After many many months without being to update this site I was finally able to set aside enough time to finish off the migration, moving from Squiz Matrix CMS across to WordPress.
This is the second move of this blog. It was originally migrated from Blogspot across to Matrix back in 2007 and it served as a playground for me to test new web trends while ensuring that it could all be done within a CMS that I was working with on a day to day basis.
The site changed over to a new design when responsive design first made it’s splash and I re-designed the site to be more responsive.
Why the change?
The main reason for this change is because the version of Matrix I was using was going to take too long to upgrade, and worse of all I needed an outdated version of Java to create any new content (which is why there was such a huge gap between posts).
Matrix is a super powerful CMS that gives me the power to build a complex site, however this site has come full circle over the past few years to be back to a basic blog where I can publish my thoughts on a variety of topics (mostly the web these days).
It was moved to WordPress because I have become just a familiar with it as a CMS over the past few years and run several other sites off WordPress. It’s a great tool if you’re requirements aren’t too robust.
Has anything been lost in the changes?
Fortunately not.
In this process I’ve migrated all of the posts from the previous Surf the Dream Matrix site across to an existing WordPress site I had been running for Javery Design. Once that was done I updated all of the Javery Design URL’s to become surfthedream.com.au and set up a series of 301 redirects to hopefully catch any old site links and google indexes.
What changes are likely next?
I’m not entirely happy with the look of the site or the layout of the homepage. I prefer the header in this one but there are some issues with the Archive pages and the Search listings which need to be fixed up.
The footer needs some work as well, I need to put a link to my other side projects – Am I Responsive, RWD Weekly Newsletter and ResponsiveDesign.is.
I’m happy with things now though, and it means that I’m able to get back into the swing of writing more often.