So here I am, writing the first entry in my rebooted blog. It’s powered by Octopress, rather than the custom built collection of scripts I’ve previously used.

Installation was quite straightforward (once I gave up trying to get the correct version of Ruby, Gems, and all the dependencies installed under Windows, and used the Mac). Octopress generates a flat HTML site for you, which can then be deployed to your web hosting automatically, if you have shell access.

The old site had become so stagnant that I was embarrassed by it. I’m quite surprised that as of today, it still shows up on the first page of results when you Google my name. I doubt that many people are paying SEO dicks to optimise their site for “Iain Simpson”, but it shows that you can have a decent search presence without spending shedloads of cash.

I’m starting out with good intentions, and plan to write about more stuff.