I’ve made the official migration for this site from DavidPitlyuk.com to DavePit.com. You’ll see that all URL’s will redirect to the new URL. You’ll also notice that all URL’s are now shorter!? For example the post for the 2009 Nissan 370Z used to be:

http://www.davepit.com/2008/11/17/2009-nissan-370z-first-thoughts/

Now it is:

http://www.davepit.com/2009-nissan-370z-first-thoughts/

The new domain name is part of the migration that I had announced when I launched this new design. My next task will be to work on cleaning up all of the categories, and the posts within them.

For those interested in how I did the migration, in case you are interested in doing the same…I will provide the steps I took:

Backup Files

The easiest/fastest way for me to do this was to login via Telnet/SSH (I use Putty as the software to do this). Go to the directory you need to backup, and then type

tar cvf filename.tar .

This will back everything up in the directory to a .tar file. Simply download that tar file and reupload to your new server. On the new server, you’ll want to untar it by using this command in the same directory:

tar xvf filename.tar .

This will untar all of your files onto the new server. Trust me, doing this is MUCH faster then downloading all of your files via FTP.

Wordpress Configuration

I was doing everything on the same server, so I didn’t have to do anythign with the database. If you are using a different server, you’ll have to backup your database, and then restore it on the new servers database.

Since I was doing everything on the same server, I simply logged into Wordpress, went to settings, and changed the domain names to davepit.com. This changed the database config to the new domain, and automatically started calling the files on the davepit.com domain.

While in the Wordpress admin, I also updated these:

• All In One SEO Tool plugin - Renamed everything as needed
• Sitemaps plugin - Rebuilt the sitemap for the site to map the correct domain

Update Template Files

Go into all of your template files, and make sure to change any references you have from the old domain to the new domain.

Update Old Domain References In Content

You could go through your SQL database files and replace any references of your old domain to your new domain…but an even easier way is to use the search-regex plug found here. The plugin once installed allows you to search for anything in your content and replace it with something else. I simply searched for all the references to images using the old domain, and replaced them with davepit.com. Same thing with links. Now all of your content is calling the right files.

.htaccess Configuration

You’ll want to update your .htacess configuration on both domains to make sure you’re URLs are doing what they are supposed to. To get all of the old url schemas shorter, I added this line (Thanks WPRecipes!):

RedirectMatch 301 /([0-9]+)/([0-9]+)/([0-9]+)/(.*)$ http://www.davepit.com/$4

This will ensure any links that are going to the old URL’s automatically redirect to the new ones. Plus, it will allow the search engines to know the pages have moved, and start indexing the correct new URL’s without punishing me (since there is no page not found errors). While I’m at it, I also set the domain up to always redirect to www.davepit.com, even if you go to just davepit.com. The code for that is below:

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^davepit\.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.davepit.com/$1 [L,R=301]

Now we’ve got DavePit.com all setup…but we want to make sure people that are still going to DavidPitlyuk.com get redirected. Simple!? I setup a .htaccess file on davidpitlyuk.com with the following code:

Redirect 301 / http://www.davepit.com/

Perfect!? Now our URL’s are going to the right places!

Google Webmaster Tools

You’ll want to setup the new domain on Google Webmaster Tools so Google can appropriately crawl and index your content.

Thanks to Mubs from Suffolk Software for some of the help in figuring out the above work.

Today I’m officially launching the new design for this site. I’ve done all the work on my own this time, including the design and integration into Wordpress from the ground up. I feel more comfortable about the code, and was able to get rid of some major issues the old design was having. I spent a lot of time on making this new design look extremely clean, and hopefully be more efficient and faster. If you’re reading this from our RSS feed, stop by and see the new look.

I still have a laundry list of things to do, so you’ll see parts of the site tweaked a little bit over the next few days…but the majority is done. If you do happen to see any issues or bugs, please let me know. The biggest issue that has been resolved is where pages were just showing up as 404 not found. I’m sure I was losing a ton of pageviews and visitors because of it…either way, it’s a thing of the past.

The other important aspect of this redesign is a re-branding of this site and what it’s about. This is something that you’ll see more of over the next couple weeks. Previously the slogan for the site had been “Topics for entrepreneurs, and my miscellaneous ramblings”. This has now been changed to “Cars, business, ramblings, and the rest of my life”. Previously I was really trying to target the site towards entrepreneurs, with the mindset that I was writing more specifically about topics that young entrepreneurs would like. That won’t change much in a sense, but the topics will be shifted somewhat.

The topics I discuss will still be targeted towards bright, young, ambitious people. There will be a larger footprint in the automotive category. Cars, technology, and business have always been my true passion, and I hope to convey that on this blog. You’ll soon see a revamp in the categories on the site which help convey this shift. On top of that, posts now utilize tags, so you’ll be able to find similar content with that so you don’t have to necessarily rely on something as high level as categories if you don’t want.

The other thing you’ll notice over the next couple weeks is a re-branding name change on the site. I previously used my entire name, DavidPitlyuk.com to reference the site. Unfortunately, my last name isn’t so easy to spell, and a while back I mirrored the domain DavePit.com to this site. Now I will officially be re-branding the site to be named DavePit.com. It’s easy to remember, shorter, and flows better. DavidPitlyuk.com will continue to work, but will soon redirect to DavePit.com.

One of the other cool things that I’ve added to the sidebar is a “Top Commentators” box which shows up on all pages of the site. This will show the people with the highest comments over a period of time. If that user has a link to their website, their name will link to it, and I will not be putting any sort of nofollow on it. I hope this encourages some of you to voice your opinions and comment on posts more often.

As always, I welcome all comments, suggestions, praises, and criticism. Here’s to an entirely new chapter!

In January of this year I started a little bit of an experiment in affiliate marketing by launching a blog called Carbon Fiber Gear. The blog covers a variety of “cool” products made with or out of carbon fiber. To give you an idea, some examples I’ve written about are:

• Rob Diamond Carbon Fiber Belt Buckle
• Blackbird Rider Carbon Fiber Guitar
• Carbon Fiber & Aluminum Tissue Box
• Carbon Fiber Wallet
• Bell & Ross Carbon Fiber Watches

While the site isn’t making a ton of money, I’ve started to really see some potential in it. I have plans to further expand it out, including a possible direct store, and maybe even our own branded products…but that’s all down the line.

When I initially launched the site, I was using a pretty basic Wordpress template that anybody could use. With the new custom design launched on this blog, I really had the itch to give Carbon Fiber Gear its own unique look. On top of that, I wanted to try and tackle doing everything on my own. When I re-did this blog, I designed it myself, but then worked with Suffolk Software to code it up and integrate it into Wordpress. If anything, re-doing Carbon Fiber Gear would be a learning experience in Wordpress and HTML/CSS…and great practice…both of which are needed.

I managed to do everything from the design in Photoshop to the blog being integrated into Wordpress in about 3 days (Although I did work on it pretty much non-stop). I still have a few things on my to-do list, but the majority of everything is completed. I’m really proud of the work, and feel fairly comfortable integrating a site into Wordpress now.

I have some really interesting articles I plan on writing for this blog in terms of the entire process behind re-doing Carbon Fiber Gear. For those of you interested in what it takes, it will be a must read. In the meantime, I’d like to give a thanks to these two people:

• Mubs from Suffolk Software - Mubs was extremely helpful in answering a few questions here and there when I was stuck on either some stupid CSS quirk or trying to get something to work correctly with Wordpress. I was also able to recycle some code that he had done to create the theme on this blog…which saved me a ton of time/work myself. An example of this is the comments section on a post, that was restyled and rehashed on Carbon Fiber Gear from this blog.
• Collis Ta’eed from Eden.cc - Collis has been on fire lately in the web scene. He owns quite a few sites that you may know of: PSDTuts, NetTuts, FlashDen, AudioJungle, and FreelanceSwitch. While he didn’t directly help me, he (and his work) has been a huge source of inspiration. Enough of it is visible in the site that it definitely deserves some props.