I’m Michael
Curated writing
Long form writing mostly about web development and design.
Optimizing and automating my Jekyll site build
Lessons learned from building, optimizing, and deploying a huge static site with everyone’s favorite SSG — Jekyll.
Accessing static files in Jekyll
Learn how to use static files with Jekyll to create a gallery of images automatically without a plugin.
Improving Staticman comments on a Jekyll site
How to use Staticman to add threaded comments and reply notifications to a static-based Jekyll site.
Mastering Pencil by FiftyThree
Learn how to create impressive effects with 53’s Pencil stylus and Paper app, using exclusive features like Blend and Surface Pressure.
Recently published
Thoughts, inspiration, and other minutia.
Goodbye Gatsby, Hello Hugo
Hugo has ruined me. Other static site generators that rely on community plugins and copypasta to fill out their gaps don’t cut it anymore…
Adding last modified timestamps with Git
Today I learned how to automatically add last modified dates to Markdown files used by static site generators like Jekyll and Gatsby.
URLs and links in Jekyll
How Jekyll uses URLs and how to link posts, pages, assets, and other resources together.
Jekyll’s site.url and baseurl
Learn what Jekyll’s site url and baseurl variables are and how to properly set them with relative_url and absolute_url filters to avoid broken links and 404 errors.
Not so quick with the Gatsby site optimizations
This is the post where I talk about neglecting the site and pledge to blog more… wait, wasn’t I suppose to do this on January 1st?
Twenty Nineteen
First time doing a year in review post. The statistics contained are just for fun as there’s nothing to compare them against yet.
Faster Netlify builds
Slowly but surely, I’ve been chipping away at my site’s build time on Netlify.
There’s little left for me to optimize until Jekyll drops some nice updates in version 4.
Autumn refresh
Using CSS Grid Layout Module to redesign a Jekyll site and further improve performance and accessibility.