Establishing an Identity

If you’ve followed me on RSS for any amount of time, first off, thank you so much! Second, you may not have noticed how often this site changes. RSS protects you from the near-monthly changes that my mad scientist side makes to this site.

This year alone, ThatAlexGuy.dev has been powered by 11ty, Hugo, plain HTML, Bear, Micro.blog, and Pure Blog. My files have sat on OpenBSD Amsterdam, DigitalOcean, and a Laravel Forge VPS. I’ve written new articles and lost old articles in migrations. My site has switched appearance more frequently than a Bian Lian (变脸) performer!

I’ve come to realize I’ve been seeking both an identity and a voice. I want an outlet that reflects my interests, my background, and my day-to-day, but that’s more than what I could accomplish on something like Mastodon.

All that brings us here, iteration 4 (or 8, or 15, or 16, I can’t remember). There are a few key differences and intentional choices that reflect where I want ThatAlexGuy to go.

My Pillars of Focus

Building a new experience that will stick and satisfy the goals in my head won’t be easy, but here are the guiding pillars that are to shape what’s coming next.

Intentional, Longer Form Content

I have a desire to create in-depth, well-researched, and potentially interactive content. Many of my current posts come with a “1-minute read” tag. I want to change that. I’ll be digging into topics with greater detail, cross-referencing multiple sources, and (hopefully) interviewing others. As a result, I’ll be posting less frequently, but my new goal is quality over quantity.

More Visual

Regulars on my site will be aware of my “Photo Journal” series in which I posted a set of photos around a theme (macro, nature, Gameboy Camera). I want to continue building my photography skills through the incorporation of high-quality photos in my articles. While text sets the tone, visuals set the atmosphere in an article.

An Identity

Here’s the big tomato, as they say (nobody says that): defining what this site represents. That means setting the tone and defining how topics string together to form a consistent narrative. I’ll be figuring this out for a while, but I want to leverage my interests such as indie technology, vintage computing, time away from the screen, photography, and Chinese culture.

What’s New Today

So what’s changed so far? Quite a bit!

First, ThatAlexGuy.dev is now run by Ghost.org. For myself, this means less time in the technical weeds and more focus on writing. For readers, it opens the doors to a wider audience. Email newsletters are a more accessible way to stay up-to-date on new articles.

Don’t worry though, RSS isn’t going anywhere! In fact, I managed to fix the broken RSS feed URLs from previous migrations (hopefully)!

I’ve started to define the personality of the new site. I pulled background and accent colors from one of my favorite atmospheres in a game (Sprout Tower in Pokémon Gold). Using my iPad, I’ll be creating article images that give a calligraphy + hand-painted vibe. I’ve also brought in my Chinese name for the logo（小艾 - Little Alex).

What Comes Next?

I’m working on my first longer-form article. It probably won’t be great, but first attempts never are. From there, I hope to refine my writing, researching, and supporting photography.

道法自然 - “The way follows what is natural”