So I finally built a personal website. After years of thinking "I should really do that" and never getting around to it, I figured it was time to stop procrastinating and actually put something together.
Working in digital forensics, I spend a lot of time documenting other people's digital footprints. It seemed kind of backwards that I didn't have a proper place to document my own projects and learning journey. Plus, I wanted somewhere to track all the random technical experiments and training I've been doing - both for myself and in case it helps someone else down the line.
There's also something to be said for learning by doing. I can read about web development all day, but actually building and maintaining a site forces you to understand how the pieces fit together.
I went with GitHub Pages and Jekyll, following a guide by SpencerPao on GitHub. The setup uses the Clean Blog theme by Start Bootstrap, maintained by David Miller. Nothing fancy - just a clean layout that lets me focus on writing rather than fighting with CSS.
The nice thing about this setup is it's all static files and version control. No databases to worry about, no server maintenance headaches. I push changes to GitHub and the site updates automatically. Simple.
My plan is to use this space to document projects, share what I learn from training courses, and generally keep track of the random technical rabbit holes I tend to fall into. Some posts will be detailed walkthroughs, others will just be quick notes about something interesting I came across.
I'm also planning to use this blog as a testing ground for exploring LLMs and AI tools for content creation. There's a lot of hype around AI-assisted writing, and I want to see for myself what these tools can actually do - where they help, where they fall short, and how they fit into a real workflow. Consider it an ongoing experiment. Some posts might be drafted with AI assistance, others won't, and I'll probably write about the experience along the way.
If you've been putting off building your own site, I'd encourage you to just start. The tools are free, the learning curve isn't as steep as you might think, and having your own corner of the internet is worth the effort.