Though galagonwagon.com is only a few hours old, it already has a history: how it came into being.

Why was it named GalagonWagon? Well, in searching for a unique domain name, I initially thought that an old-school arcade game reference would be fun. You know, games like Pac-Man, Xevious, Galaga. Then through some Google cross pollination, I discovered the humble Galago, a nocturnal primate from Africa. An agile hunter with scary-big eyes, colloquially called a “bushbaby” – what’s not to love? Now, this site isn’t really about transporting a herd of friendly galagos around in a radio flyer or conestoga, but the name was catchy enough that I couldn’t resist. Moreover, the possibilities for theming the site amuse me greatly.

Domain name in hand, I proceeded to registration. DynaDot is my registrar of choice, as a .com domain with whois privacy is currently only $11.75. Not a bad deal. For hosting, I chose Linode, a slick VPS host popular with the startup crowd. The difference between Linode and a shared host like Bluehost is the amount of control you  have over the server your site is hosted on. Rather than just uploading your files and leaving the details to the provider, you are free to install software and configure every aspect of the server as you like. The downside, of course, is that it is more work and responsibility. But I’ve been interesting in trying out Linode for a while, so this seemed like a good excuse to take the plunge.

I won’t bore you with the details of setting up the VPS (but feel free to ask if you’re curious). The short of it is the site is powered by Ubuntu Linux running the LAMP stack, on top of which is installed the WordPress blogging software. One detail that may be of interest, though, is that I am collecting usage statistics on the site using Google Analytics. This allows me to see how many people read each post and what part of the world they are from. It’s simple to integrate into WordPress using the Google Analyticator plugin.

Oh, and lastly, I’d like to introduce you to my avatar, Bob:

Don’t tell him, but he was actually my second choice. I was rather excited about the Galago over here, but wasn’t sure about the usage rights, and didn’t want to pay the $49 to license it. Too bad.