WordPress than to do actual work. As I fell into my blogging groove over the years, it became clear that WordPress was about 90% over-featured for me. It really is a nice system, especially after Happy Cog’s makeover of the admin area. But for me, it’s mostly overkill.

Under the hood

My new CMS is writing focused with a minimal interface, and a bare bones rich text editor. I can save drafts, publish inline or sidebar video and images, and select which articles I want to show up on the home page. There really is nothing more. No comments, no categories, no tags, no plug-ins, no widgets. Just me writing, playing, and coding.

All in one place

For the past ten years, thebigreason.com has been a place where I kept my personal music projects. When I started doing freelance web design, I created design.thebigreason.com.  When I started the blog, it lived at blog.thebigreason.com. Now that my freelance work is limited to a just a couple of very special clients, I have little need for a business focused site. I’ve wanted to consolidate everything for years. When my last WordPress upgrade failed, it was just the excuse I needed.

The projects and portfolio sections may seem a little redundant. Allow me to clarify. The portfolio houses work that I have done for clients, while projects are where my personal experiments live. 

The music and portfolio sections are a little sparse at the moment. I have quite a bit of content to put in still, but I wanted to get this up and running. There is too much crazy stuff going on these days, and I need an outlet. Twitter isn't a robust enough vehicle for me spout off about everything I’d like to spot off about.

New school

We now live at thebigreason.com, so update your bookmarks and feed readers accordingly. The old URLs will redirect eventually, but this isn’t high on my priority list. The blog can be found at thebigreason.com/blog, my portfolio at thebigreason.com/portfolio, and music at thebigreason.com/music. I currently have a single RSS feed for everything. I may create separate feeds for the blog, portfolio and music in the future, but the everything feed will live at thebigreason.com/feeds into the future.

Your comments and feedback are welcome on your own blog. This is the blogosphere. Take ownership of your intelligent feedback and host it yourself! That’s what I do.