Website Updates

2023-07-16

TL;DR The website now uses a custom domain, along with an updated theme, RSS feed and the addition of a now page.

Using a Custom Domain

After thinking it over for a while, I went ahead and made the switch to a custom domain – pjg1.site! To celebrate, here's a little animation for the site's header, made entirely using HTML and CSS. ¹

New page: Now

I first came across the concept of a Now page from Humaid Alqasimi's website. Rather than a general About page, a Now page mentions what a person is focused on at a particular point in time, which I related to. The page is live at /now.

RSS feed changes

Once this website was up and running, I had plans to gradually move all of my CTF writeups here. However, after posting a few of them here, I figured it would be easier to maintain as a separate project. For those who came to this blog for the writeups, I'll post an update soon.

This change breaks the RSS feed for those who've subscribed, as there are fewer posts here than the feed you see. Additionally, my drafts got added to the feed while testing a new publishing setup, spamming the feed further with unfinished posts.

The feed is now fixed, and I would request those who have subscribed to re-subscribe. Apologies for the mess.

New theme

The part I find most annoying about maintaining a website is being able to choose a theme and stick to it. In less than a year, this site has gone through multiple re-designs, most of which didn't stick longer than a few days or weeks.

The issue stems from being too picky about the dark mode theme, my preferred mode of choice. Dark mode versions of most themes I made looked cluttered and/or boring compared to the light mode versions, and pre-made themes often contained too much CSS. I needed something simpler.

So, I decided to experiment with one theme that works for both modes.

• The color scheme is inspired by Netscape Navigator, which used the combination you see here – grey background, black text and underlined blue links.
• I went for a darker grey for for all the block elements (like the TL;DR and animation blocks above) to help differentiate them from the rest of the text.
• I experimented a bit with the layout too, a grid-like structure brought about by my inner designer.

What are your thoughts about the theme? Let me know using the comment button so I can get a better idea about the look and feel.

Footnotes