Website builders like Devhub won’t put developers out of work any more than prefabricated structures threaten carpenters. But there is room for a way to help non-tech types put up a site quickly. I’ve used a few site builders for niche sites and Devhub is the best I’ve used so far– in my opinion it’s way ahead of Weebly, for instance. Superb execution here: if you need a site, not a blog, Devhub will host it for free and give you a slew of monetization options and other visual and functional elements (local directory/news) that may be appropriate for what you’re building. Not only have they created a product that really delivers, they cut expenses/increased revenue right as the financial crisis hit and are just about viable financially now. Good story of success in hard times.

Another advent calendar worth reading is 24 ways. Again a post every day from December 1 to December 24 except this calendar post totally awesome general web development tutorials.

As you may have already noticed, I have just redesigned this blog. I was never entirely happy with the last redesign, so decided to freshen up the site with a new look. I hope you enjoy it!

I have also switched from Textpattern to WordPress. I was very happy using Textpattern, and it is an excellent content management system suitable for blogs. There are lots of really cool features and an excellent community of dedicated users. The reason for the switch is that in my day job, I create and maintain content management systems, so I figured it would be a great idea to familiarize myself with and learn a different CMS.

One of the greatest benefits of working with open-source content management systems, is that you can learn alot by looking at the architecture and source-code of others. It becomes a great source of inspiration in working on my own projects.