Original site layout for bszyman.com, appox 2015.
Well here I am.
I am back on Pelican to manage the content of this site, where I started in 2015, under a different domain name.
- 2015: Pelican Static Site Generator
- 2017: Grav Flat-File CMS
- 2022: Statamic Flat-File CMS
- 2022: Pelican Static Site Generator
I originally moved OFF of Pelican because I got tired of having to be in front of my computer to update/fix content. So I migrated everything to Grav (including, yes, articles from 2014).
Grav served me well for years, though I later started to dislike the design of the admin panel. It worked, it was just kind of clunky and overkill for my little blog site.
Earlier this year, I finally tried out a different flat-file CMS named Statamic. It's much sleeker and has a very elegant admin panel. I originally moved to Statamic because I wanted something nice to use, and because I envisioned myself posting to it more often in a new microblogging section. I also migrated in some of the tweets I liked from my old Twitter account.
My website also just needed a re-design, and the "strange" color choices were annoying my designer friend.
I started working on a decentralized microblogging platform you may have seen mentioned around here - Howlerblog. And you'll be seeing more of Howlerblog soon. ;)
Statamic started making less and less sense for this website, and less and less used. I only seldomly post blog articles, and now I wasn't even using the microblogging features I built into that site.
So, finally, I end up where I started, back on a completely statically generated/served, that still yet includes some of my blog articles from 2014 - full circle some some of them.
I took the best articles, the best features of the Statamic redesign, and combined them into this website. The entire project is minimalist, from its face, down to the bits getting sent to your browser. The features and architecture have been whittled down to the exactly what's needed, and nothing more.
While I only post here when I have more substantial content, I am very active on Instagram and will soon be on the upcoming native Howlerblog mobile app. I am very excited to take the wraps off of that project.
I feel very satisfied with the technology and design on this iteration of this website, and think it'll stick around for several years.