Here’s a blogging challenge inspired by theresmiling. “100 webmaster questions”, let’s go!

1. Please introduce yourself.

I am shellsharks and shellsharks means me! (IRL, folks call me Mike.)

2. How long have you been making websites?

Since about May 2019.

3. And what got you into the hobby?

I really wanted to write this post and this post. Though my true passion for blogging and site-keeping as it is today was born when I first discovered the IndieWeb.

4. What kind of website are you most interested in?

There’s a lot of sites I like. I generally adore personal / IndieWeb sites and anything that shares interesting / educational or infosec / cybersecurity content. I enjoy all sites that are particularly unique. A better question may be what sites do I not like…. Anything with AI-generated content, anything plastered with ads, most of the “corporate”-web, anything malicious and any of these other annoying sites.

5. What’s your workflow? Do you plan your websites out thoroughly or do you come up with the design as you go along?

I don’t have a lot of websites outside of this one. I started in 2019 without much of a plan. I knew only that I had a few ideas for posts to write and the rest would come thereafter. If I were to make a new site today, I would have a lot of lessons learned that I could apply to how I would build said site.

As it pertains to how this blog is currently set up / ran, here’s my site’s overall architecture & my blogging methodology.

6. Please link to your biggest inspirations.

Here’s some of my favorite site designs, and everyone else I have to thank for how my site has turned out thus far.

7. What’s your favourite part about making websites?

Great question! So hard to choose. I’ll name a few. To start, here’s some of my favorite things I’ve built for the site. But I’d say my favorite part about actually making the website has been turning it into a digital home, a place I really just like to spend time in and click around. Secondly, I’ve really enjoyed my site as a place that has helped, educated and inspired others across the ‘net.

8. And the thing you struggle with the most?

Probably these two things…

  • Finding the time and motivation to work-on / write-for the site.
  • Getting around some of the technical limitations of static site generators.

9. Do you keep the same layout on all of your pages? Or do you use different ones?

I have a few different layouts. Most of them are pretty similar but I have different layouts for different post types: posts vs. pages, there’s some special posts, etc…

E.g. a page vs. a scroll vs. a note vs. a standard blog post vs. my screams etc…

10. How confident are you with CSS?

Once you’ve reckoned with the horror that is CSS, can you claim confidence in anything within this reality?

11. Do you know how to correctly use <dl>?

I guess not.

12. What is your favourite HTML element?

sup. I also love <li>sts.

13. If you’re making a new web page from scratch, what is the first thing you do?

If it’s for a new site, I gotta get the domain of course. Coming up with, and then actually finding the perfect domain name is really hard in my experience. Once I have my domain in hand, I try to get a wireframe up first.

14. Do you know JavaScript?

Does anyone? I know enough to get in trouble.

15. How about PHP?

The basics. Nothing less. Nothing more.

16. Does your website have a theme that you stick to?

Pretty much.

17. Are you more focused on content or design?

Content is probably the correct answer. Though I go through stretches where I am more keenly fixated on sprucing up the site’s design / aesthetic / ux / etc…

18. Do you own a domain name? If not, would you ever want to?

Yes! Many. Though shellsharks.com is probably the only one I am really using right now.

19. What do you think of nostalgia-focused or “retro” websites?

Love ‘em 🧡

20. Is your HTML valid? Do you even check?

Just checked this and I have 112 findings. So I guess not 😬.

21. What are your opinion on buttons and banners?

Love buttons. I have a bunch of them here. Banners are ok? I don’t like anything too visually distracting, and I certainly don’t like anything that is just an ad.

22. What do you think of button walls in particular?

I think they can be done tastefully (i.e. at the bottom of the page), and there’s lots of cool buttons to show off!

23. If you started over again, would you make something similar or completely different?

I’d make something similar for sure. But there’s a lot of things I would do better, or slightly different.

  • I’d comment my site’s source code a lot more.
  • There would be a lot less in-line JS and CSS.
  • In fact, I might try to make it JS-free.
  • I’d design with accessibility more in mind.
  • Though I’m on the fence with certain features, I might use an SSG or platform that would more easily allow for me to add federation capabilities, webmentions, and other IndieWeb functionality.
  • I have a lot of other ideas I might incorporate from the beginning too.

24. Are you envious of other people’s websites?

I wouldn’t say that, no. There are a lot of websites that I think are really cool though. They inspire me. Sometimes I steal good ideas when I see them. But I really like my website. I think it is unique, and in its sum, the best. It feels like home.

25. What text editor do you use?

Visual Studio Code.

26. Why do you use that one?

It’s cross-platform, I’m familiar with it, it has the Git functionality I want. I’m not super attached to it. But just haven’t tried other things.

27. Do you host your image files on your web server, or on another host?

Some of my images are in my GitHub repo, but most of them are in an AWS S3 bucket.

28. This might not be relevant to you, but what’s your opinion on the Neocities vs. Nekoweb debate?

Not aware of the debate. So no opinion.

29. How much server space would you estimate your main website takes up?

Not sure. I suppose I don’t really care.

30. Do you keep local backups of your files?

Yep!

31. Do you prefer simple or highly visual websites?

I see the beauty and merit in both. But have you seen my site? Very info-dense.

32. Do you stick to certain colours? Do you do that on purpose, or is it your subconscious?

I have some thematic colors to be sure, but I also have different themes (e.g. light/dark/classic) you can toggle through depending on your preference or mood.

33. Have you ever thought about quitting? Why?

The site? No. I go through drought periods where I am less active, but I’ve never considered shutting the site off or completely walking away. The nice thing about a personal website is you can be as active, or inactive as you want and come back when you please.

34. Do you have many webmaster friends, or is it a solitary hobby?

There are a lot of people I have met online in the IndieWeb community and via the Fediverse that have their own sites. We are friendly in a digital kinda way. I have a few friends who have their own websites.

35. Do people in your real life know about your website?

They sure do.

36. Do you update your website very often? How often is “very often”?

I’d say my site is updated very frequently most of the time. These updates are typically small additions to some of the lists that I keep. When I am very active with the site you might also see multiple net new posts in a week.

37. And the overall design, do you change that much? Why or why not?

I’ve gone through a major design overhaul about every 2 years thus far.

38. Is your website more you-focused, hobby-focused, or outside world-focused?

It’s a bit of everything. I write about infosec, technology and “life in general”. I’ve given myself the space to write about whatever I want, from my professional pursuits to my personal life, and everything in between.

39. Do you do web design professionally?

Not at all.

40. If not, would you like to? And if you’re comfortable answering, what do you do for work?

At one point in time that was my dream. To work remotely + abroad and do web design / web building work. I never really went down that path in the end, opting instead for the cybersecurity field.

41. Do you communicate with people by email very much?

Occassionally. I do enjoy email correspondence, and try to contact IndieWeb folks from time to time via email just to chat.

42. Some people reject social media and use websites as a replacement. Do you keep social media outside of your website?

In a way, yes. My site isn’t “social”, in that it is not federated, it doesn’t support webmentions and there is no commenting system. I like what is on my site to be my content alone. But I write about social media a lot, link out to my social presences and even PESOS some social media content back into my site.

43. How about instant messengers? Do you use a mainstream one like Discord or Telegram? Or something like Matrix? Do you avoid them?

I do use them, but they don’t see much action day-to-day. I have and use Discord, Matrix and XMPP (shellsharks@xmpp.earth). I also have lots of traditional “text messaging”-type apps I use (e.g. Google Voice, WhatsApp, iMessage, etc…)

44. Do you listen to music while you work on websites? If so, what kinds of artists?

Sometimes. Just depends on my mood and what I’m doing. For some reason I can listen to music while reading, but not when I’m writing. I can listen to music while I code though. In these cases, I’ll mostly listen to instrumental versions of albums I like and metal.

45. Do you keep everything you make on one website, or do you have more than one?

Monolithic.

46. On a similar note, do you keep to one topic on your site, or many?

Any and all topics.

47. Do you present your real self, or at least try? Or do you construct a persona on purpose?

I pride myself on being genuine, both in my writing and in person.

48. Have you ever made a good friend thanks to your website?

Eh, I don’t know about that. But I have built a lot of cool relationships thanks to my site. So that’s neat!

49. Are you happy with the way HTML and CSS currently work?

I like the design and functionality of my site. But there’s A LOT I want to improve, some of which I need time to do, and in other cases I need to learn how to do it.

50. What are practices that you think people should avoid?

All these things. 😡

51. What about under-utilised practices, or things you think people should do more?

I don’t know if these are under-utilized per say, but here’s a bunch of things I recommend for folks to do while they are site building.

52. Do you use a lot of semantic HTML? Or are you guilty of generic structure?

I discovered the concept of semantic HTML somewhat recently, and certainly after the first few iterations of my site’s overall design. I’ve incorporated some semantic HTML since then, but it hasn’t yet permeated the entirety of the site’s bones.

53. Do you consider different browsers?

Consider? I use Chrome and Safari mostly.

54. Speaking of, what’s your preferred browser? Convince your readers why they should use it.

I use Safari on my personal computer and Chrome on the professional side.

55. And what OS are you on?

macOS.

56. Do you have a strong opinion on that, or do you just happen to use it?

I’m not a zealot or anything, but I love Mac and am not interested in anything else. Also, have you seen Windows lately? Complete dumpster fire. Aspirationally, I’d like to become a Linux user but in my few attempts to switch over I just haven’t found traction.

57. Are your websites mobile-friendly?

I think so. I’ve tried to make it so and done some testing. I have special mobile layouts too.

58. What are your thoughts on autoplay?

Don’t like.

59. What are your thoughts on webrings? Are you in any?

Love webrings! I’m in a bunch!

60. Do you have any web shrines? What do you like to see in that sort of page?

I’ve never considered any of my pages/posts a “web shrine”. But I do have some things maybe you could consider shrine-ey?

61. Are your websites “cliche”, in your opinion?

Nah.

62. What is your ideal website? Are you striving for that, or for something else?

Hmm… I’d say the “ideal” website has…

My site has these things and is ideal for me.

63. Are you an artist? Do you draw or design your own assets?

Oh absolutely. Is it good art? Well, I’ll let you be the judge of that.

64. What are your favourite resource sites?

Not sure what this question means exactly. But I have a lot of IndieWeb resources I keep listed here.

65. Is there a habit you just can’t get away from no matter how hard you try?

Here’s a bunch of my writing mannerisms, some of which I try to get away from and others that are just unique to how I go about things.

66. What’s your biggest advice for a new webmaster?

Don’t worry about doing everything, or being perfect. Just add things little by little. Be yourself.

67. Do you keep all your styling in CSS? Or do you hard-code some?

Some of it is tucked away in CSS files, and unfortunately too much of it is still in-line.

68. What do you think of frameset layouts?

Don’t know much about ‘em.

69. How about table-based layouts?

Don’t know much about these either. I use a CSS grid kinda thing.

70. Do you subscribe to the ideas of “one-column”, “two-column” and “three-column” layouts? Do you use any of these?

Yes I like and use these in certain situations. My mobile layout is exclusively single-column. But as the device size gets bigger, you will see content start to spread across multiple columns, especially as it pertains to my home page. I like the idea of ToC’s and sidenotes populating side columns for post content too (though I haven’t gotten around to implementing this sort of thing yet).

71. Do you spend longer on the HTML or the CSS?

No idea. Probably the CSS though because it’s maddening.

72. Have you ever made a page with no CSS? It’s useful for your thoughts.

I have a number of .txt pages if that counts (e.g. humans.txt). Most of my site is styled though.

73. Do you ever find yourself making layouts with nothing to put on them? Or do you only make layouts when the need arises?

Don’t think I’ve ever made a layout I didn’t have something already in mind for.

74. Would you consider yourself a beginner? Or advanced? Somewhere in the middle?

In terms of having a site in-general, I’d say I’m upper-intermediate at this point. There are some aspects of site design / webmastering / site-building that I am still not so good at to be honest.

75. Do you have a habit of looking at the source code of websites you visit?

I wouldn’t say it’s a habit. But I do do it on occasion. It’s a good thing to do.

76. How did YOU learn how to make websites?

A long time ago I learned the old fashioned way, hand-jamming HTML tags directly into a notepad plaintext file. But in terms of my current site, I’ve learned kinda on-the-go. A mix of reading official documentation, W3schools, stack overflow, etc…

77. Do you ever force elements to do things they’re not supposed to?

Not sure. But I do use plenty of outdated HTML elements 😅.

78. Thoughts on floating elements?

Floating how? Like CSS floating things in one direction or not in a container? Or visually “floating” on page? Not sure how to answer this one.

79. When you’re sizing stuff, what do you use first? Do you use px, em, %, or something else?

Whatever works. All of the above.

80. Do you have a favourite font?

Not really. Maybe something in the Helvetica family?

81. Would you run a website with another person? How would that work?

Sure, for a project or something that we had a mutual interest in.

82. Do you surf the Web to find new personal websites very often?

Sometimes I’m very active in my surfing/exploring. Other times I’m not. My infosec sites, Scrolls and Linklog are a few examples of the product of this surfing though.

83. Do you bookmark other people’s websites? How would you feel knowing someone else bookmarked yours?

Yep! I bookmark them, subscribe via RSS, add to specific lists, etc… I love seeing when other people bookmark, reference, or add my site to theirs in some way too!

84. What do you want people to be most impressed with when they see your website?

Maybe these things?

85. Are you interested in technology outside of websites? Do you collect?

Yep. I’ve always been into Apple, desk setups, infosec, computing-in-general, that sorta thing. Can’t say I really have any tech-related collections.

86. How often and for how long are you online?

Too much. Basically all day except for when I’m at the gym, sleeping, or spending time with the family.

87. When it comes to your website, who is your target audience?

Everyone. I write about infosec, technology and life-in-general.

88. Have you ever been interested in XHTML?

Not specifically, no.

89. Do you program in general? Have you ever written a program for use with or on your website, not counting simple JavaScript?

I don’t have any “programs” on my site (unless you count some shoddy JS code as a “program”). I can program, but mostly have simple JS and Liquid stuff on the site.

90. Speaking of programs that help you make websites, what do you think of static site generators (SSGs)? Have you ever used one?

Yes. Love! I use Jekyll. 🧡

91. Do you keep a hitcounter? Why or why not?

No. Don’t care. I’m more interested in people directly messaging me.

92. Do you frequent forums? Which ones?

Not THAT frequently. But I am a patron of infosec.pub and 32-Bit Cafe.

93. Do you write your page content directly into the editor, or do you prepare it elsewhere, like a text document or a Word document?

I use VSCode and git. Here’s some other how-I-do-things-related docs…

94. Do you think you appear cool to others? A more accurate answer now: do other people ever say you’re cool?

I’m sure there’s someone out there who thinks the things I do are cool. Or maybe it’s just me.

95. Are you embarrassed of your old work? Have you ever deleted everything out of shame?

Nah. If there is any of my old work that I don’t like though I tend to update it, so that keeps the embarassing stuff to a minimum.

96. Would you close down your website if you couldn’t update it, or would you leave an archive?

I’d like to have my site available indefinitely.

97. Do you reveal a lot about yourself on your website? Or are you more secretive?

I’m relatively open book. I don’t put a lot of pictures of myself but I do post a fair bit about what I’m up to personally.

98. Are you willing to reveal who your best online friend is, and/or if they have a website?

I don’t think I have an online-specific “best friend”. I’ve started to build some friendlier online relationships thanks to projects like Scrolls though.

99. And do you optimise the images on your website?

I don’t really. Most of my images are stored in an S3 bucket and pulled in from there.

100. We’re out of time! How do you feel after answering 100 questions? ….other than exhausted.

It’s a lot! But once you get in the groove of things you can answer 100 questions pretty quickly.