Writing
Most posts are drafted longhand, and then are typed on the computer. I prefer doing it that way, seriously. I type each post when I feel like it, which may explain the delay between the date of the post and its actual publication on the blog.
To save on paper, I draft my posts on spare paper I can find, on the back of old letters or any paper I can reuse. I use a cheap Bic pen or a pencil (2B has my preference, but HB/#2 is fine as well). When I feel like it, I will use a (much) less cheaper fountain pen but then only on decent paper as fountain pens don’t play nice with cheap paper.
Publishing
I wanted to make this website as quick to load as possible, even on a very slow connection. I also wanted it to be as privacy respecting as possible.
So, everything has been optimized to save on bandwidth and the website itself is static (it’s 100% HTML and CSS, not a single script is used) which should not only help make it a lot faster to load but also a lot more privacy-friendly as I don’t track you at all. Since I don’t run any script, I have no idea what page you read or if anyone is indeed visiting the website unless you decide to tell me so, which you’re more than welcome to do.
- I format each post from its handwritten draft using Markdown in the VScodium text editor.
- I try to publish as few images as possible and to make them as light as possible by using a smaller resolution and the very efficient avif file compression format. To make my life easier, I use a little script (that runs on my computer, not on the website) to automate that optimization process, using ImageMagick and ffmepg. Those two are not that easy to learn, but they’re amazing to use.
- To create the site itself and upload the HTML pages to the server, I use Hugo which is a free static website generator. A website being static means that there is no javascript, no PHP or no script used to display the pages. It is simple HTML and very little CSS, like back in the 90s when I created my very first website.
- The theme of the blog is a modified version of x-min.
- The site is hosted by monarobase, a small French company that offers great services and provides an over-the-top customer support. At a very fair price.
In the older posts, you may notice that some images are looking very different than the recent ones. Back then, I tried using an old compression technique called dithering that reduced their size a lot but also made them vaguely look like the photos printed in the very old newspapers. It was odd but kinda funny at the same time (I stole the idea from LOW←TECH MAGAZINE). After I learned about the Avif file format I realized I could get almost as good compression without any compromise on image quality and dropped dithering.
What computer do I use?
All the tools I use should run on any computer, no matter the OS it is running.
My tiny PC runs GNU/Linux Mint but I still own a Mac computer out of sheer habit. I do not use it anymore, it’s just that I always have been using an Apple computer since the mid-80s and I have yet to persuade myself that it’s OK to not have one nearby. And, really, it’s more than OK to nothave one. I don’t miss mine save maybe Spotlight. It’s just that habits are hard to change and old habits are even harder to change.
Last edited: 2025, July 24.
Published: 2024/01/01