1. Why did you start blogging in the first place?
My blog has taken on many forms over the years, but the main theme was always sharing technical content that others might find useful. Some things that I've learned, some bug I've solved, some tools I discovered. I am and forever will be a firm believer that knowledge should be freely available for anyone. What I did find though, was that keeping the technical content up to date was a hassle so I decided to dial that back a little bit.
Now I write about whatever comes to mind and I recently started sharing week notes which has done wonders for my creativity, mental health and output on this blog as well. I just love having my own home on the internet that I can do anything with. I don't need to ask for permission and my name is attached to it, not some large corporation.
2. What platform are you using to manage your blog and why did you choose it?
This also has changed over the years, but I'm currently all in on Eleventy and I love everything about it. I love static websites for their speed and myriad hosting options it gives me. Eleventy has a very good plug-in ecosystem as well and the community is super friendly.
My blog is hosted on GitHub Pages. All details can be found in the colophon.
3. Have you blogged on other platforms before?
Many, many changes over the years. I started out on WordPress, was active on Tumblr for a while, switched to Jekyll, then to Hugo and now on Eleventy. I also tried Ghost in the past but quickly found it didn't suit my needs very well. I just want the tool to get out of the way as much as possible now.
4. How do you write your posts? For example, in a local editing tool, or in a panel/dashboard that's part of your blog?
I write my posts in Visual Studio Code and I preview them locally using Eleventy's built-in server. I just copy over one of the Markdown files in src/posts and start writing. Nothing fancy.
5. When do you feel most inspired to write?
I follow a ton of different independent blogs in my RSS reader where I come across so many good posts that inspire me all the time. When my brain gets some downtime that's when I find myself thinking about what I could write about next. I either write immediately when I'm at my desk, or I add it to my Reminders app for later.
6. Do you publish immediately after writing, or do you let it simmer a bit as a draft?
I publish immediately because most times I'm pretty excited to share what I've written and I love getting feedback. I do proofread but I still have to go back and add a few more commits to fix the odd spelling mistake.
7. What's your favorite post on your blog?
Currently it's Goals for 2025 as it guides me through the year. A technical topic I still really like is Avoid using internal load balancers because it saved me a ton of time as an AWS consultant back in the day.
8. Any future plans for your blog? Maybe a redesign, a move to another platform, or adding a new feature?
I just redesigned my blog and I'm happy with it for now. I do want to eventually add a photography section on here.