On a recent project, I wanted to make something a little more permanent, so I decided to try to design a PCB instead of sticking to the tried and true breadboard.

I've previously worked with PCB123 through my job, and found the experience to be good.  Their included software was easy to use and in no time I had my first PCB designed  and ordered.  I was really excited when the finished PCB arrived in the mail, which turned almost immediately to disappointment when I found out I had screwed up the dimensions and it wouldn't work.  i redesigned the PCB, printed out a true to size version of the layout, confirmed the sizing, and ordered again.  I was happy to find out the second one was the correct dimensions, and after soldering, it worked well for its purpose. 

For my personal project I drifted more towards Eagle from CADsoft as there are several batch PCB houses that will manufacture the PCB for fairly cheap, if you're willing to wait a bit longer.  The PCB houses all accept files from Eagle to manufacture your design.  The last time I checked, you could get the same Gerber files from PCB, but it would be $50.  You can use Eagle for free as long as you're not going to use it for a commercial venture, so I gave it a shot.  PCB123 delivered me a great board in a short time, but was also rather expensive compared to what I wanted to spend on a personal project where time wasn't really a factor.  I just checked their rates again, and seem to be similar, but still more.

Once done with my design, I ordered through OSH Park.  I'll update once the boards come in.

In the meantime, here's a link to the PCB design reference page.
PCB Design

I've had the idea of starting a site dedicated to the random projects I work on in my spare time for a while.  Only recently though did I start asking around and doing some research about what exactly I wanted.  Most of all, I was hoping to find an easy way to share all the stuff I learn along the way while working on things.  It's rare that I'm working on something and cannot find the answer with some googling, but finding everything I need together in one spot is fairly uncommon.  Almost every project teaches me something new, so i am just hoping to compile all that helpful knowledge in one area.

What I had in mind was basically like Evernote, but with a domain.  After some research, I finally happened upon Postach.io, which looks exactly like what I wanted.  By time I saw this, I had already seen some of the other options and was fairly intrigued in those as well.  I checked out some web hosting sites, but when I started going through the process, it look like more work than I was anticipating.  I'm happy to learn new code, but would rather concentrate on code other than HTML, CSS, Java for the time being. 
Here are some links I found that was helpful for web hosting.
http://lifehacker.com/5911651/five-best-web-hosting-companies
http://reviews.cnet.com/web-hosting/


Here are my specifications.

• Cheap
• Custom domain
• Easy to use
• Good looking templates

After seeing a demo of Weebly, I like the idea of drag and drop design.  I learned long ago that I'm not very good with aesthetics, so having some themes I could choose from seemed helpful.  Wordpress was recommended as well, but I was slightly turned off by the a-la-cart upgrades.  More googling provided more blogging providers, but all seemed fairly similar, and I was getting tired of researching...
Weebly was cheaper providing more features, so I went with that.  Through the sign up process of getting my own domain, I was disappointed at how much a custom domain turned out to be, but oh well, it's mine for a couple of years now.
Let the adventure into the world wide web begin.  I'm only 8 to 10 years behind the time?....