What’s up with creating a new web site in 2026? Doesn’t everyone already have a web site if they need one?
I did have an old web site for my consulting, but it was very old and needed an update for both content and look. My original plan was to use Wordpress. However, when I asked Copilot about vibe coding a web site (intending to get a template for Wordpress), I learned about Astro, which I used to create this site.
Astro creates creates static web pages which gives a larger number of hosting options. Including a number of free options like Github Pages, Cloudflare Pages, Netlify, and others. Since my web hosting provider just informed me of an upcoming cost increase (and I’m really cheap), the free option seems good.
I’m no wizard with the look and feel for web sites. So, I used the Y Astro Scholar template created by whydevils to give me the basic look and feel. Then I customized from that. You can see the build process I went through in my Github in the ByronWWW repository.
All of the code editing is being done in Visual Studio Code. I’m using the Markdown for Humans extension in Visual Studion Code to simplify editing of the markdown files used for blog posts.
I intend this web site to be mostly an information source for students but also a bit of information about me and my consulting work. During my classes I post a fair amount of content for students in UM Learn. If something has lasting value I’ll put it up here to make it easier for students to find when classes are done.