When I get the new database deployed, the frontend will look much like habitablezone.net, but with inline editors (including comments), comment titles, click to view text, etc. That is, I’m concentrating on beefing up the backend and infrastructure, but leaving WordPress pretty much alone to do its thing displaying the content.

What you see there is the generic out-of-the-box appearance of WordPress’s default theme, complete with clipart and stock photos. I’m thinking about opening up its extensive customization abilities to the ‘zoners’ group, and let the community control how the site looks. I’ll deal with the plumbing, the community can decorate the walls. Formula for unleashed creativity? Or utter havoc? Should be fun either way.

HTML code non-functional in posts and comments. No edit ability on comments. Dashboard looks like before.

Anyway, you might want to check it out ahead of Amazon locking the doors here, to make sure that you can log in. If you wait and have trouble without this site around, you’ll have to email me at robert@obvious.com.

podrock: There’s nothing to tell you about the new backroom. Same as the old backroom, but less, given it’s strictly generic. You shouldn’t be spending much time there, but we’re not yet done with WordPress, so you’ll be puttering about in some kind of WordPress dashboard for the foreseeable future.

I’m curious to see how Amazon handles preemptively shutting down a customer’s server, like whether it happens at the precise time, indicating it was a scheduled automatic action. So I’m going to keep http://www.habitablezone.com around until the bitter end. You can immediately switch to the temporary site when this one goes away, and soon after I’ll switch this address over to use it.

How about a little contest? Let’s see who emails me first when this site goes down.

Yeah, I know, I’m a little starved for fun. Stay tuned.