More reason to love the starter kits

I just realized that I can, with the ASP.NET Community Starter Kit, easily create a new site for a given domain while the current site is still running at the same domain name, thanks to the magic of host headers, and the fact that the CSK allows communities to be configured at the subdomain level. So while the current production site is running at www.mysitename.com (and just mysitename.com), the new site can be set up at new.mysitename.com, allowing development and testing without requiring a lot of extra work, and without disabling the current site. When I'm ready to put the new site into production, all it will take is changing the target directory of the site in IIS, and changing the subdomain in the ISPAdmin section of the CSK from 'new' to '*'.

I used this trick tonight to start work on a new site for my local civic association, since the CSK will make my work in supporting the civic association and its members much simpler, while offering them more functionality than I was willing to code on a volunteer basis. I love win-wins!