In the online space, I usually keep my thoughts and opinions to myself.
For those who know me on a personal level I tend to share ideas, insights and stories any chance I get. I enjoy hearing the opinions of others and will solicit discussions regularly. With some very rare down-time over the past few days I decided to create this blog as a new platform for online sharing.
Current presence
My main public online presence is though Linkedin, Twitter and some guest articles in various publications. Despite developing a little bit of a viral following a few years ago on Twitter, I have not tweeted that much - precisely three times in 2019 actually. I have set up blogs before but I always found experimenting with the blogging technology to be more interesting than the writing part. A lot of my online activity is anonymous and it will likely stay that way.
What to expect?
If I feel I have anything interesting to share, I will certainly try to do so. I imagine the content will lean towards finance, technology and software with a mix of status updates on ongoing projects and hobbies. As a life-long learner, I will probably look back on what I share and laugh at how naive everything is but I think that's part of the process.
I would not expect any elegant prose. I do not intend to review any grammar, spelling etc. My writing style will likely be raw and conversational because I do not want to spend all my free time editing. I will do my best to write in a clear and concise way.
The Technical Details
Ghost platform
This blog is powered by the "Ghost" blogging platform. I followed the creation of Ghost from the very beginning in 2013. I am not proud to say this because I was sure the original idea would fizzle out. A former Wordpress employee John O'Nolan shared his idea online eventually leading to a successful Kickstarter raising over $300,000 in 2013.
The main value propositions of this Wordpress alternative were speed and simplicity. Despite the robust capabilities of Wordpress, it has and apparently always will be trendy to poke fun at its bloat. I don't need bloat for something this simple so Ghost seemed like a good idea:
- Ghost is run as a non-profit that is very transparent
- They are still fiercely devoted to the original ethos
- Their roadmap and future looks promising
It's not all rainbows - there are some key shortfalls including lack of comments and search out of the box. Customizing the software is also a bit of a pain.
Hosting
Ghost offers a hosted option which is very attractive but the pricing is too steep at $36 per month. I already have (too many) servers worldwide and decided to host it myself. This puts me in complete control and avoids an additional server bill.
Custom Design
This blog runs a custom theme I hacked together on top of the free "Attila" theme. Get in touch with me if you would like to use the theme (MIT License) I will invite you to the github repo.
Disclaimer
Opinions expressed are solely my own and do not express the views or opinions of my employer