Why I Blog

17 Nov 2023 · 📖 in 3 minutes It's really just for me, well, mostly

My earliest post here was from back in 2015 when I spoke about using Gitolite on a NAS drive. I wrote 9 posts throughout the latter part of 2015 and since then I've blogged here and there, usually around tech and often about things I'm building.

In general the reasons why I was blogging back then are largely the same as I do now, I enjoy writing. I originally wanted to build an audience and become a tech site that folks would visit regularly but actually, it's just nice having my own space on the internet.

Side Projects

I'm sure you have side projects? I certainly do and if the master list in workflowy (great tool btw) is to be believed I could be busy for a long while.

One of those side projects was the original blog which I hosted locally on a raspberry pi that was exposed to the internet. This in itself was such a great learning experience. From the initial 'deployment' via jekyll build, nginx and even HTTPS via LetsEncrypt to the various bits of managing a local git repo that had post-commit hooks to 'deploy' the site to the www dir for nginx.

Going in I didn't know any of the things needed to host the blog locally, but it felt like the right level of challenge and allowed me to aim for something just within reach (with a bit of a stretch to get there - looking at you HTTPS ciphers).

What's your next project?

Quick aside, these days it's even easier to get going, a blog can be stood up pretty easily using Github Pages which you get for free using a GitHub repo. GitHub Pages also support jekyll which is the OG site generator I used (and rebloggy would be its spiritual successor).

Maybe not a blog, what about an embedded project? Those eink screens are pretty cheap these days and you can plug them directly into a raspberry pi. This is my "other" project that I've been working on and one day i'll even publish a post about it.

Carry-on Writing

As I've grown as an engineer I've developed a real appreciation for documentation, a good technical design doc or request for change make for a much better time for those joining, working on and maintaining a project. To a lesser extent I started using my blog to do that - documenting various little things I pick up and solve along the way.

So I'm very much writing for future me and the odd passer-by who might want to read up on the clocks, conferences or even getting started with raspberry-pi for plex.

Thanks for dropping in, catch you in the next one.

First appeared on Trusty Interior, last update 17 Nov 2023