Welcome to iSmooth Star

Hello everybody, in this article I will talk about my new blog which is called iSmooth Star, describing the technologies I am using to host it, the history behind it and the reason why I chose Jekyll to run it.

About iSmooth Star

iSmooth Star is a blog focused on technology where I share my tutorials, ideas and opinions or development material to the public. I also like to write about blogging by itself as a whole.

Blogging Platform

This blog is hosted using different types of software and services that I am mainly utilizing to serve it to the internet.

• Jekyll which is the main blogging software.
• Chirpy Jekyll Theme as the theme of my blog.
• Github Pages to host the blog.
• Namecheap obviously for the domain name.

Of course, if we talk about the technologies that each one of these is built on, then the list will go on much further.

Blog Topics

I am going to discuss a lot of topics related to technology here and there, I have built a Homelab with my servers and network equipment I acquired throughout the years. So, the topics that this blog will cover are mostly about:

• Computers, including but not limited to all types of servers and single board computers.
• Networks, spefically the software and hardware used for networks.
• Operating systems, it will most likely be Linux and maybe Windows or others from time to time.
• Blogging in general, and I will definitely be posting in regard to Jekyll and maybe Wordpress, Blogger or any other platform.

That may not only be it, I will certainly find a way to discover more topics in my journey as a blogger but that’s what I currently have in mind for now.

My Past History and Experience

Actually, this is not my first attempt at blogging, I started my first blog in 2012 when it was so special to be a blogger. In fact, it’s still running ever since to this date but it’s the blog that I left behind because of how outdated and limited the platform that I was using to host it.

So, it’s no secret, you can visit my old blog on ismoothblog.com where you can find many outdated articles. Also, I had some other small blogs but it’s not worth mentioning right now.

Moreover, I was mostly familliar with Blogger known as Blogspot as my platform of choice at that time for iSmooth Blog and my other blogs. I have some experience with Wordpress but for some reason I never really migrated to it even though it was superior I sticked to Blogger maybe because I didn’t want to pay for hosting and maintaining Wordpress.

At one point, I bought a VPS plan where I hosted many side projects for development purposes, and I happened to have Wordpress installed on some sites and I played with it for a long time then I discovered Jekyll and installed it on the same instance that’s when it all started. After all, it has been years since I tinkered with blogging software and I finally decided to launch iSmooth Star in 2024 using Jekyll which is currently running on this site.

Furthermore, the reason that I didn’t just migrate my old blog to Jekyll and started from where I stopped is that as I said, most of the articles there are really outdated so it’s not worth the effort and it’s much better to make a fresh start.

Therefore, I plan to keep iSmooth Blog running on Blogger for now because it has a trusty 12 years old domain which I might use with some other project in the future.

Why Jekyll

Well, the answer for this question will most likely be based on how Blogger and maybe Wordpress failed to meet my expectations or fit my liking.

Blogger Disadvantages

• You don’t own your blog, meaning once blogger decides to shutdown or delete your blog then it’s over.
• You are limited by their own terms and conditions.
• You can’t freely customize your blog it’s very limited.
• Very poor SEO performance.
• It doesn’t look professional.

Wordpress Disadvantages

• Cost! Yes, it is the main reason for me not to use it.
• Security risks that can arise because of outdated plugins or software.
• You must keep updating it with backups.
• It’s slow because at its core, it’s built dynamically on many technologies.
• Requires a lot of effort for maintenance.

Jekyll Advantages

Now, lets talk about why Jekyll looks attractive to me with my experience in comprison to these two.

• It’s open source and free to host on GitHub Pages.
• It’s a static site generator with all of its benefits.
• It’s secure and it doesn’t need to be updated.
• It’s blazing fast to load static pages unlike dynamic sites.
• Full control and customizability over everything.

Additionally, Jekyll addresses for me all the drawbacks of both Wordpress and Blogger that were used for hosting my old blogs. Okay, I am not going to talk about the disadvantages of Jekyll for now, although we’ll find out very soon.

Conclusion

I would say it’s all about the experience, if you don’t have experience with development and code then Jekyll may not be the definite choice for your new blog.

If you are all about speed and security then it may be the way to go with static site generators like Jekyll and many others. For instance, if you are moving away from Blogger then you are defnitely on the right track.