Build *Your* Blog Better with a Static Site Generator

This is a workshop that goes with the Build a Better Blog talk presented at the Atlanta .Net User Group (http://www.meetup.com/Atlanta-Net-User-Group/events/227546078/) and the Gwinnett, Georgia, Microsoft User Group (http://www.meetup.com/Gwinnett-Microsoft-Users-Group/events/227523171/).

In this workshop Jeff Ammons will assist you in setting up your own blog using the Static Website Generator Hexo ( http://hexo.io ).

Static website generators are fast, secure, and scalable which makes them great for blogs.

The basic premise is that you do all the dynamic bits once at build time and render the entire site as a static HTML/CSS/JavaScript site.

The only hard part of using a static site generator is getting started, and that's what Jeff will help you do.

You can also check out Jeff's Pluralsight course at Build a Better Blog with a Static Site Generator (https://www.pluralsight.com/courses/static-site-generator-build-better-blog) for a complete walk through. If you watch the course first (it's only 2 hours), then you'll definitely hit the ground running in the workshop. If not it will certainly be beneficial to have attended one of the presentations.

Since this is a workshop and not a presentation, it is important that you bring a computer.

To save time be sure to install the following before you arrive:

Node.js

Git

Text Editor (Sublime Text, GitHub's Atom, or Microsoft's VS Code are good choices)

If you are using Windows, then ConEmu would also be helpful, but not required.

It will be great if you have signed up for an account with a Git hosting service like:

GitHub, BitBucket or Visual Studio Team Services.

You will also need a place to deploy your blog. GitHub is a free option, but any web host will work.

If you like you can check the following blog posts:

• Top 5 Reasons to Blog with a Static File Generator (http://ammonsonline.com/top-5-reasons-to-blog-with-a-static-file-generator/)

• Creating a Hexo Widget (http://ammonsonline.com/creating-a-hexo-widget/)

• Using Hexo Data Files (http://ammonsonline.com/using-hexo-data-files/)

Jeff Ammons is President of the Gwinnett, Georgia, Microsoft User Group ( http://ggmug.com ), a Principal Architect at Sage Software, and Pluralsight author.