Funnily enough I've had this domain and hosting space for almost two years and I keep meaning to do stuff with it, but never seem to find the time. I had hoped that, due to the lockdown during 2020, that I'd have more time to get stuff done, since I didn't have to travel anywhere, but I had sorely underestimated the amount of effort it takes to look after two young kids the whole time.

So, the lockdowns are easing, the kids are returning to school, the nights are getting lighter, and I'm finding myself (finally) with a little spare time. So, I've decided to set myself up with a little website to host all the little things i've been meaning to document over the last five or six years.

I've had an active Twitter account, and I've been posting randomness on there for some time, but posting to Twitter sometimes feels like you're releasing your hard work into a hurricane. It's an object of interest for about 8 nanoseconds, before it's lost in the maelstrom of other material. I know that if I actually did more interesting stuff, it might hang around for longer, but I don't think too many people are interested in silly posts about retro gaming, if I'm being honest.

But, I've been active in a few little things. Adventuron, for instance, has been a fun diversion for a while. I'm going to make a games page and import all my text adventures and stuff off itch and stick them here.

Anyway, this is my first (non) auspicious blog on my new CMS / Wiki / Blog... Let's see where things go.

I've decided to use Grav. I had a Wordpress site for a while, and I've tried using MediaWiki. Yes, they're both amazing pieces of software, but I've always found that managing and maintaining them has been 9/10ths of the interaction time I have with my site. I'm always petrified of SQL injection attacks, or people figuring out my sa password. So, I've gone for a flat-file CMS.

Flat-file CMSes are a dime a dozen nowadays. There's quite a few in a various stages of development. I can't even remember how I stumbled across Grav. I'd say it's rough and ready. It's moderately well polished, and it has quite a few nice features. But it's very easy to break, and when it does, you find yourself poring through PHP code, blech.

I tried to install the latest and greatest version, 8.0.3 I think, but on Windows, it just broke horribly. Most of the plugins failed to work, and the admin console didn't function well. So, I've gone back to the last stable version, 7.4.3 or something. That does work nicely. So I think I'll stick with that for a while...