Thirty-six straight days of full-time work for Adam Crymble and I, but we've finally gone live with the new NiCHE site. Now we'll continue to improve it into the fall, correcting bugs, improving the layout and adding plenty of new features. Some of the changes are obvious on the surface. We have a new permanent URL (http://niche-canada.org), one which better reflects the geographically-dispersed nature of our knowledge cluster. We have a new member directory, which will make it easier to find like-minded colleagues and fellow travellers as our membership grows. Adam has done a lot of work improving the navigation, the look and feel of the site, and clarifying the information architecture.

Most of the work that we've done is not obvious to the casual observer, however. We've moved the site from servers at UWO to an external VPS host, changed the server software from Windows to Linux (reflecting our commitment to open source), and updated the software stack that runs our site: Apache, PHP, MySQL, and Drupal. Our Drupal installation, in particular, was long in need of upgrading and maintenance. We are now in a much better position to keep the site running smoothly, and to upgrade to future versions of all of our software. We will also be able to add new tools and features: look for those beginning this fall.

If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact me at william.j.turkel@gmail.com.