Welcome to my blog!

I’ve held onto this domain for a few years now, having it collect dust with absolutely no ideas of what to do with it. I’ve always wanted it to be a “portfolio” page of sorts, but I realised that I don’t really have much to show off! (Especially not in the realm of Cyber Security). So, after a lot of procrastination, relearning the basics of web dev and frameworks, I finally got around to creating something I should have made a few years ago.

Why?

After attending the CSE Connect conference held at UWE, I got the chance to chat with the fantastic Joe Wells. I’ve been following his LinkedIn posts since attending his talk at B-Sides Bristol in the Winter. The posts are lovely little updates on his life and the progress he’s been making on TryHackMe. These types of posts and the simplicity of them has been something I’ve admired since I started following him. During the conversation he’d mentioned how his posts have got him noticed, which piqued my interest quite a bit.

Being very privacy-concious, I try not to share anything about myself online - or at least not have my personal life and my online persona mix too much. This means that I’ve always been hesitant about having public profiles on social media; however, Joe suggested making a “hidden blog” which led me to developing this website! The idea is to show the world what I’m up to and what I’m learning, as well as promote myself and my work to potential employers (I think CVs are a bit outdated nowadays!).

Development

My good friend and excellent developer James is currently working on making web applications for the company that he’s interning for. He’s been giving me updates on the technologies he’s been using and how he works. He’s a big fan of various web frameworks and I thought that he’d be the best person to ask about the website project that I had in mind. When asking him, he told me about a framework called Astro, which is optimised and powerful in delivering a good front-end experience. Running the npm command to get started, I was greeted by a cute little helper that guided me through the setup. The setup was practically over as quickly as it started, with a few questions to tailor my experience and all the files were created, ready for me to start working!

I decided to go with a template for my website, which I’ve edited slightly to make it perfect for my needs. All in all, this website took me about a week to set up and get working to a state I’ve been happy with (including configuring Nginx to play nice). Learning the ins and outs of how to use the framework and the various files and how they work was a breeze, the syntax is very human-readable and the documentation is clear! I’m a huge fan of how Markdown is used to create these blog posts and how easy it is to add metadata to them.

Future

I’m hoping to keep this blog updated with my progress in Cyber Security, as well as any other projects I’m working on. I’m going to start completing some certifications, starting with ISC2’s free cert, then working up from there! I’ll also try and start a streak in TryHackMe like Joe, as I’ve been neglecting it for a while now. All in all, I just want to keep learning and improving myself, and I hope that this blog will help me do that.

Like I said, I’m a big fan of Joe’s posts and I’m hoping to emulate that style in my own posts. They’re simple, to the point and give a good insight into what he’s been up to. I’m hoping to do the same with my posts. Likewise, I’m hoping to get noticed by potential employers and maybe even get some freelance work! I’m always open to new opportunities and I’m hoping that this blog will help me get some.

I’m also hoping to get some feedback on this website, so if you have any suggestions or comments, please feel free to reach out to me through the email on the site or LinkedIn. I’m always open to feedback and I’m hoping to improve this website as much as I can!

Thanks for reading, and as for now, I’ll probably boot up some Flight Simulator and have a nice long flight somewhere in the world. I’ll see you in the next post!