Updated the styles of the home page and reorganized it a bit

src/_config.yml

@@ -12,6 +12,7 @@ links:
   twitch_channel: 'https://twitch.tv/brotherballan'
   discord_invite: 'https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=channel_banner&redir_token=QUFFLUhqbjZzc29mblpxVGE0MVZnRXctM2M1Zy1LQ1p1UXxBQ3Jtc0ttbl9yWHdGVWF1QXJFRmh4WGp0MDFKVzNUMnZDOHFxNUQwZmdCbkhkbXFwQjFSRTVGemIwdXpTbC1pV2FwMmMxaUhKMnVMN2NLY0J0ZWFsenVBYmZtY1VUWjBYdXpKVDVFWThaZU1Fb3J3RHVQSDBNYw&q=https%3A%2F%2Fdiscord.gg%2FuVNAJ4nrB9'
   forum: 'https://forum.bitgoblin.tech'
+  wiki_link: 'https://wiki.bitgoblin.tech'
   minecraft_website: 'https://mc.bitgoblin.tech'
   patreon_link: 'https://www.patreon.com/BitGoblin'
 

src/_drafts/github-is-sunetting-atom.md

@@ -1,21 +1,32 @@
 ---
 layout: post
-title: "Farewell, Atom."
+title: "Farewell, Atom. Hello Pulsar!"
-description: "Atom was an awesome text editor back in its day, and now GitHub is putting it to rest."
+description: "The awesome community behind the Atom text editor has stepped up and given us a replacement: Pulsar"
-date: 2021-07-17 09:32:11 -0400
+tags: pulsar text-editors programming foss
-tags: text-editors programming foss
 ---
 
-Recently, back on June 8th of 2022, GitHub announced that it set an end-of-life of December 15th, 2022 for Atom. What was once a super popular text editor in the mid-2010s that has since fallen behind the times a bit, 
+About a year ago on June 8th of 2022, GitHub announced that it set an end-of-life of December 15th, 2022 for the Atom text editor. What was once a super popular text editor in the mid-2010s that has since fallen behind the times a bit, is now a relic of the past to later be forgotten. This wasn't too surprising of a move, considering Microsoft purchased GitHub and they already had their own text editor in Visual Studio Code that was stealing Atom's thunder. Honestly it took Microsoft a LOT longer to make this move than I expected, but either way it kinda sucked seeing such a monumental piece of software (remember Electron? That came from Atom!) be put to bed.
 
-### History
+## The Community is Awesome. ##
 
+But the open-source community has a habit of not letting go, and for better or worse, a lot of times will put great effort into preserving old experiences. This is one of those such instances, and now we have [Pulsar](https;//pulsar.dev)! This is a fork on Atom that seems to have some steam behind it, not only re-branding it and keeping up the extensions installer, but also actively working on bug fixes and making it better!
 
+It's pretty much a drop-in replacement for Atom, even down to the extensions and settings that you once used. Things can get a little hairy at times but we'll get to that in a bit.
 
-### Technological Advances
+## It's going to take some time... ##
 
-Atom brought along with it some pretty awesome technological advances, the primary one being Electron. Initially referred to as "Atom Shell", Electron quickly took off as a way to utilize the open source web browser Chromium as a base for desktop apps, and build on top of it using web technologies (HTML, CSS, and JavaScript) and Node.js.
+Now like I alluded to a moment ago, it's a little rough around the edges right now. Just to name a few things:
 
-### Signing Off...
+* Automatic updates aren't a thing yet, so you need to check back for new releases - about once per month for the stable releases.
+* Installing it on Linux is kinda lame since you just get a raw DEB or RPM file to install manually instead of using a repo or something like Flatpak.
+* The Atom codebase had been left to rot for a bit, so there is a lot of API changes and supporting software upgrades to churn through.
 
-Overall, I'm going to miss Atom. Sure, Sublime Text was more performant and VS Code has a much larger community these days, but it still has a place in my heart since I used it for several years when I started getting more serious in my IT career and I thought it was kinda awesome how the community around Atom exploded so quickly. It seemed like Atom's community shot well past that of the other well-established text editors of the time, practically overnight. Plus I always thought the "a hackable text editor for the 21st century" was such a cool slogan. Suffice to say it has a special place in my heart, so I'll simply end this post with "Farewell, Atom."
+## The Community is Awesome. ##
+
+You see, the beauty of open-source software isn't necessarily that it's going to be developed better by having more eyeballs on it, nor that you can see exactly what a piece of software is doing. Those can definitely be good things, don't get me wrong, but where open-source really shines is when a company or some organization have had enough of developing a piece of software - I want to be clear I see no wrongdoing in this, sometimes good things just don't make sense - and instead of it just being left to rot, someone in the community can step up and take over. That really is an amazing thing.
+
+## Signing off ##
+
+There's not really much at this point, other than if you haven't yet I'd highly recommend you give Pulsar a try. Like I said it's still wonky in some spots - one thing in particular that I'm noticing as I write this is there's a permanent deprecation warning for an extension since an API changed it needs patched - but for the most part it kinda just works. I would honestly love to see this thing come to fruition with a full-blown community that's actively developing extensions and contributing code to kinda recreate what we once had, and give us a proper text editor that's competitive with VS Code like Atom was.
+
+And yes I know [Zed](https://zed.dev) is a thing from the original Atom devs, but it seems to be moving really slow and is currently only available on Mac, so I can't really use it or recommend it at this time.

src/_drafts/microsoft-edge-trial-run.md

@@ -2,7 +2,6 @@
 layout: post
 title: "All Adventures Begin with Microsoft Edge"
 description: "This is part one of my Web Switching series, where I'm taking a look at other web browsers to see if I'm going to permanently switch from Mozilla Firefox."
-date: 2022-06-09 11:54:26 -0400
 tags: web-switched web-browsers microsoft microsoft-edge
 ---
 

src/_drafts/my-thoughts-on-ticwatch-e3.md

@@ -0,0 +1,25 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "My Thoughts on the Mobvoi TicWatch E3"
+description: "If you're looking for a decent Android-compatible smart watch for a good price, the TicWatch E3 might be the one for you!"
+tags: smart-watches wearables android-wear mobvoi
+---
+
+I've never been a huge fan of smartwatches ever since their inception in the early 2010's or so. Whether it's the inexplicably poor battery life from a device that's super low-powered and should last forever, or the lack of *good* support from mobile apps, I always seem to be annoyed when looking at watches. Plus it's yet another device to charge daily-ish just to carry around all day. But I do try to keep my head in the game at least for a good value-oriented watch that helps me manage my notifications more easily so I don't have to open my phone every time it chimes.
+
+## Accessories
+
+One other important aspect of a device you use pretty much daily is the ecosystem. And not just what the first-party manufacturer provides but also what the community and other companies sell to go along with it. 
+
+## Price
+
+Now it comes down to the all-important price. Regardless of what features a watch may offer, ultimately the price is what dictates if it's a good purchase or not. 
+
+And that's where the TicWatch shines: it costs only $150 if you buy from Mobvoi directly, and they even offer an extra 2% discont if you're willing to create an account with them. 
+
+## Conclusion
+
+Obviously, based on the price alone and how the watch is holding 
+... it's not going to truly compete with the Apple Watch or Samsung Galaxy in a competion for the **best** smart watch. *But* those watches cost at least twice as much new, and it is a competitive option when you're looking at other watches in the same price range.
+
+

src/_drafts/sinatra-ruby-is-beautiful.markdown

@@ -2,13 +2,12 @@
 layout: post
 title:  "Sinatra (Ruby) is Beautiful."
 description: "Sinatra is a beautifully simple web framework. It's old, but it works!"
-date:   2023-07-14 09:00:00 -0400
 tags: linux
 ---
 
 By trade I'm a System Administrator/Network Engineer, so most of my days are filled with deploying applications, dealing with oddball software vendors and their lackluster documentation, licensing (yuck!), and planning/building out infrastructure to support operations. But I also like to do some coding on the side, and in particular I like to see what I can build to maybe be useful one day, and in particular I like spinning up web sites/apps.
 
-Thus enters [Sinatra](https://sinatrarb.com/). It's a very simple and lightweight framework for building web applications using a DSL.
+And thus [Sinatra](https://sinatrarb.com/). It's a very simple and lightweight framework for building web applications using a DSL.
 
 ## The Exciting First Dance! ##
 

src/_drafts/web-hosted-part-one.md

@@ -0,0 +1,22 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title:  "Web Hosted #1: How To Setup a Web Server in 2024"
+description: "Even in 2024, knowing how to host a website is still important... and you can learn a lot by doing it without a hosting company!"
+tags: web websites nginx apache
+---
+
+Back in the day, even as far back as the late 90's, you needed a website to be seen as a participant in the web. And 
+
+But still, unless you wanted to g
+
+## The Hardware
+
+Honestly, anything will do. From options as expensive and powerful as multi-server AMD Epyc- or Intel Xeon-backed clusters, all the way down to Single-Board Computers like the Raspberry Pi or Orange Pi, you can use anything that is supported by your Linux distribution of choice.
+
+## The Operating System
+
+Today we're going to go with Debian Bookworm. Ubuntu, OpenSUSE Leap, and AlmaLinux are just as good, but I'm more familiar with Debian and I love the community-backed distro. And Bookworm (aka Debian 12) is the current stable version of Debian as of the writing of this article.
+
+## The Web Server
+
+Nginx! Or Apache, both are cool. But I'm more familiar with Nginx and it's faster anyway.

src/_layouts/default.html

@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@
 <head>
   <meta charset="utf-8">
   <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
-  <title>{{ page.title }}</title>
+  <title>{{ page.title }} | Bit Goblin</title>
   <link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/skeleton/2.0.4/skeleton.min.css">
   <link rel="stylesheet" href="/assets/stylesheets/lumbridge.css">
   <script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.6.0/jquery.min.js"></script>
@@ -21,6 +21,7 @@
       <ul>
         <li><a href="{% link index.markdown %}">Home</a></li>
         <li><a href="{% link blog.markdown %}">Blog Posts</a></li>
+	<li><a href="https://wiki.bitgoblin.tech/">Wiki</a></li>
         <li><a href="{% link support.markdown %}">Support</a></li>
         <li><a href="{% link contact.markdown %}">Contact</a></li>
       </ul>
@@ -37,14 +38,18 @@
 
   <footer id="footer">
     <div class="row">
-      <div class="columns three">
+      <div id="useful-links" class="columns four">
-        <p>Support me over on <a href="{{ site.links.patreon_link }}">Patreon</a>!</p>
+        <ul>
+          <li>Join the Bit Goblin <a href="{{ site.links.discord_invite }}">Discord</a></li>
+          <li>Play on the <a href="{{ site.links.minecraft_website }}">Minecraft server</a></li>
+          <li>Support me over on <a href="{{ site.links.patreon_link }}">Patreon</a></li>
+        </ul>
       </div>
-      <div class="columns six">
+      <div class="columns four">
         <p class="u-text-center">{{ site.description }}</p>
         <p class="u-text-center">&copy; Bit Goblin | all rights reserved.</p>
       </div>
-      <div class="columns three">
+      <div class="columns four">
         <p>Feel free to <a href="{% link contact.markdown %}">contact me</a> for any business inquiries.</p>
       </div>
     </div>

src/_layouts/home.html

@@ -4,8 +4,6 @@ layout: default
 
 {{ content }}
 
-<hr>
-
 <!-- Bit Goblin YouTube channel section -->
 <section id="bitgoblin-section" class="youtube-section">
 
@@ -22,9 +20,9 @@ layout: default
       <p>How About a Cheap, Used AMD Graphics Card? (R9 270X)</p>
     </a></div>
 
-    <div class="video-card columns four"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMaFYUNwE5U">
+    <div class="video-card columns four"><a href="https://youtu.be/QKoujsPhZvk">
-      <img class="u-max-full-width" src="/assets/images/bitgoblin-thumbnails/bg-36-thumbnail.png" alt="Let's Take a Look at Debian 10 Buster">
+      <img class="u-max-full-width" src="/assets/images/bitgoblin-thumbnails/bg-52-thumbnail.png" alt="Add 10 Gigabit Networking to Your PC for Cheap!">
-      <p>Let's Take a Look at Debian 10 "Buster"</p>
+      <p>Add 10 Gigabit Networking to Your PC for Cheap!</p>
     </a></div>
   </div>
 
@@ -37,49 +35,62 @@ layout: default
 
   <h3>Like watching Old School RuneScape videos? Go watch <a href="{{ site.links.ascendings_channel }}">Ascendings</a>.</h3>
 
+  <p>Not only do I create tech videos for Bit Goblin, but I also occasionally create content based around my old love <a href="https://oldschool.runescape.com">Old School Runescape</a>... we all have our vices, right?!</p>
+
   <div class="row">
     <div class="video-card columns four"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtOpQv6ZBq0&list=PLIg6BQwweIwGdQNrbDMwGPxifgJ7iIXnE">
       <img class="u-max-full-width" src="/assets/images/ascendings-thumbnails/asc-37-thumbnail.png" alt="F2P Hardcore Ironman Playlist">
       <p>F2P Hardcore Ironman Playlist</p>
     </a></div>
 
-    <div class="video-card columns four"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhcCiqDegr0">
-      <img class="u-max-full-width" src="/assets/images/ascendings-thumbnails/asc-30-thumbnail.jpg" alt="Is Daeyalt Essence Worth Using?">
-      <p>Is Daeyalt Essence Worth Using?</p>
-    </a></div>
-
     <div class="video-card columns four"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3pFR_e3OuM">
       <img class="u-max-full-width" src="/assets/images/ascendings-thumbnails/asc-19-thumbnail.jpg" alt="Karambwan Cooking alt">
       <p>Karambwan Cooking alt</p>
     </a></div>
+
+    <div class="video-card columns four"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIg6BQwweIwF3bypxw35FCDpzdjCfdx3y">
+      <img class="u-max-full-width" src="/assets/images/ascendings-thumbnails/asc-52-thumbnail.png" alt="Ultimate Ironman Playlist">
+      <p>Ultimate Ironman Playlist</p>
+    </a></div>
   </div>
 
 </section>
 
 <hr>
 
-<!-- Minecraft server callout section -->
+<!-- Discord and Minecraft server callout section -->
-<section id="minecraft-section">
+<section id="callout-section" class="youtube-section">
 
-  <h3>Play Minecraft? Go check out the <a href="{{ site.links.minecraft_website }}">community Minecraft server</a>!</h3>
+  <h3>I'm also building a community</h3>
 
-  <img class="u-max-full-width" src="https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/minecraft_gamepedia/images/f/ff/Java_Edition_logo_12.png" alt="Minecraft Java Edition logo">
+  <p>Last but certainly not least, one of my goals is to build a community for great people to just chill, have fun, and help each other out when the need arises. Ranging from the aforementioned YouTube videos on computer hardware, networking and Linux, to a community Minecraft server, a Discord server for everyone to relax and chat with each other, a future community forum and other services. Everyone is welcome to join the community, all I ask is that you simply just be excellent to each other. Easy enough, right?</p>
 
-  <p>This world is open to everyone who would like to play on it. There are no mods installed, and currently only world is available. I am open to adding mods in the future and even adding more worlds, just let me know!</p>
+  <div class="row">
+    <div class="video-card columns four"><a href="{{ site.links.discord_invite }}">
+      <div class="img-wrap">
+        <img class="u-max-full-width" src="https://logodownload.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/discord-logo-1-1-2048x2048.png" alt="Discord community invite link">
+      </div>
+      <p>Discord community</p>
+    </a></div>
 
-  <p><strong>Note:</strong> The website is currently a work in progress, but it will be up soon!</p>
+    <div class="video-card columns four"><a href="{{ site.links.wiki_link }}">
+      <div class="img-wrap">
+        <img class="u-max-full-width" src="https://www.freelogovectors.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Dokuwiki-logo-596x600.png" alt="Bit Goblin DokuWiki">
+      </div>
+      <p>Wiki/knowledge base</p>
+    </a></div>
+
+    <div class="video-card columns four"><a href="{{ site.links.minecraft_website }}">
+      <div class="img-wrap">
+        <img class="u-max-full-width" src="https://i.imgur.com/XJQoBDx.png" alt="Bit Goblin Minecraft servers">
+      </div>
+      <p>Community Minecraft servers</p>
+    </a></div>
+  </div>
 
 </section>
 
 <hr>
 
-<!-- Bit Goblin forum callout section -->
+<p>I do work with sponsors to help fund my projects. If you're curious about who I'm currently working with, check out the <a href="{% link sponsors.markdown %}">sponsors page</a>.</p>
-<section id="forum-section">
 
-  <h3>You can also participate in the <a href="{{ site.links.forum }}">community forum</a>!</h3>
-
-  <p>Some of us love the old-style internet forums to converse and help others out. Anything you would like to discuss may happen here under the proper forum sections.</p>
-
-  <p><strong>Note:</strong> Currently the Bit Goblin forum is under construction, but check back soon if you'd like to participate!</p>
-
-</section>

src/_layouts/post.html

@@ -7,4 +7,6 @@ layout: default
 
 {{ content }}
 
+<hr>
+
 <p>If you want to read more posts like this, be sure to subscribe to the <a href="/feed.xml">RSS feed</a>! Else, if you like watching videos then head on over to <a href="{{ site.links.bitgoblin_channel }}">my YouTube channel</a> or follow me over on <a href="{{ site.links.twitch_channel }}">Twitch</a> where I occasionally stream games. Feel free to join the <a href="{{ site.links.discord_invite }}">Bit Goblin community on Discord</a> as it is slowly growing. Finally, if you'd like to support me in my endeavors, head on over to <a href="{{ site.links.patreon_link }}">Patreon</a> and pitch me a few bucks if you can.</p>

src/assets/stylesheets/_variables.sass

@@ -1,4 +1,8 @@
-$footer-height: 165px
+$container-width: 960px
+
+$footer-height: 210px
 
 $color-primary: #1e76d1
-$color-primary-hover: darken(#1e76d1, 10%)
+$color-primary-hover: darken($color-primary, 10%)
+$color-primary-light: lighten($color-primary, 10%)
+

src/assets/stylesheets/lumbridge.sass

@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@ body
   font-size: 2rem
   margin: 0
   padding-bottom: $footer-height
+  overflow-x: hidden
 
 a
   color: $color-primary
@@ -28,6 +29,9 @@ hr
   color: #999
   font-style: italic
 
+.container
+  max-width: $container-width
+
 // this wrapper is only used to hide the footer
 #wrapper
   position: relative
@@ -120,12 +124,20 @@ hr
     background: white
     border: 2px solid #bbb
 
+    .img-wrap
+      margin: 0
+      padding: 0
+      text-align: center
+
+    img
+      max-height: 152px
+
     img, p
       transition: all 300ms ease-in-out
 
     &:hover
       img
-        transform: scale(1.1)
+        transform: scale(1.2)
 
       p
         transform: translate(20px, 10px) scale(1.1)
@@ -154,6 +166,39 @@ hr
   bottom: 0
   width: 100%
   height: $footer-height
-  padding-top: 35px
   background: #212121
   color: white
+
+  .row
+    height: 100%
+    display: flex
+
+  .columns
+    margin-top: auto
+    margin-bottom: auto
+
+  #useful-links
+    display: flex
+
+    ul
+      list-style: none
+      display: inline-block
+      margin: 0 auto
+      text-align: left
+
+      li:last-child
+        margin-bottom: 0
+        padding-bottom: 0
+
+  p
+    text-align: center
+    &:not(:last-child)
+      margin-bottom: 5px
+    &:last-child
+      margin-bottom: 0
+
+  a
+    color: $color-primary-light
+    &:hover
+      color: $color-primary
+

src/blog.markdown

@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 ---
 layout: page
+title: Blog
 ---
 
 <ul id="post-list">

src/contact.markdown

@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 ---
 layout: page
+title: Contact
 ---
 
 If you're looking to contact me for business inqueries, feel free to email me at [gballantine@bitgoblin.tech](mailto:gballantine@bitgoblin.tech).

src/index.markdown

@@ -1,10 +1,7 @@
 ---
-
 layout: home
+title: Welcome to Bit Goblin!
 ---
 
-Welcome! My name is Greg Ballantine and Bit Goblin is my passion project for creating YouTube videos on tech. I love tinkering with all things related to computers, and I enjoy documenting the things that I do so that others can use my struggles to ease their own. Whether it's buildings PCs, playing with networking gear, or exploring the beauty of Linux, there are lots of things to play with and try to help others with.
+Welcome! My name is Greg Ballantine and Bit Goblin is my passion project for creating YouTube videos on tech. I love tinkering with all things related to computers, and I enjoy documenting the things that I do so that others can use my struggles to ease their own. Whether it's buildings PCs, playing with networking gear, or exploring the beauty of Linux, there are lots of things to play with and try to help others with, as evidenced below...
 
-Not only do I create tech videos for Bit Goblin, but I'm also trying to build a community around it for great people to just chill, have fun, and help each other out when need arises. Ranging from the aforementioned YouTube videos on computer hardware, networking and Linux, to a community Minecraft server, a Discord server for everyone to relax and chat with each other, a future community forum and other services. Everyone is welcome to join the community, all I ask is that you simply just be excellent to each other. Easy enough, right?
-
-I do work with sponsors to help fund my projects. If you're curious about who I've worked with before, check out the [Sponsors page]({% link sponsors.markdown %}).

src/sponsors.markdown

@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 ---
 layout: page
+title: Sponsors
 ---
 
 These are the sponsors I work with...

src/support.markdown

@@ -1,10 +1,10 @@
 ---
 layout: page
+title: Support
 ---
 
 Unfortunately money doesn't grow on trees, and a lot of the stuff that I purchase to make videos on can be quite expensive. My content is available free-of-charge on YouTube, but if you don't mind helping support me financially any help would be much appreciated.
 
 The primary way to support my work is through donations on [my Patreon page](https://patreon.com/BitGoblin). I don't have any reward tiers over there yet, but I do plan on adding some rewards at some point in the future.
 
-You can also support me by [joining Honey using my referral link](https://www.joinhoney.com/ref/9ohqcf9)! Honey helps you save money on popular websites by searching for coupons to get you discounts while you're shopping. And the best part is that it's free!
+If you're looking for a cloud VPS, consider giving [Vultr](https://www.vultr.com/?ref=9589122-8H) a shot! I've been using it for several years at this point, and it has treated me very well and been extremely reliable over the years.
-