Hi there! I'm Alejandro and recently discovered Hashnode. I'm a very curious person and I love technology: software development, electronics, gadgets, videogames... I really enjoy sharing my knowledge with others so blogging is a great opportunity to reach more people.
Before becoming a developer started in tech support and had some jobs as IT Support Specialist, which I really enjoyed. Family and friends relly on me when they want to know about something tech related. Recently, I've been asked about the "WhatsApp Exodus" several times. So I thought a better approach would be to write an article that I could share easily, allowing me to save time.
Do you need to know how to install and use a program? Is your computer damaged and need to take files from your hard drive? Need advice on how to implement a file backup strategy? It's on my blog!
A blog would be a great tool to document processes and thoughts on a given topic. There are other benefits, as far as others have experienced. You learn more when you teach, you become a better communicator, and you can keep you post for future reference so you only do research once. It has happed to me many times I need to recall a procedure (for example, Linux commands) and need to look for the information or tutorials again.
There are other formats like videos, podcasts and infographics. Though writting is the most suitable for me at this moment. The thing is... I've been delaying starting a blog since 2012!
(Screenshot of my registration date from my domain provider)
Back in that time two popular options were Blogger and Wordpress. I read everything I could about blogging: choosing a domain name, seo strategies, personal branding, hosting, servers, where to get templates and widgets, newsletters, and so on. I gave self hosted WordPress a try and got stuck because of analysis paralysis.
The free hosting providers were very limited (GitHub pages didn't exist yet). My website didn't look exactly as I wanted. I was afraid to waste a lot of money on hosting and themes because I wasn't sure if could write blog posts often.
Later I got to know about Medium. This time I got really close to start blogging. The clean interface and reading focused format appealed to me very much. Also, I liked how great the posts look without distracting widgets and ads so I started to have a better idea how I wanted my blog to look. I almost jumped in when Free Code Camp anounced its move to Medium.
Still, there were some small details I didn't like. For example, linking a custom domain wasn't straightforward (you had to create a publication and write an email), the ugly URL format, and the Medium banners if you didn't have an account or didn't sign in. Eventually, Medium became a paywall and Free Code Camp anounced moved off. I felt relieved I didn't start here.
Another approach began to become popular: static domains. One thing I liked a lot is that I wouldn't have to worry about maintaining a server, updates, databases or plugin vulnerabilities. As static sites have no administration dashboards or databases to attack they are very secure.
Yet again, I had to take a decision from a range of choices. Which site generator to use or whether I would include a search engine and a comment system. I was ofen reading articles about Netlify, Algolia, Disqus, AWS Lambda, MailChimp, Gatsby, Markdown, Jekyll, you name it.
During these years I've had so many questions about blogging that I spent all the effort reading recommendations instead of actually blogging. I worried too much that if used third party platforms I wouldn't own the content. After all this time, I came into a great conclusion: just start writting.
Leave the technical details and advanced features when you gain more experience. You'll be stuck as I did if you try to craft the perfect blog. That is, the perfect theme, the perfect font, the perfect layout, the most beautiful newsletter, the perfect keywords. It's just too much to get it right since the very beginning. Just focus on enjoying the writting part.
Last year, I wrote a couple of articles on LinkedIn, without giving much thought, no previous draft or outline, I just felt I wanted to. I was really content with the result, I got views and comments, and much important, I enjoyed the process.
When I heard I could link a custom domain with Hashnode, and also own the content, it just made "click". This is it, the best of worlds, third party platform where I own the content. So today I am writting the first post of what I can finally call a blog :D