New Site, Who Dis?

20th July 2024 at 6:29am

This is the first post on my new website! You're reading this on the brand new peterhajas.com. Let's break it down.

A (not so new) domain

It's worth noting that this page is also hosted on peter.haj.as. I have had this domain from American Samoa for some time. I love the idea of domains that are people's names with no added alphanumeric characters, and this one fits the bill for me.

My own static site generator - what could possibly go wrong?

My old page was powered by Hyde. While this project provides a lot of flexibility, I felt that I was not using all of its features. I wanted something dead-simple that could enable me to write more. As a result, I wrote my own.

This site is still statically-generated from Markdown, but it's now done with a Bash script with only one dependency (a markdown binary). This makes it easier to set up on a new machine. It also lets me really understand how the site works.

The site generates quickly, and it's been a great learning opportunity! For example, I learned how to format dates using date (see here). I'm still learning (I don't know web layout very well, for example) but I think it's better to jump in with both feet when learning something new.

The site is missing some stuff (like RSS support), but I plan to iterate on it over time.

Hopefully I'll write more

All of this is for naught if I don't actually use the damn thing to write and think out loud.

I hadn't updated my old webpage in over 6 years. There's so much that has happened in that time that I want to write about, like:

  • I have a dog!
  • Living in the Bay Area
  • My obsession with dotfiles
  • Music that I'm listening to
  • Trips I've gone on
  • Pictures I've taken

Fingers crossed I'll write about these things in the (near) future on this page.