Why Blog
Finally I decide to open my own customized personal blog website. The reason why I open such a nonesense is not because I want to say something powerfully, rather more, I just want to own my own website, as if the whole designing and coding is all by myself. Unfortunately, not. Nevertheless, I have the superuser root of the website. I could modify codes, adding new features into the site. It seems I have things to do when I feel bored at the mid-night.
How it Works
Actually, creating such a website is a little bit technical. At first, I thought website should be something like J2EE or .Net, at least involving database. I thought that a website with pure html is just document instead of website. But actually, static website, namely html, could be more powerful than what I have thought. Some tools like jekyll can automatically generate static website pages according to your posts. I am not trying to make you understand how this site works. I just want to let you know how powerful a static website could be.
Although pure html pages do not involve with database, it does not mean that the website cannot have fancy features that requires persistent data. We can add some third-part JS plug-in into our html pages. Actually, the plug-in providers have database to store and load your data. I use a fancy plug-in DISQUS that allows readers to add comments via facebook, twitter etc. The comments are not stored in my website, instead, it stores at DISQUS server. Comments data will be loaded everytime I call the plugin. So, static website is powerful!
If you are interested in creating your own blog at Github Pages, here is a short guide. You may use Jekyll to generate html pages from plain text (actually markdown format). You can use some fancy Jekyll themes contributed by awsome desingers. So the whole technical things are Github + Jekyll + Markdown. Buildnig your own blog is simple!
And, I am trying to persuade William Wang to use Jekyll or other generators to build his personal website at UMich, which looks like fancier. :P