The proving grounds is where I will be testing the next codeset for Jakiao.com. Currently, the purple design you see at www.jakiao.com is three years old at its very core. The time has come for something new!

With this in mind, I have begun work on the HTML template for the next Jakiao.com design. This first step is different than what I usually take for websites I work on. Usually I start with a design and then write the HTML around it. The problem with that is the designes are always more complex than I am willing to write the HTML for. This is exactly why the existing layout is completely broken in Firefox and only works properly in IE6.

For this layout, I am actually developing it from within Firefox. To assist me, I have the following addons installed: Firebug, YSlow, and Web Developer. All three tools are extremely useful at breaking down the componants of a website and for increasing development time. I highly recommend you check them out!

First, a lot of the core features will remain. That is, my quotes archive will continue to be updated, my playlist will continue to be modified, recipes are still available, etc. Oh! And blogs entries. Can't forget about those. The new interface will employ the use of Ajax to streamline things, such as commenting on a blog, or giving your vote on a song in my playlist. On the administrative side of things, I will be able to edit virtually everything on the site in-place. Cool stuff.

Next, I intend to make Jakiao.com's features be open for use to others. That is, I will be making a system where viewers can setup their own quotes archive or playlist, and possibly even screencap uploads. Just a nifty little place to organize such things! So that should liven things up a bit.

In Jakiao.com-2.0, There is no template system. There is no centralized database handler. Every piece of the site is custom coded and follows no set pattern. That's because I wrote the code three years ago and have since learned a lot more. I should try to be neat.

Jakiao.com-3.0 will employ the use of classes to organize data, a centralized database class with caching support, a template system to increase the possibilities for each page, and overall more refined skills than what were used three years ago.

I intend to bring in more multimedia now than what had existed in the past. So to help the delivery of that content, all multimedia will be cached and served via the Highwinds Content Distribution Network. This will be fun to play with ...

The software that will be used in Jakiao.com-3.0 include Apache HTTP Web Server 2.2, PHP 5.2, MySQL 5.1, memcached, and Ajax. The Facebook Connect service will likely be included as well.

P.s. Ignore the box below. It's there only for debugging purposes.