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Have a personal web site

writing.markchristian.org

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Re: Have a personal web site

#201

Post by lettergram »

caymanjim wrote: post #151

I don't want a personal web site. I've had a handful of them in the past, and I've thrown together a couple shitty blogs over the years, but there are three big reasons why I don't anymore: I'm not that interesting; I don't have anything to show off; and inevitably it'll either become a chore or go out of date. Like everyone, I harbor fantasies about how interesting I am, and if I run into you at the pub, I'll talk y…

I recently wrote a blog about “Dutch Oven Fried Chicken”[1], I don’t think it’s particularly interesting and anyone can do it. However, now I can send a link to a friend and go back and make the recipe myself.

Blogging for me isn’t about popularity. It’s about being able to share ones ideas and document your interests. I send links to my blog all the time, because I wrote about topics I found challenging / fun. I don’t think it’s the best, but it is my own thoughts.

Speaking of which... I’ve written about learning through storytelling[2] and blogging[3].

[1] https://austingwalters.com/dutch-oven-fried-chicken/

[2] https://austingwalters.com/how-storytelling-effects-learning...

[3] https://austingwalters.com/learning-through-blogging/

Re: Have a personal web site

#202

Post by darekkay »

ses1984 wrote: post #186
darekkay wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not that interesting; I don't have anything to show off; and inevitably it'll either become a chore or go out of date. The main goal of my blog was not to be interesting or show off (even though I do include my side projects etc.), but to write about specific issues I managed to solve. As a software developer, I'm googling for problems all the time. 95% of the time I land on StackOverflow or GitHub issues. But…

Out of curiosity, why not use a free platform like stack overflow or a github issue to publish your solutions?

There's nothing wrong with those options either. But some problems are opinionated or not specific enough for Stack Overflow (e.g. "what are the alternatives to include comments on a static site"). There's also the certainty that my content remains independent from other platforms and it remains available online as long as I keep paying for my server + domain.

Re: Have a personal web site

#203

Post by loup-vaillant »

tachikomagenius wrote: post #123
paxys wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not going to judge someone for having other obligations/jobs/hobbies or whatever else, but if I find a candidate with lots of great blog posts and GitHub projects/contributions in the area I'm hiring them for, I'm definitely going to factor that into my hiring decision vs someone who has none of those.

Indeed. We should not make it something mandatory or a reason to deduct points from the dev if they don't have those but it would definitely be a good help if they do have it.

Hiring (for a single position) is a zero sum game. Giving extra points to some people is the same as removing points from all the others.

Re: Have a personal web site

#204

Post by bluehatbrit »

bloopernova wrote: post #182
darekkay wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not that interesting; I don't have anything to show off; and inevitably it'll either become a chore or go out of date. The main goal of my blog was not to be interesting or show off (even though I do include my side projects etc.), but to write about specific issues I managed to solve. As a software developer, I'm googling for problems all the time. 95% of the time I land on StackOverflow or GitHub issues. But…

> My goal was to contribute back the same way. YES! So much of our computing-related triumphs come from documentation that other people wrote. Even super basic stuff that no senior developer or sysadmin would dream of asking, that stuff still needs to be written down by someone. I have a dozen or so Markdown documents of varying sizes that I need to finish, proof and polish before putting them online. I sorely lackin…

Release the documents first, then finish or polish them. If you get bored with them, someone else might want to finish them off or extend them. But unless you publish them, they're only benefiting you. You might also find more motivation if they're already out there.

Re: Have a personal web site

#205

Post by Veen »

caymanjim wrote: post #151

I don't want a personal web site. I've had a handful of them in the past, and I've thrown together a couple shitty blogs over the years, but there are three big reasons why I don't anymore: I'm not that interesting; I don't have anything to show off; and inevitably it'll either become a chore or go out of date. Like everyone, I harbor fantasies about how interesting I am, and if I run into you at the pub, I'll talk y…

This is a well-written comment from an interesting point of view. That's all you need to write a blog article. If there are things you'd rather be doing than writing a blog, do them instead, but a blog doesn't have to be an exercise in personal branding. It can just be a place where you publish your thoughts and the things you've learned.

Re: Have a personal web site

#206

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

caymanjim wrote: post #151

I don't want a personal web site. I've had a handful of them in the past, and I've thrown together a couple shitty blogs over the years, but there are three big reasons why I don't anymore: I'm not that interesting; I don't have anything to show off; and inevitably it'll either become a chore or go out of date. Like everyone, I harbor fantasies about how interesting I am, and if I run into you at the pub, I'll talk y…

For what it’s worth, I think this comment would make a great single page personal website.

Re: Have a personal web site

#207

Post by chrisweekly »

loosetypes wrote: post #33
jaabe wrote: post #13

Some of the most interesting things online are people writing about things they are passionate about, for the sake of writing about them. At least in my opinion, so it’s fair to say that I agree with the author. I think it’s an equally delightful experience to journal about things though. I do it from time to time, when some subject just needs to get written down, almost as though the journaling is me thinking out lo…

Agreed. I'm a bit jealous of his (Mostly) food truck name ideas, https://writing.markchristian.org/name-ideas/ . Once, in the functional programming rabbit-hole, a coworker advocated for a hypothetical Indian food truck named Haskell's Curry. And when I was studying propositional logic I certainly wouldn't have said no to a side of De Morgan's ColesLaw.

Agreed, that list of food truck names is punny.

Re: Have a personal web site

#208

Post by eitland »

lettergram wrote: post #201
caymanjim wrote: post #151

I don't want a personal web site. I've had a handful of them in the past, and I've thrown together a couple shitty blogs over the years, but there are three big reasons why I don't anymore: I'm not that interesting; I don't have anything to show off; and inevitably it'll either become a chore or go out of date. Like everyone, I harbor fantasies about how interesting I am, and if I run into you at the pub, I'll talk y…

I recently wrote a blog about “Dutch Oven Fried Chicken”[1], I don’t think it’s particularly interesting and anyone can do it. However, now I can send a link to a friend and go back and make the recipe myself. Blogging for me isn’t about popularity. It’s about being able to share ones ideas and document your interests. I send links to my blog all the time, because I wrote about topics I found challenging / fun. I don…

> I don’t think it’s particularly interesting and anyone can do it. However, now I can send a link to a friend and go back and make the recipe myself.

I used to have a blog or two back in the day and two things I noted back then was:

1. If I figured something out that I hadn't found a solution to elsewhere on the net people would find their way to my site. No further SEO necessary. (I don't know if this would work anymore.)

2. Sometimes I would Google [0] a weird problem and find my own page.

[0]: yep, that's what I did until three years ago or so)

Edit:

FTR I never made any money on this. It wasn't that popular.

Also I recently started writing again at https://erik.itland.no just to contribute some stupid posts like those you'd find on the old web I used to like. Hopefully I can start adding some links to stuff I like to read as well, and deliberately not add any dum nofollow or other stupid CEO. My wesite, not Googles :-]

Edit 2:

Could we have a tread were everyone who wants posts their imperfect personal web sites? Or has there been one and I have missed it?

Re: Have a personal web site

#209

Post by Veen »

jeremyjh wrote: post #152
hnarayanan wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can provide a counter example to this. Searching for my full name (and for many years my first name) has always resulted in my personal website being the top link. It's not SEO, it's just age. I am an old man with an old school website that's happened to have been up for a long time.

I have a ten year old personal website that does not appear to be indexed by google at all anymore. There was an article about this that made the front page, that some old websites are being dropped from the index. If you search my name from duck duck go its the first hit.

Your website is indexed by Google. You can see whether it's indexed by running a site specific search. Put "site:" before the domain name. But that site has three pages, one of which is a blog listing with no content. It's not ranked because there's nothing worth ranking.

Re: Have a personal web site

#210

Post by tyingq »

coldtea wrote: post #134
quickthrower2 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need the SEO for your name in particular. Here is why: 1. People who know you have your url. 2. People you meet have a business card or SMS from you with the URL 3. People searching for you can find you on social media, but most social media allows you to link to the site. 4. People searching for the keywords you use in your posts will find you if they are unique enough.

Even people with the url will usually just search, not use the url. Even less so if it's on a business card (even if it's a QR code).

I'll usually try these kinds of searches if it's someone with a common name:

  John Doe 
  John Doe 
  John Doe
Is that not common?
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