Overhauling The Site Once Again

It's pretty easy to get stuff done and solve problems when things are very well defined. This site, unfortunately, is not well defined. It's a fairly expensive test platform to force me to learn how to manage a proper website and eventually sell things online.

The other day I decided I wanted to add a Raspberry Pi section to my website, since most of my projects and tinkering revolve around it these days. I figured I'd just start by creating a Raspberry Pi landing page for the sight, link to it on the main menu, and just start filling it out with info. In reality, it was multiple hours spent learning how to make and link all of this stuff on Shopify, realizing my first "guide" was actually too involved for the average person, and then creating an entirely new blog to handle the Raspberry Pi stuff. It's been multiple hours already, but I've got the basics in place and working. Quite satisfying.

I had to go through all of the legal requirements of using the Raspberry Pi name and branding on my site, and make sure I'm not going to get into any legal trouble. That was quite easy, due to this page right Here.

I also removed all of the "shop" stuff from the site, as I'm still working on the business checking stuff and can't accept payments yet. I also have nothing to sell at this time. I had some digital gift cards listed as test items, but this is a huge financial liability, as it is basically a standing debt that can be called up at any time. It's not possible to collect payment from anyone yet, but I didn't want to run the risk of forgetting after the payment processing is set up, and having someone buy a gift card that I'll have to honor later.

Going through all of this has been a great experience that helped me further define this site. Right now it's just going to be a place for me to compile useful resources while I slowly trudge along through various product design stages and other business stuff. Baby steps. Reminds me of www.jeffgeerling.com. This guy has done incredible work with the Raspberry Pi and I visit his personal site fairly often to check up on things and as a reference. He was the one who inspired me to start all of this up. Thanks Jeff, you rule! 

Shopify is pretty good so far, but figuring out how to manage the various pages, links, and blog posts has been rather tedious this time around. I'm starting to make sense of it, but the learning curve has been steep for me so far. To be fair to Shopify, I haven't actually used any of their educational materials to learn how to manage the site. The struggles are on me. They do have a good YouTube channel for learning this stuff.

At this point I have the main blog, the Raspberry Pi blog, the main Raspberry Pi page, and a few other things sorted out. It's just a matter of getting things working, refining some processes, and posting the finished stuff. This is a truly massive project for me, but I am enjoying it so far. I'm hoping to make this site a one stop shop for Raspberry Pi info and guides, as well as a place to buy useful things that don't make life worse and more expensive, unlike most of the crap for sale on most online market places.

I need to get guides made for getting started with the Raspberry Pi, installing games, upgrading the hardware, and exploring the limitations of the system.

Check back in later for more updates. Hopefully the latest changes to the site help make it easier and better to use. I'm excited to start filling out the various sections.