Creating your Github blog from others
Update :
This is part 1 of my Blogging on Github series.
Initially I had gone with the option of reusing the blog template of Jekkyl Now. This post favors that approach.
After a few years, I scrapped it & created my blog from scratch using just Jekkyl. You can read about it in Part 2 of the series.
I have wanted a technical blog for a long time now but couldn’t modify my existing blogs (a non technical one + a work related one) since its a bad practise to have multiple themes for a blog as that would alienate the followers of the blog. I could have created another blog on Blogspot or Wordpress but Github had 1 advantage which the others didnt - an implicit connection to one’s code repository which is truly invaluable.
Instead of the traditional “Hello World”, I decided to have my first post as a mini “How to setup your Github Blog” guide 
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Background Know-how
- A normal blog like Wordpress requires a database from which the code base extracts the data to be shown
- Jekkyl is a open source static site generator written in Ruby by Github’s founder. Jekyll takes content, renders Markdown or Textile and Liquid templates, and produces a complete, static website ready to be served without using databases.
Creating your Github Blog
- The simplest way to setup your own Github user blog would be :
- Fork an existing github blog repo (eg : The template blog at Jekkyl Now)
- Rename the forked blog to your username.github.com
- Customize the _config.yml file
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Advantages
- Hassle free way to have your blog setup with necessary plugins (commenting, gravatar profile etc)
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Disadvantages
- Hard to add more customizations since you have to figure out how things work.
- The other way :
- Ensure Ruby) & Gems are installed on your system.
- Follow the basic blog setup instructions on Github Pages) & then use Jekyll for local setup & customizations.
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Advantages
- Clean blog which you get to build from scratch
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Disadvantages
- Have to find & install all necessary plugins to support user comments, social network sharing (facebook, linkedin etc), likes/dislikes, Google Analytics, tags etc
The blog should now be visible at your username.github.io
Things to do ahead
Publish your 1st post by adding an entry into the existing posts folderBrush up your markdown language with this guideExamine how beautiful your github blog can be by examining the themes templates here & use them if you like them.Start adding more plugins like tagsSetup the blog in your local if needed using the section 2 of this guide
PENDING FOR ME
Create my own blog with the best plugins & share them on github !
