Finally, the site is up and running! The plan is to use it for mostly two things - geeky stuff and family history. Labs is where you will find posts about programming, software development, tech and all other geeky awesomeness. Family is where you will find the promised dash of family history and posts from other family members.
Now, over to geeky stuff. I wanted the site itself to be a part of the technology playground I will be writing about here. I wanted it to be simple, extensible, responsive, and open-source. I also wanted to experiment with a site without a database, logins and all those (hackable) bells and whistles. The concerns were not as much about the security, but more about the simplicity of operation - things like upgrades, back-ups, deployment, and versioning.
After spending some time searching, doing the research and comparing different alternatives, I ended up choosing Jekyll - the engine behind, amongst others, GitHub. Static files, markdown, version control, GitHub integration, open-source, great themes and templates. Check, check and check! What else can you wish for?
The site was up and running in no time, it was simple to customize, and here is the first post. Now I will just have to automate the deployment. Right now I am looking at several options, and more information about this will be posted here soon.
Looking forward to seeing how the site will develop and to the future posts. Stay tuned!