Tools we're using
Some people may be curious about how we set up this website, so we've provided a few details below. You don't need to know any of this stuff to use the site. We're just providing this information for those who want to know a bit about the technical details.
Platform and hosting
This site is built on the Ghost blogging platform. If you're not familiar with Ghost, the Wikipedia page has a good summary. It was created by two former WordPress employees, and has a similar approach to early (pre-2010) WordPress, focused on personal blog sites rather than larger commercial sites or content management.
As with WordPress, Ghost is open source software that can be downloaded and installed on your own hardware, or you can use a fully managed service that charges monthly or yearly fee for handling site hosting, security patches, backups, and other details. We've chosen to use the Ghost Pro hosting service, which is the same service that my personal blog has been running on since 2018.
Many years ago, I registered the domain name jamiesamoyed.com, but I had never decided what to do with it. Then when I decided to create this site, I redirected it to the new site. That's why you can get here by pointing your browser at JamieSamoyed.com, which is much simpler than the site's native URL, which is https://jamie-samoyeds-pack.ghost.io/ghost/#/site.
Integrations with other tools
The Ghost platform provides most of what you need for a blog, but we've also integrated a couple of other tools to provide specific functionality that isn't in the core Ghost platform.
I want to be able to post from my iPhone as easily as possible, and after exploring a few options I decided to purchase the IA Writer app and integrate it with Ghost as covered here. IA Writer uses Markdown syntax for formatting, which some people would find clumsy, but I wrote a lot of Markdown when it first came out (I was working at Microsoft then), so it's familiar and comfortable for me.
To make it easier for people to contact us, we're using Google Forms as covered here.
We may add a couple other integrations in the future, for full-text search and some other things. Time will tell.
Tools we've always used
We've moved from Facebook to a new platform, but the tools we use to create photos and videos are all the same as in the past:
- Cameras: Nikon D850, Nikon D6, iPhone, and DJI Mini 4 Pro drone
- Photo editing: Photoshop, with Perfectly Clear and Topaz addins
- Video editing: Cyberlink PowerDirector 365
- Royalty-free music for videos: Taketones
I have an "if it ain't broke don't fix it" approach to technology, and I like this suite of tools and have no plans to spend time moving to anything newer. To each their own.