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 in 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 to add additional DNS records to my domain and assign the domain to my GitHub Pages site. Once I was done doing some additional research on basic webpage structure, I put together the outline of my website. 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 change. I decided to go with a teal banner at the top of each page, a darker gray for the navbar and footer, and a plain white body for content.
Goals & Additions
- Add images to pages: personal photos, project visualizations, or other visuals.
- Clean up the stylesheet by refining 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
- Display timeline entries as cards for easier navigation between events.
- Add an easier navigation system beyond simple scrolling.
Projects
I started this section by creating a brief list of personal projects I wanted to tackle over the next several months, with a few bullet points under each summarizing the goal and planned tools. I decided that having separate pages with more in-depth notes would make it easier to plan out my ideas. By writing up a document for the website itself, I created a template for documenting future projects.
Goals & Additions
- List each project with a link to its GitHub repo and tags for the languages, tools, and methodologies used.
- Embed code snippets from projects directly in their detail pages.
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 trial and error, I have grown 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.