How do I exactly start a blog? It’s so hard brainstorming a hook or a even an introductory paragraph when you don’t even know what to write about yet. I think a rough piece would be fine. So that’s why I’ll be writing about how I made this blog (which to be honest, I’ve been planning to do for a long time).
I’ll do you one better, why is this?
I have aspired to write for over 5 years now --- but this time, i finally got the opportunity to become motivated and have more clarity in writing (this guy was forced to compete in a writing contest btw). So now, i’ll use this blog as my practice grounds for writing. This may include some opinion writing, writeups (for my ctf events and homelab), documenting some rabbit hole i fell into, random musings, and just whatever i felt writing - just like this article!
The setup
Before Astro
For years, I’ve constantly redesigned my first website (https://fanmclaine.github.io) using plain HTML, CSS, and Javascript, all because i never really bothered learning React or any other frameworks. My goal anyway was to create a fast, very lightweight website that could load on my fairly ancient netbook in under 1s --- and because I absolutely despise websites with over the top front-ends and scrolling animations that requires an nvidia graphics card just to run smoothly.
One disadvantage of not using frameworks, particularly those designed for content management, is the lack of convenience and structure. It gets pretty tiring whenever I make major changes in the front-end and the classes dont line up with my index.html and my blog pages. (Though mainly because I was lazy) Fairly, who would write a full article in HTML? It just made me unproductive and unmotivated to write.
Astro
Instead of writing each paragraphs in awful <p></p> HTML tags and trying to figure out how to warp the text with CSS, I realized I could’ve used markdown. So down the rabbit hole i go into world of static web frameworks, then i stumbled into Astro.
I forgot where I discovered Astro, but all I can say is that it was a breeze learning it --- all thanks to its very informative and interactive guides and documentations. Two things that strikes me the most are its content management system (designed for blogs) and its plethora of free themes (which im using one right now!)
I tried making my own site design from scratch for mclnoot.pages.dev, however, I may have completely abondoned it due to my not-so-flexible schedule. So now that i have some time, I shifted my focus on making an actual, usable blog website under my real name.
The Theme
At first, I tried the Navfolio theme because it kinda resembles my philosophy of a simple, minimalistic web design. However, it wasnt as fast as i thought it’d be and it failed to capture my personality, which is why i switched to the Mizuki theme. Not only is it cute and more engaging, but it features a lot of things such as an anime page, skills page, a devices page where i can flaunt my unfinished homelab, and much more.
Oh and I should definitely mention the music player, the only reason i picked this theme over its similar themes is because of its music player! Sure, i had to figure out what a meting api is and scour everywhere on the chinese internet for my favorite song, but i guess it was worth it.
Just shows how much this theme could meet my needs of a perfect digital sanctuary.
Final Words
Bye?
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