Posts tagged with “minimal web”
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Help for Using WordPress with Markdown

I've got two links to share:

Both have been great. The Markup Markdown plugin could use some tweaking. Mainly, the editing window does not keep the editing toolbar in view. So, if I need something I have to go all the way back up on my screen and then all the way back down again. Mostly this is when I'm typing in a URL, because it is still easier to have the software/ editor add the code than type it in myself (I don't always catch typos in the code when I do it myself).

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If you Still Have a Personal Web Site...

I think a personal website is an online page (or more) created to share interests without marketing at people. Usually, its a simple site. Almost something I could build myself (at first glance anyway) limited as I am with plain HTML skills and a dash of CSS, maybe some javascript. Well not really, but I'm not 100% clueless about javascript.

There are less personal websites, or are they just so much harder to find? It could be either way. I tend to find ideas, links, and groups for personal site makers in clusters. Start somewhere and follow the trail with all sorts of interesting and unique stops along the way. So, here are the latest I have found. Some are more for people with knowledge beyond mine: developers and programmers who do not make cookie cutter stuff for WordPress. I don't make stuff for WordPress, but it seems phony (to me) when people call themselves web designers and only know how to deal with WordPress (not always well). I may as well call myself a web designer if that was all there is to it.

Octothorp - Github link

Octothorpes are hashtags and backlinks that can be used on regular websites, connecting pages across the open internet regardless of where they're hosted.

Octothorp is redeveloping/ bringing back the blogroll and webring idea. I think its improved a little. People shouldn't need to update every link in the ring, there should be some automation (as far as I have understood it) that would stop showing a link if it disappears. This was one problem with the old blogrolls/ webrings.

Do you know, the original webring is still online? You may never have heard of it, even if you are as old as I am.

Expanding Unidirectional Ring Of Pages

EUROPa is a different way to connect up and explore the World-Wide Web. It was started at Imperial College, London, UK on 1994-12-22 by Denis Howe just to see how far it would spread.

Blag

blag is a blog-aware, static site generator -- it uses Markdown and is written in Python.

Blag might be even simpler than Chryp Lite, which I'm using now. But, I don't think it is simple enough for me to work with. You need to open up terminals in your OS. I used to do that when I had Ubuntu Linux. But, its been years since I was able to get Ubuntu to work on any computer I have bought (retail) in a long time. I'd go back to Ubuntu, if I could save everything (kind of a big job). Then remove MS Windows, which the PC is not keen on allowing. Installing Ubuntu was not hard, or difficult. Using it was easier than Windows really. Plus, I could laugh at sites claiming I've been attacked by MS Windows in some way. If you are running Linux, you might like to try Blag.

11ty - Eleventy is a static site generator. Requires javascript and being able to run things in your computer terminal. It looks nice and clean but... not so simple as I would like these days.

Bukmark Club - "To be eligible for a listing in this directory, a website must have a curated collection of bookmarks and/or links to other websites".

I have had so many collections of links for assorted topics. It comes from all the years of editing at The Open Directory Project, now Curlie.org. Unless you just have a handful of links, its is a LOT of work to keep a collection of links updated. You need something to help you go through and find any which are broken. But, I'd still like to update some of my pages of links and add them to this directory. :)

Places to list your personal website:

Description of a personal website which I thought was a bit rough around the edges but worked:

The entries on this website were written to be written and not necessarily to be read. While they have been made public, the same could be said of garbage bags discarded in the woods or stomach contents expelled against a wall. The author expects nothing from the reader and asks only to be accorded the same courtesy.

Rationale More from the same person, on another of his sites.

There is something inherently suspect about publicly volunteering information without being asked or provoked. Anyone who engages in such behavior bears the burden of explaining why they chose to do so rather than remain silent. In the absence of a satisfying justification, silence must appear far preferable.

Starting a personal website such as this one may come across as presumptuous or arrogant, provided there is no evidence of prior interest in one’s person. The author of such a website appears to be making an implicit claim that it will be useful, interesting, or relevant to someone else. It is only natural to expect them to defend this claim.

I regret to say that any justification I can provide will likely be insufficient and disappointing. At the time of writing, I have no reason to believe there exists any general interest in myself. Moreover, I most emphatically do not believe that such interest ought to exist. I do not particularly wish to be known. I have nothing particularly important to say. I am not even particularly interested in the general concept of communication with others.

The truth is that I created this website for purely personal reasons. I view it as an experiment in proving to myself that I, in fact, do exist, and that there is something that could be said about myself. I needed this because I tend to consistently doubt these two points.

It could be argued that I could have achieved the same result by writing some facts about myself on a loose piece of paper or by digging a hole in the ground and shouting the facts into it, rather than publishing them on the web for the whole world to see. This is a sound argument. In response, I can only offer a vague intuition that proving one’s existence must have something to do with establishing an objectively verifiable presence in the external world.

I assume you have visited this website of your own volition. I am afraid you will have to furnish your own reasons for reading its contents, and if none can be found, you have only yourself to blame. Whatever your motivation, by being here you are contributing to the success of my experiment. Thank you.

I've reposted all of this because some of the best stuff I find disappears without notice. Very likely this site (mine, all of them) will disappear without much notice or fanfare too. If someone does continue to pay the web host, it doesn't last forever. I'm glad for the Wayback Machine and Internet Archives. Now and then I give them a few dollars I can spare, thinking of the future and hoping I won't entirely disappear from it. I'm silly that way. I think its a sign of age.

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How to Start Cheap and Yet Blog Like a Pro

Originally posted to HubPages in 2014. Updated at the end of the post.

I read a post with this very title (see above) on another site. Great title, low on real content. They talked about what you need but in generic terms. There was nothing there to really help anyone. It was a post created to generate traffic, get readers but it would not keep many of them because it did not back up the promise given in the title.

I’ve been publishing my own sites online since 1998 and I have done in with a sadly modest (miserly) budget.

WordPress Versus Blogger or Other Options, Like Joomla

I will not bash Google Blogger (blogspot.com) because that is a long-lived, free blogging platform which keeps up with trends quite well, has a lot of features and the ability to be customized. You get a lot from Blogger and pay nothing. I still think Blogger is a good way for anyone to start a site, give it some time to see how you like it and evolve your ideas. You don't need to rush into buying a domain, a web host or templates.

However, when you do have your plan and you know what you want to blog about (or create a site for, it doesn't always have to be a blog) take a look at WordPress (not the .com, I mean WordPress.org).

One of the best things about WordPress is the community support. People who like WordPress, get into the spirit of open source and giving and free exchange. This is why you can get such a variety of really good plugins and themes to take your site from out of the box (as is) to something of your own creation. Take a moment to thank the WordPress developers and theme makers who give so much without asking for payment.

Update 2025:

I would not recommend WordPress now. It's lost the focus of being about self publishing for individuals. Now its for WordPress site designers (NOT web designers, I don't think many of them know HTML) to build cookie cutter sites for clients. The software is bloated with things you don't really need and the things you could use are gone. Instead they are plugins you need to pay for. It is VERY hard to find any open source/ free plugins on the WordPress plugin directory now. WordPress is not what it once was. It's a good money maker for the people who sell their services for WordPress, its themes and plugins.

If you need a small site for your business, Blogger has not been entirely abandoned, but people tend to look down on it. You can use the Blogger software with your own domain. That would work well enough to put up a few pages to promote and give information about your business, while using your domain.

My best advice, in 2025, is to go back to the basics, build your own site with just plain HTML and text. You can find lots of guides for using HTML online.

Add images to your site from your own photographs or find someone who can draw and scan the images for you. Don't use images right from the digital camera unless you have settings to keep the images from being huge files that will take time to load or be very large in the space they take up on the web page. There are free image conversion services online. Make sure the one you use does not leave a watermark (ad) on your image.

Instead of a contact form, offer an email address people can reply to. That keeps it simple for you and them. Include your business name, address and phone number too. A photo of your business if you have a location people can come to.

If you want to have something more with a lot of posts, like a weblog, look for software like Chyrp Lite. This is the software I'm currently using. I like AlternativeTo, a directory of software alternatives if you want to look for something else.

Other than the cost of web hosting and the domain, you don't need to spend anything but time to have a site online.

If you only need a simple site to get your business online, keep it simple. Not only will it load quickly but people will not have trouble accessing it. It will be easy for you to update yourself, no need to pay someone to make changes and updates to your site.

Even in 2025, it does not need to be expensive, complicated, or troublesome to have a website or self publish for yourself online.

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The Webring is Having a Comeback

I miss webrings. They were a great way to find new links, interesting ideas and people. Social media is an offshoot of webrings. Most of the webring software I used to know is gone. Swallowed up by marketing. The new webrings are different, lighter, and they tend to be personal.

Sadgrl Webring Listings

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Trying Chyrp Today

I've looked at so many interesting things related to minimal web site designs yesterday and today. My mind is full of this and that. I created an idea for this site, doodled the layout I'd use. Then, I found this software, Chyrp-lite.

It has enough features to work with my old site and yet its simple to deal with. So far. I've thought others were going to work, gotten enthusiastic and then found they just didn't work for one reason or another. I wondered if I was just being too picky. Or, finding ways to nitpick and procrastinate about getting the site up again. I hope not.

Installing it wasn't difficult. Looks like it uses markup which I will have to get used to. Unless there is another option. This is my first post with the software. No problems found.