goodbye … and hello « Neil vN

It’s done! As mentioned a few days ago, the entire Tangents blog has been moved over to a VPS. The site should now load markedly faster for everyone, and be a less frustrating experience to try and navigate.

Also, it would have been a seamless transition for everyone. Thank you to the techies at Bluehost who helped me move this blog over without a hiccup … and thank you to the techies at WiredTree (the new host of the neilvn site and Tangents blog), for making it a painless transition.

Those who would scrutinize a little closer, will notice the URL has changed. No more planetneil. The splash page for planetneil will remain for now .. but the Tangents blog is now in a new home … neilvn.com/tangents/

You can update your bookmarks if you want, but the redirects should take care of it all.

So let’s get down to the important stuff again … photography!

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10 Comments »

Wow. Just took a test drive around the site and I have to say, it’s much faster!
Thanks Neil. The best site on the web just got even better!!

Comment by Bill — February 19, 2010 @ 2:45 am
Truly a seamless transition…just came up in my Google reader like it always has. Never had issues with it being slow in the past but know others who have had that experience (I send a good number of people here to learn about bouncing flash).

While I’m at it, want to thank you for all the info you provide. I’ve learned a ton. In fact the other day I had to take some corporate headshots for a website and I was shooting in a small conference room with a big whiteboard camera right near a corner. I knew as soon as I walked through the door that I could do the headshots (and do them well) just bouncing flash in from camera left, letting the whiteboard fill the shadow side and be done in 3 minutes. But then I thought about the invoice I was going to be handing over before I left and decided that I’d better bring out enough gear to justify the $500 fee. So I got my lights and stands and softbox and spent 15 minutes setting up so I could give the client (the other part of) what they were paying for.

Comment by BMC Portraits — February 19, 2010 @ 8:42 am
I visit this page several times a day, every day, and now I can move faster than I will even more frequently.

Many thanks for all you do for us.

God bless you Neil.

Comment by Alfredo Medina — February 19, 2010 @ 11:07 am
There were a few hiccups this morning with this site going down .. but it should be taken care of now. *phew!*

Neil vN

Comment by Neil vN — February 19, 2010 @ 4:24 pm
Hi Neil,
New virtual private server seems to be fast. So, with the exception of the redirects to neilvn.com, does that mean planetneil.com is retired (not used for anything else anymore)? I guess your popularity with the blog has outgrown the domain name.

Comment by Stephen — February 19, 2010 @ 9:39 pm
I’m keeping the planet neil splashpage, since so many people know the website’s name. But that’s it for now.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil vN — February 19, 2010 @ 10:21 pm
Ooh. I loved Planet Neil. When I first saw it mentioned in a book about wedding photography, I just had to check out your website. Very different. And memorable. Neilvn? Neither. Just my 2 cents.

Comment by ernst — February 20, 2010 @ 10:45 am
Hey Neil,

Good to hear the move went well. I’m not sure why, maybe I am dyslexic but at first glance I read the URL as Nelvin.com :-S Oh well; renaming you is one way to remember the letters used to make up your new URL! I always really liked ‘Planet Neil’ too as felt like something really big and out of this world. :-)

Out of interest, when you moved your site and also for the techie’s amongst us, okay for me! Ha ha, how large (Gigabytes) is your site now? Have you kept a record of its growth from the beginning?

Hope you are keeping well.
Very much looking forward to your new vs. old 70-200 lens comparison. Did I mention I’m a techie? :-D

Kind regards,
David

Comment by David — February 20, 2010 @ 6:29 pm
David .. I’ve always been ambivalent about the PlanetNeil domain name. Its catchiness has helped, I’m sure. But how many of my serious clients would find the name amusing, vs off-putting? With that in mind, and the need for more consistent and coherent branding, I decided to pull it all under my domain name.

I’ve made an attempt the past year to rebrand the planetneil site as the Tangents blog / site .. and I do think I’ve largely been successful. For quite a while now the only indication that this was the planetneil site, was the URL … everything else fell under the Tangents banner.

We’ll see. :)

The back-up xml file for the Tangents blog is just under 8 Mb … which is fortunate, in that that is the size limit for importing a blog from the xml file.

The back-up zip file for the entire site is much larger, but not indicative of the actual size of the Tangents blog, since there are numerous add-on sites to the planetneil domain. But it’s big!

Neil vN

Comment by Neil vN — February 20, 2010 @ 10:34 pm
The most difference I see is on my iPhone which loads tangents quite a bit faster, especially without the redirect.
Good Job!
Cheers!
Bogdan

Comment by Bogdan — February 21, 2010 @ 10:35 pm