I have the semblances of a plan, and a backup plan, and a second backup plan.
Plan: spruce up and publish a web I finished a while ago and never did anything with. I'll use that as a portfolio piece, a method of advertising my freelance services.
If I can spin that in to freelance work, or sell the use of the application as an income stream of it's own, Great! If not, the tools that I wrote will still be super useful for me, and maybe for some of you! (details later.)
Backup Plan:
While I am building this thing, I will continue to look for remote support or systems administration work. If I find work, I will keep building this thing, because this things is interesting and useful to me.
I'm strictly looking for remote work at this time.
Second backup plan: When I get to GA, if I still don't have a job lined up, and plan 1 isn't generating enough revenue for me to live on,I will pursue an A+ certification, and become a computer tech in one of the surrounding towns.
Okay, so the thing I built and am currently polishing and preparing for release:
It's a simple static site generator that I wrote when I was doing websites for bands.
In the first incarnation, you filled out the config file with the color scheme, the logo, and a few photos, and then it generated ~12 websites based around a couple of simple templates, most of them were variations on the same few themes.
The second version of this project moved from the config files to a series of forms, and had a place for the bands (although I think I'm the only one that ever actually used it) to upload music and stuff, with a choice of selections as to how that music was displayed on the site.
Still, this was all very primitive. No access control, only a handful of very simple templates.
But it worked. It was an application.
So, next, I added rudimentary support for podcasts. I don't like the way the podcast pages display, and there are still bits here that need some work, but it's mostly finished. This is where I left the project.
It had always been my plan to finish this before we launched any of the Analog Revolution Podcasts, but life got in the way, and I used a wordpress plugin instead.
That's where the project stands.
It's a web front end and a static site generator, with a template system, and a focus around sharing media.
I'm working on:
- improving support for podcasts, and podcast networks
- User authentication/access control/isolation
- basic blogging functionality
- a few more templates
- Custom style overrides
Once all that is done, and I've done some hardening and verified that everything is safe and secure, I'll put the code up in a git repo and deploy the application somewhere publicly.
My plan is to offer free websites on subdomains (capped, at some reasonable amount) to whoever wants them.
For a small monthly fee, you will be able to uncap your storage, and use a custom domain.
My goal, basically, is squarespace but easier to use, cheaper, and focused on podcasts, band websites, and other media, with easy integration for the various services that facilitate these things.
The goal is to build something *fast*, relying on as little client side code as possible. The finished websites will be Beautiful, Fast, and Simple.
The whole project will embody the ideals that I want to see on the web, and the principals I find significant.
@ajroach42
But, more relating to general structure. I wonder what it'd look like if you could make with blogs/personal websites that could be out into networks and federations
@CursedConfetti Too, even!
Gotta love it when you only mistype the second instance, right?
@CursedConfetti I have no idea what you mean by this.
Maybe there are too many or two few words?