I thought I would expand a little on the decisions I’ve taken regarding the making of this website, it’s overall look, and what I’m hoping to do as a result.

Lean

As detailed way back, I wanted to take a lean approach to making this website, meaning I would release bits of stuff in a timely fashion beginning from an MVP.

I nearly did it, but missed out the “V”; As a re-noob, and essentially learning HTML and CSS all over again for the second time in 10 years (don’t ask about the last 5), the Minimum and Product were often pushed live without consideration as to whether it was working or not. This was largely due to my fledging git skills and little ability in the world of branches. I’m better at it now.

I’ll still continue to release bits of new functionality periodically, and of course write, but this is a blog and validator of my skills, so don’t expect any games.

Jekyll

Part of my over reluctance in setting up a site proper, and then an over reliance on hosted blogging platforms that never really cut it or closed (Blogger, Posterous and Tumblr), finding something relatively simple, or scalable with one’s skills, away from the “Famous 5 minute install”, was practically impossible. As a result, I gave up.

I’d read about Jekyll a bit, and despite it’s rather intimidating “Blog like a Hacker”-ness, I realised it was a really simple thing to get going with, and with a wonderful template any level of CSS skill could have a wild time hacking away at. So this site, while largely a sort-of product of relearning web markup, is also something of a best case copy and paste, meaning I’ve spent lots of time researching how to do things in liquid, or taking tutorials on the W3C.

It’s a solid platform, and teaches lots about general development with it’s core use cases. So if you really need a site, and want to do it yourself, avoid Wordpress or Squarespace entirely, and give Jekyll a bash.

Google Fonts

C’mon, Google Fonts really aren’t that good. And over the last 12 months, I’ve taken no-end of flack from developers when using a font that doesn’t exist on it. So yes, it’s a bit fashionable, and I can see why.

Not only is it COMPLETELY FREE, but it’s also SUPER BLOODY EASY. So no mucking about with Typekit, or @font-face, of cuFon if you’re still doing that. Just browse away on their gorgeous new platform, pick a couple of fonts, and grab some javascript to chuck in the website head. But please, please, stay away from Lobster.

GIFs

Most platforms are made of this antiquated image compression, and I love it. I’m often found jealously kicking myself that I hadn’t come up with Giphy, so as a mark of respect, I’ve plundered many of the GIFs sprinkled around the site from there.

Emoji

It’s was in a recent presentation for my services that I found myself using emoji to embellish bland sites. And it worked with the audience. So you’ll find all of the ones used here at EmojiOne.

Goals

Aside from being a place where I can write, and use as a main gateway while I look for opportunites, I really want it to be a testbed for things I read about, but have often lacked the confidence to try. And therefore, I want to truly craft what you see and read, and let the content and it’s presentation drag you in. You’ll see some erratic decisions, but I’m confident that even if it ain’t your thing, you’ll at least gain and understanding of who I am, and what I can do.