“Where the hell is Rob? Why hasn’t he updated in, like, two months? Did he die? Did he finally go over the edge and run away from all of his problems? What gives?”

I’m still here. Been a bit busy with various little projects, not the least of which is <drumroll> WORKING ON THE NEW WEBSITE!!! </drumroll> Yes, that’s right, I FINALLY got my act together, hooked up with a respectable ISP (Hurricane Electric — tell them webmaster@isleofdelight.com sent you) and uploaded the site that has been sitting on my hard drive for months to its disk space. I’m currently waiting for my domain to propogate through DNS (www.robzazueta.com) and am trying to fix some problems that typically occur when you try to port code from a Windows box to a Linux box. Keep watching this space — I’ll announce it here first when the site is officially live.

So what’s so special about a new website? Well, first off, it’s almost a complete redesign. The homepage is TOTALLY different, the graphics are all new and there’s actually some kind of common design element carried throughout. In addition, I now have 25 meg to play with rather than the 10 I get on Tripod. Not that my site is really that big, but it soon will be. I also get access to a backend database, PHP, AND some amount of control over my account, which is just excellent. The only ads you see will be those pre-approved by yours truly, NO MORE ANNOYING POPUPS, and a full-fledged message board which I have complete control over (yay me!).

At launch, some things will not yet be live. The message board, for instance, will not be live. It’s not like I expect people to flock to the site and start messaging there anyway, but I thought it was a neat little addition. I’ll be using the PHP version of Phorum, which is pretty slick. I will eventually have a page dedicated to my pending nuptials and the woman who makes me go “wheeeeeeeeeeeee”. I will also be expanding my photography area to include more of my portfolio, including the images I have been holding back because Tripod’s user policy doesn’t allow them to appear on their service.

Yes folks, all in all this is looking like a good deal. The tightwad in me had a hard time justifying $10/month for self gratification, but I think this will be a much bigger, better effort that will show off my talents in a way that Tripod just doesn’t allow. I like Tripod as a service, and it is still the best free web host alive, but my needs have outgrown it for now.

So, keep watching this space… the new site will be here VERY soon!