I built a tiny site, that I humbly hope makes a tiny difference in my home electorate of Bradfield, this 2022 federal election. Check out Hack Your Bradfield Vote.
I'm not overly optimistic, here in what is one of the safest Liberal seats in Australia. But you never know, this may finally be the year when the winds of change rustle the verdant treescape of Sydney's leafy North Shore.
I've paid for either a "shared hosting" subscription, or a VPS subscription, for my own use, for the last two decades. Mainly for serving web traffic, but also for backups, for Git repos, and for other bits and pieces.
But, as of now, it's with bittersweet-ness that I declare, that that era in my life has come to a close. No more (personal) server that I wholly or partially manage. No more SSH'ing in. No more updating Linux kernel / packages. No more Apache / Nginx setup. No more MySQL / PostgreSQL administration. No more SSL certificates to renew. No more CPU / RAM usage to monitor.
Image source: Meme Generator
In its place, I've taken the plunge and fully embraced SaaS. In particular, I've converted most of my personal web sites, and most of the other web sites under my purview, to be statically generated, and to be hosted on Netlify. I've also moved various backups to S3 buckets, and I've moved various Git repos to GitHub.
And so, you may lament that I'm yet one more netizen who has Less Power™ and less control. Yet another lost soul, entrusting these important things to the corporate overlords. And you have a point. But the case against SaaS is one that's getting harder to justify with each passing year. My new setup is (almost entirely) free (as in beer). And it's highly available, and lightning-fast, and secure out-of-the-box. And sysadmin is now Somebody Else's Problem. And the amount of ownership and control that I retain, is good enough for me.
The most noteworthy feature of the recently-launched GreenAsh v5, programming-wise, is its comment submission system. I enjoyed the luxury of the robust batteries-included comment engines of Drupal and Django, back in the day; but dynamic functionality like that isn't as straight-forward in the brave new world of SSG's. I promised that I'd provide a detailed run-down of what I built, so here goes.
After a solid run of twelve years, I've put GreenAsh v4 out to pasture, and I've launched v5 to fill its plush shoes.
GreenAsh v5 marks the culmination of my continuing mission, to convert over all of my personal sites, and all of the other sites that I still host slash maintain, to use a Static Site Generator (SSG). As with some other sites of mine, GreenAsh is now powered by Eleventy, and is now hosted on Netlify.
As was the case with v4, this new version isn't a complete redesign, it's a realign. First and foremost, the new design's aim is for the thought-reading experience to be a delightful one, with improved text legibility and better formatting of in-article elements. The new design is also (long overdue for GreenAsh!) fully responsive from the ground up, catering for mobile display just as much as desktop.
Running more-or-less alongside the most remote section of the New England Highway, through the Northern Tablelands region of NSW, can be found the remnants of a once-proud train line. The Great Northern Railway, as it was known in its heyday, provided the only railway service linking Sydney and Brisbane, between 1889 and 1930. Regular passenger services continued until 1972, and the line has been completely closed since 1988.
Thanks to: Metro Map Maker
Although I once drove through most of the Northern Tablelands, I wasn't aware of this railway, nor of its sad recent history, at the time. I just stumbled across it a few days ago, browsing maps online. I decided to pen this here wee thought, mainly because I was surprised at how scant information there is about the old line and its stations.
This year, Japan's earliest cherry blossom in 1,200 years made headlines around the world. And rightly so. Apart from being (as far as I can tell) a truly unparalleled feat of long-term record-keeping, it's also a uniquely strong piece of evidence in the case for man-made climate change.
Image source: BBC News
I just want to briefly dive in to the data set (and the academic research behind it), and to explain why, in my opinion, it's such a gem in the sea of modern-day climate science.
Continuing my foray into the world of Static Site Generators (SSGs), this time I decided to try out one that's quite different: TinaCMS (although Tina itself isn't actually an SSG, it's just an editing toolkit; so, strictly speaking, the SSG that I took for a spin is Next.js). Shiny new toys. The latest and greatest that the JAMstack has to offer. Very much all alpha (I encountered quite a few bugs, and there are still some important features missing entirely). But wow, it really does let you have your cake and eat it too: a fast, dumb, static site when logged out, that transforms into a rich, Git-backed, inline CMS when logged in!
Check out this fun little site that I just built: Is Pacific Highway Upgraded Yet?
I got thinking about this, in light of the government's announcement at the end of 2020 that the Pacific Highway upgrade is finished. I was like, hang on, no it's not! How about a web site to tell people how long we've already been waiting for this (spoiler alert: ages!), and how much longer we'll probably be waiting?
Complete with a countdown timer, which is currently set to 1 Jan 2030, a date that I arbitrarily and fairly optimistically picked as the target completion date of the Hexham bypass (but that project is still in the planning stage, no construction dates have currently been announced).
Fellow Australians, enjoy!
Following on from my last experiment with Hugo, I decided to dabble in a different static site generator (SSG). This time, Eleventy. I've rebuilt another one of my golden oldies, Jaza's World, using it. And, similarly, source code is up on GitHub, and the site is hosted on Netlify. I'm pleased to say that Eleventy delivered in the areas where Hugo disappointed me most, although there were things about Hugo that I missed.
After having it on my to-do list for several years, I finally got around to trying out a static site generator (SSG). In particular, Hugo. I decided to take Hugo for a spin, by rebuilding one of my golden oldies, Jaza's World Trip, with it. And, for bonus points, I published the source code on GitHub, and I deployed the site on Netlify. Hugo is great software with a great community, however it didn't quite live up to my expectations.