Welcome to the updated MOTORZ TV website.  Would you believe that it’s all new?  I know, I know… it doesn’t look like it–but it is!

I had previously developed (yeah, I’m a developer geek-head too) the original MOTORZ website on a Windows/ASP platform.  Unfortunately due to costs and maintenance difficulties, I decided to re-develop the entire thing using the WordPress CMS on a PHP host. I’m so glad I did!  It’s so much easier to maintain, and I have at my disposal the full arsenal of WordPress plugins.  It’s very, very cool!

So what really is new here?  Well, here’s a short list, if you must know.

1. The background has changed from the big MOTORZ word on the diagonal to match the new intro of the show–metallic holes!  I grabbed a frame from the intro and turned it into a tiled background which turned out to be more difficult than I had imagined!
2. The “cover flow” Flash app that was on the home page is no longer.  While it was cool, I decided that YouTube views were more important than a fancy interface.  Plus, I immediately wanted to push the viewer to the latest episode just by going to the home page.
3. All of the forms had to be re-written, as well as the photo gallery.
4. My “tweets” now show up on the sidebar.
5. The home page now shows only the recent 4 episodes below the player. Additionally, the entire list of episodes no longer shows below the page for an episode.  To see them all now you have to go to the schedule page.
6. Lots of small little tweaks, terminology changes, etc.  For example “Distribution” at the top is now “As Seen On” and “Schedule” is now “Episodes”
7. There were also a few “back end” scripts I had to re-write which do various things for feeding videos to iTunes and such.  I’m just glad it’s all over!

One of the benefits of working with the WordPesss platform is the amazing number of plugins that do amazing things.  I’m already playing with a few that will add more value to the site.  The most exciting one is an e-commerce plugin so I can put up shirts, stickers, banners, and more to sell through the website.

If you’re read this far then you really are bored! LOL  Thanks for your support of the show, and the new website!  Please let me know if you encounter any problems, 404 Not Found pages, etc.  I think I’ve checked everything out thoroughly, but I’m bound to have missed something!