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G33K

Geek Space of Gautham Ponnu

30 October 2010

There are really two kinds of blogging I’ve been doing: writing and sharing technical stuff generally desktop customization. However, I soon realized that my limited number of readers were predominantly not interested in any computer-related stuff let alone whatever latest and mightiest conky configuration I had set up. Hence, to cater to my exclusive tech audience I'm starting this new journal of my tech journey

G33k

G33k is simply a dumb word play on the word Geek. Wiki says,

The word geek is a slang term, with different meanings ranging from "a computer expert or enthusiast" to "a carnival performer who performs sensationally morbid or disgusting acts", with a general pejorative meaning of "a peculiar or otherwise dislikable person, especially one who is perceived to be overly intellectual

Quite a meaning, eh ? In this journal, you'll find me sharing links, information, tips and my views regarding technology and generally geeky things like - Bash scripts, Conky, Web 2.0, Web applications and other random stuff.

Then came the decision over what engine to use. Having already used Wordpress I did not want to use it again. Something like Posterous looked attractive, but I wanted to style my blog, and it needed to be hosted at the domain of my choosing. For the same reason, other hosted sites (tumblr.com etc) were disqualified.

Then I realized to truly realize the true geek, I needed to host this site in a different manner. So, came Jekyll - a ruby static site generator. I also decided to finally use Markdown - something which I wanted to use for a long time. Jekyll is really awesome !

Jekyll is a simple, blog aware, static site generator. It takes a template directory (representing the raw form of a website), runs it through Textile or Markdown and Liquid converters, and spits out a complete, static website suitable for serving with Apache or your favorite web server. This is also the engine behind GitHub Pages, which you can use to host your project’s page or blog right here from GitHub.

Once, I learn enough about the entire system I'm using I'll probably port the entire stuff over at github.

I'm not a coder in the original sense.

I simply like geeky things.

And ya, say Hi to my favourite new pet - Barty ! Like him ?

Barty

He's partly inspired from the legendary Bartimaeus of the Trilogy.

His trademark cheekiness and wry, often hilarious side comments annotate the novels. Enjoying insulting his master for appearance, emotions, and stupidity, the chapters that he narrates often contain humorous footnotes that add information on the nature of spirits and his history. Although he is only a middle-class djinni, his quick wits often save him in difficult situations. He has a fairly large ego, due to his many accomplishments over the ages and often becomes indignant when forced to work with jobs he considers "unworthy of his talents".

Hope you who share the adventure with me enjoy it as much as I do.