This is the first post of this new blog...for this new year (after 4 months of tests in a kind of anonymity). I used to have a blog in french (easy to find, isn't it?) but I wanted to start something different with the challenge of doing it in English. I wanted to go back to the roots of blogging, a real journal, a weblog, without any regularity. Just a post when I feel I have something interesting to say. And I wanted something simple, light and, of course, free/libre. The choice of English may not be natural for me, being French (yes, we are generally bad at English) but I work more in English now than before and I like the challenge. It is also the best way to meet people from all over the world. After these 4 months, I changed many things and the initial aim changed a little with new options.

## 01 Let's Go !

This is the first post of this new blog...for this new year (after 4 months of tests in a kind of anonymity). I used to have a blog in french (easy to find, isn't it?) but I wanted to start something different with the challenge of doing it in English. I wanted to go back to the roots of blogging, a real journal, a weblog, without any regularity. Just a post when I feel I have something interesting to say. And I wanted something simple, light and, of course, free/libre. The choice of English may not be natural for me, being French (yes, we are generally bad at English) but I work more in English now than before and I like the challenge. It is also the best way to meet people from all over the world. After these 4 months, I changed many things and the initial aim changed a little with new options.

The idea was to do something not far from Gopher and now Gemini, those minimalist protocols, but with HTML... or Markdown converted to HTML, as I did before with Jekyll. But my goal was to find the easiest way to do a blog, with simple tools, not one tool but the biggest panel of tools you could choose. I tried some solutions and discussed with F6k (1) about other solutions. I tried Gemini using gemlogblue (2) and looking at gemlogs (the posts for 2023 are in the archive link on the home page) and then created my capsule (3). That's not what I want but it's very easy to do if you have any access to a gemini server. So I will develop a kind of Dogma for html that I could call SimpleWeb. I want something simple as a text editor and that's all... Something you can read on any terminal, even with bad 3G bandwidth. Something that can be used with a text web browser like Lynx, or any browser on the market, in all conditions (dark mode or not). Something that is easy to improve and learn. The way to convert and put
the files online must also be simple, but with as many options as you want. I have my own way of doing it, but I have also tried many ways. The only link to update is on the index page. No need for a CMS or static-site management. Default colors, default link colors and nothing else. I also wondered about RSS but it’s not in the way I wanted to do. I’m a big fan of RSS but here, you can read whenever you want, however you want. You are free and don’t need any subscription….but it’s not very difficult to create your own RSS feed from scratch, without any script. So, there's a small RSS link at the bottom of the home page.

There's no SEO, of course, but I always try to respect the standards of the web, the W3C ones of course, not the Google's and all their bullshit. But I don't want to have meta names and tags everywhere. It's possible to do that, easily. I will explain later. I had a choice to do about SSL certificate. I'm not on a standard host here and sdf.org is like a village in the internet, keeping old manners that I like. I have tested a sub-domain of cheziceman.fr (4) too, and even github. I only keep one mirror of this main site. That's my choice : SSL and https are part of the problem for me, the way Internet has been growing into a gigantic store with also piracy and theft. I wanted an old-fashioned website but very easy to navigate as a modern website. So there's not a lot of writing or code to be understood by a bot, but nothing to stop a bot from doing its job. I won't be easy to find in the search engines but that's not my business. I do a blog for myself, for the love of writing, of sharing. I know some people
will find it too simple, not much fun without pictures. I love pictures but here, I want to put the writing forward, the words and the time to read before the rest. Because I liked ASCII-art when I was young, I will sometimes use some of it, as you can see on the home page. And you will easily understand that I'm trying to do something in the hacker (5) spirit, the original meaning of the word, even if I'm bad at programming. Like what I like in haiku, I'm looking for something clean.

I don't know what this blog will be but I'm sure it will be different from everything I've done before. I hope you will find it interesting, fun. And the posts and articles will be more as a journal than before in my previous blog. But as usual with many different topics.

So now Let's go in this new Web Adventure.

Links :
=> http://huld.re/journal/ (1) : F6k blog]
=> gemini://gemlog.blue/users/cheziceman/index.gmi (2) : gemlog.blue
=> gemini://sdf.org/icemanfr/ (3) : My Gemini Capsule
=> https://www.cheziceman.fr (4) : cheziceman.fr
=> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker (5) : Hacker definition
=> https://www.deepl.com/translator (6) : Deepl

*et pour mes anciens lecteurs français, il y a de très bons outils de traduction comme Deepl (6) par exemple.*

2Dɛ̝

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