This is part 2 in a series of post, going through the process of building Ptah Dunbar dot Com. If you haven’t read part 1, I’d suggest you go check that out so you can read about the goal of this project.

A little History
I brought this domain (ptahdunbar.com) back in 2006. At first, its sole purpose was to act simply as a portfolio showcasing my work. Then later on in 2006, I finally settled with a flash portfolio I created in flash, showcasing my latest freelance gigs, projects I’m working on, and if I was available for job inquires.

Year 2007 was the big year of the blog. I scoped out the blogosphere, being conservative about commenting and interacting with social media sites (like digg, facebook, and other web2.0 sites). I guess I didn’t want to follow the hype, as history will repeats itself sooner or later. Instead, I just watched, learning from others, reading hundreds of blogs and resource sites.

At the end of 2007, I started changing my opinion about all things web2.0. Data portability came to the rescue and seems to be gaining popularity. Which is awesome considering the fact I’ll be able to “carry” my online social life where I want which was previously not an option. So I thought that I should just give web2.0 a try but do things my way. Finally, I felt the urge to get my name out there, so what better way to do this then blogging in my niche?

Getting Started
I’ve been messing with WordPress for a few months now. Learning how it works, pushing its buttons, but I haven’t quite developed an actual fully-fledged WordPress theme for it yet. I debated on using freely available themes e.g. Kubrick, or K2 for a starter base (and I did tried them), but I refused learning someone else’s code and how they went about creating their theme. It was simply not my style. Not when I’ll be the one doing all the support and whatnot. So I went solo and glued my eyes to the codex for days, using it as a reference along with some other helpful tutorials found online.

I might be re-inventing the wheel this time around, but by doing so allows me to understand the core functionality in a WordPress theme. I’ll also get to familiarizes myself with the grunt work involved in the slicing (html/css) process, converting a regular site to a WordPress compatible theme so the next time I make another theme or two, I’ll have some sort of automation to speed up the development cycle. Plus, just knowing the fact that I coded pretty much every single line of code, enlightens me every time I think about it! ; P

In the next post for this series in creating Ptah Dunbar dot Com, I’ll go through the mock-up phase and explain the mock up phase.

Note: I’m actually finished with the design for this blog, I’m just fixing out some bugs and formatting issues. The theme is already up and running, you just can’t see it because I’m using Theme Test Drive, but it shouldn’t take much longer anyway. Maybe another week, but it depends on the work load in school.