“Today” (today was 13/feb) while I was building and checking twitter I was thinking why I do not build my own blog (again)…

And then the answer was clear because you do not have anything to offer, everything is already there

Then while I was commuting back the idea was still there and I decided to build a blog, but this time not with the idea of offering something, just as my own corner on the Internet (or “the cloud”) where I write for myself just because I always have project/ideas on mind, but I never write them or find time to finish them.

And now I’m here and writing my “Hello World” before having the blog, and there is a reason for that, I want to prove to myself that I am able to write content, and not just “build” a blog.

Let’s start#

Language#

Looks like finally I’m convinced to start, but this is just the beginning other topic I was wondering about was, in which language shall I write and why. At the end I can choose between two languages English or Spanish:

  • English: Is not my native language but I have tu use it almost daily because of my job, also I always feel stressed when I have to use it, as for me is not natural. And I decided to choose it as a way to force me to practice it, improve it and hopefully forget the shame I feel every-time I use it because my skill.
  • Spanish: This would have been the easy choice as I am pretty comfortable writing it, but I had a little voice in my head teasing me saying: “is too easy”.

Then first decision done I will write in English

Note: Probably I will end with posts on both languages or even others

Software#

Great! I started to write in English, but I want to publish this content somewhere using something, and then I started to think about using something from building my own blogging software using Django Framework, use some ready CMS, use some service like Medium or even write plain HTML.

And again a decision needs to be made, and my mind is just jumping from one topic to other I had to stop and think again, what I wanna do and what I need.

  • What I wanna do: Write posts
  • What I need: Some place to publish this thoughts

This is for me I do not need a dynamic system with user management, backend and all of this fancy and modern things I just need something static.

I want to write, I would have had a lot of fun building and designing my own blogging software even if is not a dynamic system and it is a Static Site Generator but then again I would get lost on trying to build the perfect thing and never considere it done .o0(Looks like I am starting to know myself…).

Then almost against my will I will use a Static Site generator

And is the moment to choose one I heard about a couple of them but it’s always good to google and see what is out there, what I found is a list of static generators.

After spending some time looking at them I narrow it down two three options, two I heard about before and one from the site

  • yblog and YML: This does not publicize itself a static site generator but in fact it is, is a tool written using YML to generate HTML, it is lightweight (just a few lines of code) it can be extended and is quick to use, but is a tailor made solution and if I wanna personalise it I would have to rewrite part of it.
  • Jekyll: I’ve heard about this one before, because it is built in GitHub, is what Github pages use. But after looking at it I did not like it, don’t know really why, but was not feeling confortable reading the samples.
  • Hugo: I just discovered this one today, and reading the samples was feeling ok, and I choose this one.

Probably is not the best way to choose, but if I do not like it I can change it later.

I will use Hugo to generate my blog

Naming and authorship#

When I started blogs before I was always avoiding my real name to publish publicly to Internet it is always hard to use my real name and photo, it makes me feel like naked. But if I want to make this my corner this time I need to asume it is myself, and no body cares about my name is just a name and because of that for first time I will blog using my real name .o0(lets hope it does not bit me).

I can sound banal but just putting my name on it feels strange.

This time the main idea is about having a corner and because of that I will name it Kasem Corner, I could name it Kasem blog, but while I am writing this post the idea of a corner is becoming lovely.

https://corner.kasem.tech

Contents#

And the hardest part (at least for me) when it becomes to blogging, write about what, as I said I have nothing to offer.

And because is for me I will write about Random.

Summary (decisions taken)#

  1. Build a blog
  2. Write it in English
  3. Use Static Site Generator
  4. Start with Hugo
  5. Use real name: Hussein Kasem Corner
  6. Content: Random