Personal website building for dummies

Skillz Hour - Mar.20 2018 - Personal website building for dummies (read: PhDs)

Outline

  1. What to include in a personal website
  2. How to build a website with a fork (github page)
  3. How to build a website with SB You
  4. Concluding remarks

1. What to include in a personal webstie

chong Chong Zhang

rob Robert Pasternak

thomas Thomas Graf

A common list of components

  • About/Home
    • Self-intro
    • Reseach interests
    • Contact info
  • Research
    • Publications
    • Presentations
    • Invited talks
    • etc
  • Teaching
    • Past experience
    • Website for current course
  • (maybe) CV
  • (maybe) News
  • (maybe) other fun stuff

2. How to build a website with a fork (github page)

This is a static site genterater modified from Jekyll-now for skillz hour demostration.

a. Steps

  • register github account (if you do not have one already)
  • fork here
  • play!

b. A quick to-do list to get you started

  • read readme (always a good place to start :)
  • change site info in _config.yml
  • change page-name in page-name.md
  • add news in /_posts/

c. Notes

  • to change pages, go to name-of-the-page.md
  • to change homepage layout, go to index.html
  • to change which pages to show, go to /_layouts/default.html
  • this markdown cheatsheet might be helpful

2. How to build a website with SB You

a. Steps

  • Log in
  • Play!

b. notes

  • to add pages, go to pages - add new
  • to change homepage to about, go to appearance - customize - static front page - front page

3. Concluding remarks

a. github vs. SB You

  Github SB You
pros fully customizable WYSIWYG
cons somewhat steep learning curve not as geeky

b. other (free) alternatives

c. domain names

  • check out here and here
  • domains using one’s name is (I think) a common practice, but see here :)
  • try to avoid stuff like bigsyntax.guru
Written on March 20, 2018