Well the new, plain-jane HTML version of the site is ready to go but I’ve had to hold off pushing the button. (Terrible summer cold knocked me out nearly a week, then traveling this weekend.) Do need to iron out RSS and some reliability/security whatsits, but I would like to announce the following: beta builds of whatever I’m working on for the site will be (sometimes) available at beta.mattpolicastro.com

At the time of writing, the new Express/Handlebars app is running intermittently. In the process of building:

  • The switch from Meteor wasn’t as painful as I had feared. I’m kind of missing some of the helpers and whiz-bang features, but no harm done.
  • Started using Vagrant for testing. Though this site is incredibly simple, it feels downright luxurious to mock up a VPS in seconds. Check out Justin Weissig’s series on Vagrant, as well as any of his other screencasts.
  • The performance and accessibility improvements are pretty astounding. Trimming the fat feels great. (Would highly recommend.)

Got some fun projects coming up; stay tuned.