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Have a personal web site

writing.markchristian.org

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Re: Have a personal web site

#281

Post by jsinai »

eitland wrote: post #208
lettergram wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 an…

> No further SEO necessary. (I don’t know if this would work anymore.)

This still works. I wrote about a topic awhile back o help me understand it and when I search for the topic, my post still appears in the search results.

I didn’t write it to get to the top of any search result but for myself so I could understand it. Now when I see the post there, I’m glad that I’m not the only one who benefitted. As other people have pointed out:

Write. Put it out there. Do it for yourself first and not to be popular. If it helps you, it might help someone else. And who knows, someone else might even point out something you didn’t know before.

Re: Have a personal web site

#282

Post by jartelt »

leftyted wrote: post #268
jartelt wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your view is too cynical. People also can be motivated by altruism or by wanting to pay it forward. I've answered plenty of questions on facebook/reddit/etc. and do so because people have answered my questions in the past. The part you are correct about is that it is easy to then get wrapped up in how many visitors your blog gets or how many upvotes your answer gets. Those vanity metrics definitely pull on th…

> But, some people definitely do not care about "showing-off" when they put something up online. If you don't care about showing off then you won't publish anything. People who are actually altruistic won't tell you about their altruism. This isn't cynicism. The hunger for respect, admiration and recognition is not a bad thing. But it is necessary for people to understand what motivates them. And it is necessary for…

> If you don't care about showing off then you won't publish anything. People who are actually altruistic won't tell you about their altruism.

My point is that I think your thesis is too cynical. Many people start out writing their blogs or answer questions on public forums with the intent of trying to help other people out. The motivation can be of the form "I solved this problem and I am going to write about it because maybe my solution will save someone else time" rather than "I solved this problem and I am going to write about it so that everyone visits my website and I get famous." Maybe they become more motivated by vanity and blog metrics later on if their blog takes off. But, many people write stuff online with the intent to help others out and not solely out of hunger for respect, admiration and recognition.

> Today, anyone can broadcast. But that doesn't mean that everyone should broadcast. The old gatekepers weren't perfect but they served a necessary purpose. Who are the new gatekeepers?

You lost me here.

Re: Have a personal web site

#283

Post by wolco »

jcadam wrote: post #196
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…

If you're passionate about a subject, you're going to have strong opinions about said subject. If you voice/publish those opinions, some people are going to hate you. Perhaps a potential employer was set to hire you until they read your blog post in which you were eloquently critical about offshoring, for example. Or worse, you expressed an off-hand opinion about some social issue back in 2006 in an otherwise technic…

I would suggest doing under a generic domain.

You want to maintain a certain image for employers and that restricts your freedom to rant.

Re: Have a personal web site

#284

Post by iamatworknow »

twhb wrote: post #113

What are people’s thoughts on an ideal personal domain name? firstlast.com seems the obvious choice, but it gets pompous when used for things you’re the author of but not the subject of, like “andrewredford.com/my-js-library” or “andrewredford.com/notepad”. fml.com (initials), if you can score a good TLD? flast.com? Create an unrelated but brand-able name like vegandev.com?

I bought (but don't have anything hosted at)

first + last.slice(0, last.length - 2) + "." + last.slice(-2)

No clue if it's a good idea since I've never actually used it and the unusual TLD may throw people off (especially since it is the TLD for a country I'm not from and have never been to). I just thought it was neat splitting my last name across the "dot".

Re: Have a personal web site

#285

Post by rcarmo »

mikeg8 wrote: post #276
rcarmo wrote: post #231

I've been reading the comments for a few hours, and am actually amazed that this is still at the top of HN, so here goes: I've kept a blog ( https://taoofmac.com ) for over 15 years, and I've derived satisfaction from it on three main counts: I like to write in general (and keep notes, and the site actually started out as a Wiki of notes covering my migration to the Mac), I like to tweak the code behind it (although…

Just checked out your site and wanted to say I really like the visual design. Not sure if you do all your own CSS but it has a great feel/balance on desktop. Well done

Thanks!

On Tao, I decided to go with a Jekyll theme as a base and then proceeded to rip out most of it, starting with the typography, and added lazy loading to make it a better experience on mobile - and the iPad.

The portfolio site is based on a minimalist skeleton CSS. I tend to rely on proven grid/layout bases and tweak the rest to my satisfaction (sometimes obsessively).

Re: Have a personal web site

#286

Post by aasasd »

yoz-y wrote: post #277

A side note: Author mentions but as far as I know (and after searching for it too) this element does not actually exist. Modern browsers fallback to rendering for anything they don't know but it's not exactly semantic web either.

There's the ‘aside’: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/as...

Re: Have a personal web site

#287

Post by yoz-y »

aasasd wrote: post #286
yoz-y wrote: post #277

A side note: Author mentions but as far as I know (and after searching for it too) this element does not actually exist. Modern browsers fallback to rendering for anything they don't know but it's not exactly semantic web either.

There's the ‘aside’: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/as...

I use on my side which is I was intrigued by the mention of . The author also uses on the site rather than the usual .

Re: Have a personal web site

#288

Post by ghobs91 »

fiblye wrote: post #29
jzzskijj wrote: post #28

In Finland it is illegal to google for applicant's online presence, because of the possibility of judging the candidate because of misidentification. You have to have applicant's permission to that. And I am glad, because one of my name doubles isn't very representative person according to their online presence.

How is this law enforced? It seems like you could google them and discard their application for other reasons.

Sounds like another lip-service law that European countries like to enact and then rely on the honor system for enforcement.

Re: Have a personal web site

#289

Post by el_cujo »

I could see how having a personal website that is basically just your resume could be helpful. If you're a web dev in particular, this kind of thing is essential. However, I don't think having a personal blog is a good idea for everyone. If your posts are all extremely boring and about mundane tasks, then you end up looking very self-involved. Being too funny can come off wrong as well, making you seem crass or like someone who can't be counted on to take things seriously. God forbid you talk about politics or complain about the person who cut you off in traffic.

I'm not saying that having a personal blog is bad, by all means make one and complain about politics, but if you make a website/blog for the sole purpose of helping you get a job, I'd think twice about the kind of content you'd going to put out and how that would reflect to future employers. Having no presence online really doesn't strike me as a bad thing at all.

Re: Have a personal web site

#290

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

jkeuhlen wrote: post #279
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My quotes file recently reached 1MB of plain text, 160,257 words. I started this file 17 years ago! This is enough to fill three average sized novels! One day... I might have a go at weaving a narrative through it.

What do you mean by quotes file?

It’s a text file where I’ve copy and pasted paragraphs and comments I’ve found interesting from books and online, and a few of my own thoughts.

Each entry is preceded by the date the entry was made, and followed by a reference to the source.

Because I’ve used some of the material multiple times I’m vaguely aware of the overall structure, and I use it as a bit of a knowledge-base.

As an example I’ll probably pop this comment in there later, so some of the materiel is mundane. Some of it seemed profound in the context of my life at the time, but might make less sense years later out of context.

I’ve only ever deleted a handful of entries in that 17 years.

I guess parts of it are a bit like a diary too, but I’ve never been very good at intentionally keeping a diary.

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