Wanted to let you all know that I have released the first major update to this blog since I launched it in 2022:

It’s now powered 100% by my own static site generator named Marginalia. 🙌

​Moving From Wordpress

Wordpress has always been a great blogging platform but it has some deficiencies. For one thing, I’ve been paying $10/mo for a VM all this time to run it. And a VM means I need to regularly patch it, and patch Wordpress, and patch all the software involved. This expense and this work is just too much for a little blog like mine.

Much better are static site generators. These allow you to write your posts (usually in Markdown), they’ll generate the HTML once and you just need a place to host the HTML files. There’s no database. There’s no execution that happens on each page load. They’re super efficient. All you need is a place to store your HTML files, and hosting for that will cost pennies in comparison. This blog should go from $10/mo to probably about $0.30/mo.

​There’s just one snag

Static Site Generators are certainly a nerd’s dream. But almost all static site generators are meant to run on your computer. And most SSGs require you to finagle images yourself. This is problematic for me. I want to be able to post while on the go, this site is meant to replace social media for me. And I don’t really use social media all that much when I’m sitting at a computer, I’m using it when I’m out and about.

Secondly, social media is all about images. (Well these days it’s even more about video but I’m not that into it) And so if posting updates from mobile was a little janky — posting images to a static site is FAR worse. Way too much friction.

​Enter Marginalia

I often call our phones “pocket computers” because they are just SO powerful. So I have long thought, “Why don’t we just put together a static site generator that has an interface optimized for phones?” This has been an idea of mine for about 7-8 years. Well earlier this month, I decided to do JUST THAT.

I’m writing this from my own static site generator running on my iPhone. It is designed to be similar to social media, but instead of posting to a social website, it uploads to your own static hosting. Adding images and locations is just a few taps. It handles creating thumbnails and galleries and linking to locations for you. Easy peasy. What I’ve been dreaming up for years.

​All this to say

Now that I have made posting so much easier, especially pictures and media, expect content here to really pick up.

And if you are interested in a static site generator for your phone, please stay tuned. My intention is to release it on the App Store in the near future.

(And thank you for bearing with any problems! I already found several new bugs just posting this.)