Static Sites with Jekyll! A New Era for My Digital Home

After some time away, I’m happy to announce that my blog is back and it has a brand new look and a whole lot of behind-the-scenes magic! For over a decade, this lukelogbook space was powered by WordPress but was now time to move on.

Over the years, my blogging journey took me from WordPress hosted on a cloud server, to a more hands-on approach with WordPress on a Raspberry Pi, initially using PressPi, then a native installation, and finally, a Docker-based setup on the Pi. It served me well, but as my time passed, the challenges of maintaining it became increasingly challenging. Backups, updates, compatibility issues with plugins, certificates, etc – it was a constant problem, often turning into a real nightmare. And let’s not even talk about the security risks that come with relying on third-party addons that had almost not security checks!

So, I decided it was time for a change. I’ve migrated my entire blog to Jekyll, a static site generator. And honestly? It’s been a breath of fresh air. You might be asking, “Why the switch?” So i can take this new post opportunity to talk about the power of static sites, and why I believe they’re the future of blogging (at least for me!).

The Static Site Advantage:

WordPress, like many dynamic content management systems, generates web pages on the fly every time someone visits your site. This requires a database, server-side scripting, and a whole lot of moving parts. While powerful, this dynamic nature comes with a cost: complexity. Jekyll, on the other hand, generates static HTML files. Think of it like creating a beautifully printed book. Once it’s printed, you can distribute it far and wide without needing a printing press for every reader.
This simplicity translates into some incredible benefits:

• Speed: Static sites load incredibly fast. No more waiting for database queries and server-side processing. Your content is ready to be served instantly, providing a much better user experience.

• Security: With no database or server-side scripts, static sites are significantly less vulnerable to hacking. No more worrying about plugin vulnerabilities or database injections. It’s like fortifying your digital home.

• Simplicity: Jekyll is incredibly easy to use. Writing content in Markdown is a joy, and managing the site’s structure is much more straightforward than wrestling with a complex CMS. Even overriding layouts with JavaScript and HTML on Jekyll is a breeze.

• Scalability: Static sites can handle massive amounts of traffic without breaking a sweat. No more rpi overload or crashes.

• Version Control: Because your site’s content and structure are stored as text files, you can easily use Git for version control. This makes it easy to track changes, collaborate with others, and even revert to previous versions if needed.

• Cost-Effective Hosting: Static sites are easily hosted on inexpensive or even free platforms. For example, I’m taking advantage of GitHub Pages for free hosting.

Why Jekyll?

There are many static site generators out there, but Jekyll felt like the perfect fit for me.
Its integration with Markdown made content creation clean and easy. Theming system allowed me to choose a basic template that I then refined to my need. Plus, there are several nice tutorial on youtube to get started (you will need them especially for leveraging github hosting that requires some special settings).

The Future of This Blog:

This migration to Jekyll isn’t just a technical change; it’s a fresh start for this blog. I’m excited to focus more on creating quality content and less on the headaches of website maintenance. I’m also looking forward to exploring new ways to use this platform to share my thoughts, ideas, and experiences with you. So, glad to be back, and looking forward to sharing more stuff with you!

Stay tuned for more technical content to come!