How does my website work?
In case you wonder what technologies power this website, here’s the what and how.
While I used to run a hosted WordPress blog, I have migrated to a static website that I host on my own server. While having less bells and whistles, this essentially gives me more control and simplifies my workflow.
Here’s how my system is set up.s
Writing articles#
I write my content in text files, with minimal formatting in Markdown. As an editor I use Notepad++. I whole-heartedly recommend it. A good overview of the MArkdown syntax can be found here, a good quickref is here.
Turning them into a website#
The excellent static web page compiler Nanoc compiles my content and layout into a website. Here’s my Rules file.
Article extensions#
I have extended Nanoc with rules and filters to create and process articles as per the tutorial building a static blog with Nanoc.
Categories#
Categories are created, handled and output by some more rules and filters as per the tutorial adding categories to a static Nanoc site.
Image thumbnails#
Images are automatically thumbnailed using the standard Thumbnailizer filter and ImageMagick’s ConvertImg tool. See my Rules file.
Hosting#
The website is hosted on my own server running from my home.
My server hardware is a hacked D-Link DNS-320L NAS server.
Fun_plug allows to bypass the original NAS software.
Giving Debian control of the DNS-320 hardware.
Lighttp serves up the web pages.
OwnCloud runs my own cloud solution from the server.
Mailserver with Postfix - Dovecot - Roundcube - SpamAssasin provides e-mail services.
Dynu.com redirects my domain name to my (dynamic) home IP.
ddclient keeps my IP updated at Dynu.