Ralford.net is my attempt to design a weblog without using an existing software package. I started putting it together in 2005, after slight frustrations with an off-the-shelf weblog package. Since its beginning, I've integrated a wiki which allows me to refer to its entries from my weblog posts. This has been especially useful for ongoing write-ups, some of which are far too long for a simple weblog post.
Ralford.net is powered by PHP 4.4.2 and MySQL 4.1.21 (although I use PHP 4.2.2 for testing; someday I'll upgrade). For development, I primarily use HTML-Kit. I use TortoiseSVN for revision control, and PmWiki serves as my bug tracker.
The Wiki
The wiki is truely a work in progress (and so is all of Ralford.net for that matter). While it's well along, I have not implemented all of the features it will one day have. This is especially due to the nature of development: you don't notice the capabilities (or flaws) of a piece of software (or hardware) until using it in the active world for some period of time.
I intended to let any visitor add or edit wiki entries, but I didn't consider that internet spam programs would take advantage of this gateway to the web. As a result, I've temporarily disabled the features allowing visitors to add or update wiki entries (although I've recently included a feature for adding comments to weblog posts).
The Future of Ralford.net
As the content on Ralford.net continues to grow, I hope for it to reach a larger audience. RSS will certainly help achieve this goal, but having a wider range of content would be a big help. With that said, I am not against turning Ralford.net into a community weblog - preferrably with a small handful of contributors.
From the backend perspective, it would be exciting to release the Ralford.net shell as an alternative to other open source content management systems.
If You Want to Get Involved
You've probably noticed the form at the top of the page that lets users sign in. If you have relavent content that you'd like to contribute, or simply enjoy writing about odds & ends (including but not limited to: backpacking, funky music, and web development), drop me a line and I'll hook you up with a user name (via web correspondence: balford, followed by 82, at the Google service you know and love). If Ralford.net ever becomes a community weblog, it'd be most interesting to have a variety of content, so don't be concerned if your interests differ from my own.
Valid RSS 2.0
As of 2006-06-03, Ralford.net posts are valid RSS 2.0. Feed operation could be different depending on your browser, since my feed was apparently valid while failing to load as a Live Bookmark in Firefox 2.
License Terms
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.