About this site

juliomeca.es is my little personal project to have a solid and (hopefully) permanent presence on the Internet. It's a bit of everything: it serves as my curriculum vitae, a space where I can share some of my thoughts, and above all, a place where I can share with you some of the knowledge I've gained over the years. And if it's been useful to me, I hope (and sincerely wish) it can be useful to you too :)

And no, no one pays me for this (I wish... it would make it much easier for me to become a pilot). There are no sponsors¹ or anything similar here. On this journey, it's just me... and you. Looking for dough? Head to the supermarket. It's usually next to the legumes and rice :P

And no, it's not WordPress or anything like it. This website serves as proof that, with a programming language, a library or two, some time, and a bit of creativity, you can create pretty cool stuff. Okay, let's admit it: you've seen websites far better designed and more spectacular than mine, but even so, it's not that bad, right? ;)

Want some fun and technical details?² Alright, here you go...

• This website is developed in Python using the Flask framework (Yes, I know Django is made for this kind of stuff, but hey... I felt like using Flask).
• It's hosted at home. And yes... if the power goes out, it goes down (that's the downside of hosting at home), but I'm not too worried about that (for now, at least).
• It runs on a small (but powerful) pocket computer called Raspberry Pi (version 3, model B, to be precise).
• No, there's no database to serve the static content or the entries. Considering where I'm hosting the content and how it's served, I need to optimize disk and memory access. That's why there's no database, Redis instance, or FTP folder.
• Every page is cached by default (unless I make changes). When you visit a page, the server delivers a plain HTML version to avoid re-rendering the content.
• Each entry is written in Markdown, a lightweight markup language. It's interpreted as HTML and then stored as a cached file.
• No, it's not accessible via SSH or any standard or non-standard port (just in case you were thinking about it!). So don't waste your time trying to break in :P
• The system is built with a Bash script that, in record time, sets up the system and prepares it to serve web content. The same goes for this website. A couple of commands, and it's up and running if anything goes wrong. In other words... if the server goes down or someone takes it out... don't worry. As Terminator famously said: I'll be back ;)

Like a good Three Kings Cake³, it has a few surprises hidden inside. No, there are no coins or beans, but there are some fun details I invite you to discover. Subtle, light, and not too deep. I like to add a bit of spice or humor to things... so if you're up for it, good luck searching! :)

That's about it regarding this website. Enjoy!

1. That doesn't mean I'm not open to the possibility, but I doubt anyone would be interested :)
2. This is what we could call... porn for techies!
3. With or without cream... the pieces with orange are mine! :P