Personal Website
Background
I started working on making a personal website because my role had me begin using Visual Studio Code on a daily basis; I had never used a traditional IDE prior and want to practice it my personal time. Github pages seemed to be an easy way for me to integrate my coding in VS Code to publishing the actual website.
Set-up
I began by registering the domain 'amartin.info' using BlueHost. Following Github's documentation, I was able add additional DNS records to my domain and assign the domain to my pages' site. Once I was done doing some additional research on basic webpage structure I put together the outline of my website structure. Most of my HTML and CSS work prior to this project had been tied to email development, so working with CSS classes has been a refreshing experience for me. I decided to go with teal banner at the top of the pages to display my title, a darker gray for my navbar and footer, and basic white body for where the content will be displayed.
Goals & Additions
- Add pictures to webpages, either personal, visualizations of project, or whatever. Need better vibes.
- Clean-up the style sheet by redefining classes and subclasses.
- Set-up a contact me page with an embedded form.
Timeline
Initially I had set-up the 'Timeline' section as a direct resume, copying the content directly from my then resume. Thinking about it further, I realized that when building a website it would be better to display a timeline of my life both professionally and personally. I began to pivot towards having a primary page displaying sections of time, the events or experiences that took place in my life during that time, and providing a link to a more in depth page about that event or experience.
Goals & Additions
- Adjust the webpages to act as card over the timeline page for easier navigation between events.
- I am wanting this pages to have an easier navigation system than just scrolling.
Projects
I start this section by creating a brief list of the personal projects I wanted to tackle over the next several months. I put a few bullet points under them summarizing the goal and what I planned to use to complete them. I decided having separate pages with more in-depth notes would make it easier for me to plan out my ideas. I decide that by writing up the document for the website itself I could create a templates for future projects to be documented.
Goals & Additions
- Have the project's section list my projects, a link to it's repo on Github, tags of the languages/tools/methodologies used in it.
- Try embedding code snippets from the projects in the pages about them.
Future Website Sections
Contact Me
A basic page with my professional contact info, linkedin, and a form fill. I would like to better understand managing forms and how to prevent unwanted traffic through them prior to even publishing one. As for my contact information, I wanted to better understand creating an MX record for my domain and creating an email inbox specifically for contacting me.
Blog Posts
I primarily work with Salesforce Marketing Cloud Engagement (SFMC) in my current role, it is a very powerful tool but has terrible documentation on its more advanced aspects. After having read so many blog posts, posting questions to forums, or basic trail and error, I have grow to enjoy learning ways to maximize the customizability of the software. I would love to give back to the community by creating insightful articles on SSJS design patterns, dynamic email building with AMPscript, or a programmatic deployment system. Prior to working on this I would like to better understand HTMl templating with an SSG and what that would require to manage a series of blog post webpages.