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Building this blog

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    Name
    Tibo Gabriels
    Twitter

After Z-Hacks I wanted to expand my experience with Next.js. I still needed to build a portfolio site which led me to this repo:Tailwind Nextjs Starter Blog, an awesome blog template by timlrx based on Next.js and Tailwind-CSS. I was instantly sold and clicked that fork button.

Tailwind Nextjs Starter Blog

This template came with a lot of features, such as comments, newsletters, etc..., most of which I didn't need. Removing them however, was very easy. Blog posts are created simply by writing markdown files. This can be expanded on with JSX code including HTML which offers great flexibility to tinker with layout and styling without having to create one off components or layouts.

Dependency hell

After the site was done there was the matter of deployment, I already had a domain name and hosting that I shared with my brother Ralf Gabriels, make sure you take a look at his GitHub! This hosting sadly limited my access to the Linux server underneath. So I had trouble getting Next.js to compile or run. Nothing like NPM errors to ruin your day.

After discussion with a close friend, we decided switching to containers would be a better alternative, which prompted me to use Digital Ocean.

Digital Ocean to the Rescue

After just a few minutes and minimal googling, I had my app deployed and my domain name transferred. It really was that simple! The UI reminded me a lot of Portainer, an awesome tool for managing your own containers. Take a look at my article on Portainer!