Next to this wordpress blog I have a blog about my running. I used to host this with postach.io from evernote, but that started to cost money. I moved to scriptogr.am that uses dropbox, but they quit the service. Now I’m using Github Pages which is running Jekyll from Github repositories.

Jekyll makes hosting a blog easy. You’re in control where it is hosted, how it looks and the content. Since Jekyll generates static webpages the hosting is simple. No requirements for frameworks or extensions. Just a location that can serve a file. The browser will do the rest.The templates, styles and resources are all files you can edit. Jekyll takes the files and generates static files that end up in a folder. Just put that folder on the server and you’re running your blog. Markdown files separate the information from the representation. From these markdown files Jekyll generates the post / page as HTML.

How I host my blog

First I install Jekyll. This is a Ruby Gem. Easy install instructions are on the Jekyll site. I ran into some issues but running the update and using a different folder fixed my issues. All is well documented.

After the installation I generate a new blog with Jekyll. The markdown files from scriptogr.am need a small change in the header. After that my posts are already browsable.

Now the customisation of the css and templates. I install sublime text which is an awesome editor that can among others show all files in a folder as a project. A quick look at SASS and the blog is looking fine again.

With a simple push to Github I can add a new post. Github offers an online editor for adding new posts so I can post from everywhere. The generation of the site is the part that runs on Github. If Github ever stops being free or quits all together I can move my files to any other hosting provider. The generation (Jekyll) would be done by my machine and the static files are uploaded to the server. My running blog is future proof now 😉

References

Jekyll, the home of Jekyll
Pluralsight course static websites with jekyll
Portable Jekyll for Windows, not used but wanted to mention this