Well, perhaps not a whole new identity, just a consolidation of multiple facets of my online persona.  For several years now, I’ve maintained a personal website (www.timmitchell.net) and a professional website (www.bucketofbits.com).  The personal site, an old Community Server install, consisted of a neglected personal blog and a few family pictures, but sadly had been untouched for nearly a year.  On the BucketOfBits.com website, I had published links to my recent blog posts and downloads from my presentations.

So, to simplify administration and to consolidate my online footprint, I’ve decided to merge both sites under the TimMitchell.net domain.  This site will be a (mostly) professional site: I’ve imported the professional content and links from BucketOfBits, and I’m cross-posting my SQLServerCentral blog there as well.  For the content that is purely personal, including pictures of the kids and some random thoughts that have nothing to do with SQL Server/technology/career, I’ll maintain my “personal” identity on Facebook, which I’ve found is better suited for that purpose. 

I reviewed several different platforms, including the Mojo Portal, DotNetNuke, and WordPress for this consolidation project, and decided to roll out BlogEngine.net, a C#/SQL Server blogging platform.  It was easy to deploy, is relatively simple to configure or re-engineer, and supports multiple themes for when I get tired of the same old layout.  It supports cross posting of blogs, and the setup to cross post my SSC blog over to this new site was very easy.  Thanks to fellow Dallas-area SQL guy Lee Everest for giving me some pointers on this platform.  The visual layout is as plain-vanilla as it gets, so I may spice it up with a new theme once the dust has settled. 

As always, feedback is welcome.  Let me know if you find any problems or have suggestions.