Introduction

I had some free time for the summer months, so I decided to focus on my personal projects. I actually used to have a website, which I used a free domain off Freenom for. If you’re familiar with Freenom, you’ll know that they had to shut down recently, so after my domain expired, I had nowhere to put my website on. Of course, I could put it on a github.io domain but that wouldn’t look any good, would it? Well I ended up doing something similar anyway.

Tries & Carrd

During the time in between my domain’s expiry and the creation of this website, I tried 2 different types of replacing my main website.

Firstly, I took a minimal template for HTML and CSS on Replit. When running this Replit website, I noticed that it gave me a URL to check out my website. Back then, I had no idea this link was temporary, so I kinda branded that huge URL as my website. I didn’t add much to it, and later abandoned it. The name “Tries” came from the fact that I had not put much effort into creating that site, where I just named it to get a website out.

I got inspired by some other clean sites to make my own “link hub” kind of website. I knew everyone used Linktree, but I decided to go for Carrd here. I’ve used it for 2 years, and only recently moved it to this site. My Carrd is still live, but now points to this website. The link hub I always wanted is right here!

In the end, I was supposed to make my own link hub in Tries, but I guess it’s here now.

charged1.ca

So this website. With my Carrd as my main website, I knew that I was lacking in that department. To improve, I obviously knew that I’d have to go back to writing my own website. But before that, I’d need a domain. With no Freenom, I would have to buy one: so I did. I chose to support local by buying a .ca domain name. Check out why this matters here.

Hosting was another issue. I didn’t want to use Replit again. When I last had a domain, I used GitHub pages. With it being super easy to setup, this was a no-brainer. The website is on GitHub for hosting, but my Git platform of choice is currently Worktree.

The domain was motivation to work on this website, as I’d actually put money into it now. I did some research and made my homepage off a YouTube tutorial, most helpfully this one. The website was simple, and easily replacing my Carrd without drawbacks. After all this was done, my website was live and in action.

Blogs and Jekyll

Although I am a minimalist at core, I wanted to expand the website into something more than just a link hub. I looked into adding more pages and things like blogs. One thing I didn’t like from my old website however, was how I would have to program my entire website layout in each HTML file that I’d make. It was tedious and just not worth it. When looking for ways to automate this, I came across Jekyll. When I used GitHub pages before, I honestly thought that Jekyll was just a template platform for GitHub pages and couldn’t do much other than that, but after setting it up, you’re now reading a Jekyll article! Jekyll is great, because it allows me to keep aspects like my header and footer, while each of my pages only contain the main content. In fact, it’s pretty convenient: I’m writing this article in markdown, which is being converted to HTMl for me. Pretty cool, eh?

Future Plans

I’ll bring more to this website. On my mind right now:

• Sidebar (for blogs TOC, not sure for other pages)
• Better theme