Taylor Jasko

Quick Thoughts on Ghost - better than WordPress?

Tue, 09 Dec 2014 20:31:44 +0000

A year ago I ported my older blog, srced.com, to the Ghost blogging platform from WordPress. A couple weeks ago I combined my blog & portfolio together… all powered by Ghost, so I have had quite some experience with Ghost thus far. Here are my thoughts after using Ghost for a year.

The Good

It’s fast. As Ghost is simply a blogging platform and focuses only to be that, it’s faster than full-fledged CMSes like Joomla, Drupal, and WordPress.
It just works. The admin interface of Ghost is incredibly easy to use. It doesn’t have very much to it, so it helps you focus on what you want to do best… blog.
Different data-stores. I was happy to see that Ghost supports both SQLite and MySQL. I hooked my installation up to a MariaDB instance, and it works great. I was also happy to see nicely defined indexes in the schema… thank you, Ghost authors.
Theming is brain-dead easy. The theming system in Ghost is completely handled by Handlebars, which is significantly easier to work with than with all the other PHP-based CMSes that I’ve used.
- The Ghost authors also built a nice template structure that you’re basically forced to follow (for right now that is). This was a great move on their part to standardize everything.
HTML in posts works great. Because the editor is Markdown-based, you can throw as much HTML as you want in the editor. This is great for adding in custom styles that you’ll need only in that post. No ugly divs, line breaks, or anything of that nature… WordPress, I’m talking about you!
Static pages. Even though Ghost does focus on blogging, they did add in the ability to create a static page; this is great for about pages and the like.

The Bad

Not for advanced blogs. Remember how I said Handlebars makes templating Ghost really easy? It also can make it insanely difficult to add any non-stock behavior to the themes. Ghost does not support the addition of custom Handlebars helpers, and because of this, it is impossible to add in your own view logic to your themes. For example, I wanted to pop up a message to people when they view my older blog posts… this is not possible on the server-side view logic yet without editing Ghost’s source code.
Ghost has an ugly upgrade process. Because Ghost is based on node.js and that it acts as its own web server, it’s impossible to upgrade the code base without restarting the node process. You can technically change the port in the config, edit the upstream port on your main proxy web server, spool up a new instance of Ghost & reload the proxy server, but this is a nasty process for a regular person. So I don’t recommend Ghost to a novice user who runs a high-traffic blog. There are ways around this (like fronting Ghost with Varnish) and never having stale cache, but this is definitely an advanced setup (this is what I do and it works well).
Not compatible with most shared hosts. Shared hosts will never allow their users to run a custom node.js process on their servers, and because of this, this reduces the target audience of Ghost significantly. However, a multi-site like feature would fix this issue, as shared hosts would have to run only one Ghost instance. Hopefully this will be in the pipeline as a hosted version of Ghost is already offered, which probably uses a multi-site like setup.
No commenting system. Really? When the Ghost authors stated that they’re focusing on a blogging software, they meant it. Ghost does not come with a commenting system; they recommend using something like Disqus. I don’t find this acceptable, but that’s just me. Ghost should at least partner up with Disqus/Livefyre/etc and have a one-click install method to make commenting easier for everyone.
No apps/plugins. It is still in the pipeline to finalize a plugin/app ecosystem.
The live editor is weird. The editor isn’t a normal HTML input, and because of this, the things you expect in an editor sometimes don’t work as expected (like dragging and dropping text).

Summary

Ghost is really neat… it’s open source, the code-base is clean, and it’s fast. However, you really have to have your own server along with adequate JavaScript knowledge to customize it to perfection. I cannot either see a large, high-traffic blog using Ghost as it’s just not as customizable as people need it to be.

Hello World, Meet Mae.

Sat, 12 Apr 2014 00:36:00 +0000

Note: I’ll be blunt, this post is mainly for archival purposes. One day in the future I’ll look back on this. :)

Back in late February of 2014, I decided to move into a new apartment for multiple reasons, one of those reasons was to get a dog as my place at the time allowed absolutely zero pets. A couple months later after moving in and becoming fully situated, I started looking for a new furry friend to adopt.

2013 Volkswagen GTI Review - A fun driver, for an awesome price

Tue, 14 Jan 2014 23:44:47 +0000

After living in the amazing city of Los Angeles for quite some time, I finally decided to take a big wad of cash and throw all of it towards a new car; that car ended up being the 2013 Volkswagen GTI (MKVI model). As I usually do my reviews a bit differently, let me just start off by saying what features I was looking for in a car and how the 2013 Volkswagen GTI was best suited for me.

Why I don't care about backups and how you can too

Fri, 31 May 2013 20:03:15 +0000

Within the last few weeks, I’ve had quite a few friends lose their data. All their precious photos, videos, and other documents have vanished, forever. But here’s the thing: you don’t have to deal with this anymore. There are so many ways to take backups nowadays that losing data is somewhat of an excuse and should not happen in the first place. Here’s what I do on all of my systems/servers so I don’t have to worry about backups… ever.

Why I ♥ Open Source

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 20:37:18 +0000

A couple of days ago I posted something stating that the Nginx init.d startup script used on many Debian & Ubuntu systems had a bug in it where if you add a comment with “pid” in it, the startup script would be unable to find the correct PID file of Nginx (which is critical for the script to terminate the Nginx process correctly).

So I created a pull request on GitHub on the Dotdeb repository (which many Debian users use as it’s always a bit newer than the main Debian stable repository) for the fix and not even an hour later the maintainer of Dotdeb, Guillaume Plessis, accepted it. As I follow Dotdeb on Twitter, I noticed they did another update (Nginx 1.4.0), so I decided to update one of my main servers. Then I noticed this…

Having Nginx init.d script issues? It might be your comments.

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 15:24:23 +0000

I just updated to Nginx 1.2.8 on my dedicated server and even updated the init.d startup scripts at the same time (I had some custom-written scripts that needed updated). Well, I noticed a weird issue when I tried to restart Nginx:

➜ ~ /etc/init.d/nginx restart
Restarting nginx: nginxnginx: invalid option: "/var/run/nginx.pid"

So I checked the init.d script for Nginx… at the very top it had something like this:

PID=$(awk -F'[ ;]' '/[^#]pid/ {print $2}' /etc/nginx/nginx.conf)
if [ -z "$PID" ]
then
 PID=/var/run/nginx.pid
fi

That’s perfectly valid code… so I ran “awk -F’[ ;]’ ‘/[^#]pid/ {print $2}’ /etc/nginx/nginx.conf” in my zsh prompt:

You don't have to "know" any programming languages

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 00:06:22 +0000

The title of this article may strike you, but let me explain. For years, I’ve had people ask me, “do you know Ruby”, “do you know PHP”, and things like “I didn’t know you knew Java”; the big answer to these questions is that it really does not matter! You may be thinking otherwise, but let me ramble on a bit.

The most powerful source of information

I've personally been programming for over half of my life as of this writing (hehe, I'm part of that generation that can actually say things like that), and I have picked up an incredible amount of knowledge through various mediums like, you guessed it, the Internet and many books of all sorts. Like a lot of programmers in my generation, I started programming with Visual Basic, which luckily is a heavily developed language backed by a plethora of books filled with information. However, one thing I did have, compared to earlier generations before me, is the most powerful source of "free" knowledge, the Internet.

All programming languages have one thing in common

When I started programming even more, learning languages like PHP, JavaScript, Objective C, and so on, I quickly realized one thing; all programming languages have something in common: no matter what problem you're trying to solve, the logic remains the same despite the language. So sure, when you think about it, you might be thinking I'm an idiot for even mentioning it, but it seems that people forget that whatever function you're programming in one language can be done in another. Except, there's one difference...

You don't learn the language, you learn its framework

Sorry for anyone that was forced to write in any machine or assembler language, but luckily, those days are mostly over now that we have plenty of high-level languages on the market. But first, let me define high-level programming:

A programming language, requiring a compiler to translate into a form a particular machine understands, focusing on user-friendly code development by automating core tasks such as accessing memory. Src: Wiktionary

The "automating core tasks" part is all done by the framework of the actual language. For example, Objective-C is the best example of this. In Objective-C, there are many different frameworks that are a part of the Cocoa framework; let's take the NSMutableArray class for example. Even though you can write arrays in straight-up C, most people use the built-in functions because they are highly optimized (and very smart). When you use NSMutableArray, you are automatically given the tools to do advanced sorting functions and many others that give you a ton of power with very little code.

When you learn a new language, picking up the overall formatting might be tough (like the tabbed indentation in Python or that lines don’t end with a semicolon), but after a few days, you usually have that aced. The hardest task is learning the framework, or the tools you need to use to get something done.

VMware vCenter and NAT

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 00:52:27 +0000

Thought I’d write up a quick post for any of you who might struggle with a similar issue with VMware vCenter in a NAT configuration. But first, some backstory.

I recently installed pfSense on my ESXi box to route all of my virtual machines through (please please, don’t send me Twitter hate messages of me virtualizing a router… I know, I know, if you’re 100% serious, you should go dedicated. But I don’t get that much traffic. :P). This setup is of course using a NAT 1:1 option, with NAT reflection on, so that when visiting any of the public IPs I have, it will route to the correct internal LAN IP. Thing is, I also have my Windows box housing vCenter on the same ESXi box, which was going through the router as well.

Deploy Web Applications Easily with SVN

Thu, 17 Jan 2013 22:39:28 +0000

A few days ago I posted a tweet while I was fooling around with my scripts that handle all of my website deployments. I knew I have always done deployments of my web applications differently than everyone else (you’d be surprised on how many people don’t have a truly automatic way of deploying), so I thought I’d share with you how I handle my deployments, which requires very little work by me.

Quick Tip: Desk/Office Wiring

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 21:46:55 +0000

Some years ago, while digging through my father’s toolbox getting some nails, I noticed these copper things that had two holes and a nice big gap inside the middle, that I later found out was a two-hole conduit strap/hanger used to hold pipes (also called EMT straps). I then had the great idea to drill holes in my desk and run wires through them, for clean wire-management. Turns out, it worked out really well. So well, I decided to buy a pack of 100 and use them to wire my new desk in LA.

Quick Review on the Google Nexus 4

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 20:39:20 +0000

I recently decided to purchase the LG Nexus 4 (if you’re wondering, I picked up the 16GB version), and I have a bit of mixed results with the new Android and how the overall hardware worked with the software.

The Good

As I always like to start off positive, there are a ton of good key points on the Nexus 4 that drove me to absolutely love the phone.

The Design

The overall design of the phone is amazing, especially for an Android phone. There are no creaking pieces of plastic, it's 100% solid, with two really tough pieces of glass on both the front and the back (they can probably thank Apple for that design). The back has a very interesting finish to it, with the "sparkling dots" that is not too obtrusive, but makes it a very distinctive phone when held in your hand. Although it still wonders me why Google & LG didn't decide just to put the Nexus logo on the back instead of "Nexus" spelled out...

Well, I'm back to blogging!

Tue, 01 Jan 2013 22:56:33 +0000

I know, I know, it has been a very long time since my last blog post. I’m not the type to give excuses, but I have been very busy these last few months:

I am a proud '12 high school graduate
I have been working full-time for one of the best companies I could have possibly ended up at, NetDNA, since early June
I moved out to Los Angeles to work full-time, in-house for NetDNA
... and a bunch more that would take an entire paper to explain

Back into blogging

Either way, I'd like to get back into blogging, as I realized I still have the knack for it after writing a post on the redesign of MaxCDN that I was a part of. As I've been blogging about technology for over four years now, it's not the time to quit blogging altogether, but sadly, I do need to make some serious changes to how I've been blogging.

First thing you might have noticed is this completely new website, that I like to call Srced (pronounced sourced). If you have not taken a look at the about page yet on Srced, basically, this is my development blog. Instead of writing about the latest tech news (which I might still do if I find it interesting), this website will soon enough be filled with my development thoughts. This site can have Linux tutorials, how to set up an ESXi server, explanations on certain technologies, reviews on a new piece of software, et cetera. Basically whatever is on my mind, I’ll take some time to write about it. If I’m learning a new technology and stuck in a loop (hehe, dev joke), I might even post something relating to that problem and how to fix it.

Characters Review - Symbols Finally a Cinch to Get

Fri, 29 Jun 2012 16:04:14 +0000

If you are any sort of designer or developer, you must know how hard it is to get the non-standard symbols out of your font table onto your designs or websites. There are plenty of HTML entities that you can Google to find the "code" to certain symbols, but there was never an easy way to do this. However, most of the used symbols on the web have special names, like "&copy".

HP Announces Next Low Energy Atom Server - Codenamed Gemini

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 13:30:20 +0000

HP has announced today that they are going towards a more energy efficient approach with their Project Moonshot, which is simply a program HP is running to develop better, low-energy technologies. Keep in mind, this is HP’s second time doing something like this. They released a low-energy ARM server a while back, and are now redoing it one more time, but this time, based on the Intel Atom.

Microsoft Surface Released - Running on Windows 8!

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 12:53:53 +0000

Microsoft obviously loves the box-type UI for all of their devices. Windows 8 is getting it, Windows Phone 7 was the first device with it, and now, Microsoft is putting it on a tablet-like computer, the new Microsoft Surface.

As Microsoft started quite late during their press release, they were most likely rushed to speak about the device. Although ironically, Steve Ballmer was not jumping all up and down acting like his typical self this time… Microsoft must be very serious about this device.

Droplr Pro is only $30 a year with 100GB Storage - Go grab it!

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 07:17:28 +0000

Don’t we all like awesome services for cheap? Droplr, the popular app that lets you store files on the cloud, just released their new pricing scheme with 100GB of storage for only $30 a year! This is amazing as services like CloudApp or Google Drive do not even come close to this offer!

This is an amazing deal and is only for a limited time! If you’re looking for a reliable service with tons of storage, Droplr may be it. I personally picked it up and I am now finally able to replace the un-updated TinyGrab.

Go check out Streetfood Tycoon! - An Addicting FREE Tycoon Game for iOS!

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 05:50:23 +0000

Remember back in the day when Lemonade Tycoon was popular? This was easily around ten years ago; however, these games were highly addicting. We’ve seen all kinds of simulation games for iOS in the past few years, but not anything too unique… this is where Streetfood Tycoon by Kuyi Mobile comes in and makes simulation games fun again.

Streetfood Tycoon is exactly what you think it is: a tycoon game with the overall objective of selling streetfood; sounds boring? It isn’t at all! I was addicted to it for all too long. :P

Twitter to allow you to hide verified account replies

Tue, 19 Jun 2012 22:20:19 +0000

According to reports, people will soon be able to choose whether they can see a person’s tweets or see all of their replies too on the social network, Twitter. Or at least they’ll be able to with verified accounts aka the ones owned by celebrities and companies.

Twitter has been making lots of changes in the last few months. Just last week the social network introduced expanded tweets, where they’ll allow articles, videos and photos to show up in the body of a tweet. So if a user was to talk about a picture on Pinterest or read an article about Partypoker or the weather, it will appear in the tweet, rather than you needing to click before you can see it.

Tech Cores v3 Released - A new web experience!

Tue, 29 May 2012 07:23:34 +0000

For the past year, the team here at Tech Cores has been re-imagining the way we consume media. We have selected the people who we believe have helped us the most and would provide the best and most critical feedback.

Together we have rebuilt, from the ground up, the experience involved with online news consumption. Like before, Tech Cores is still based around WordPress but the front end is based around some of the most cutting edge technology available like HTML5 and CSS3. From top to bottom we have completely rethought the viewing experience and as aforementioned we would love for you to take a look.

Panic Announces Coda 2 - Releasing Tomorrow!

Wed, 23 May 2012 13:08:03 +0000

As much as me being a major Espresso fan, I purchased Coda a year ago as I needed a powerful web editor. However, after I discovered Espresso, I never opened Coda again as its features are extremely outdated compared to Espresso (although I will admit, Coda did have a built-in CSS editor way before Espresso ever did).

When I did purchase Coda back a year ago, Panic, the makers of Coda, were even speaking and teasing their upcoming release, Coda 2. And now, from what it seems to be an everlasting wait, Panic has announced Coda 2 to the public and is releasing May 24. Not only are they releasing shortly, they also will be giving a short $50 discount from the original $100 price tag for the first day.