Hello, I'm   Jason

Static content generators are becoming more and more popular as there’s a drive to deliver content as quickly as possible from versioned source code to the browser. Jekyll is a static content generator that is written in Ruby and available as a Ruby Gem. Jekyll can be executed locally, on a server, within a cloud service, or within GitHub. Within this post, you’ll learn how to create a Jekyll theme using a Windows based PC. While the steps are the same if you are using a Mac or Linux machine, there are a few subtle differences for Windows such as the way you get started. Jekyll Themes are actually Ruby Gems. Wait! You’ve never created a Ruby Gem? Neither have I. We’ll go through this process together.

Technically, Visual Studio Codespaces has been around for several months. Back in November 2019, Visual Studio Online was announced. However, the name “Visual Studio Online” has lost its place in the Microsoft marketing repertoire for a second time. Visual Studio Online has recently been renamed to Visual Studio Codespaces.

Beginning on May 12th, 2020 at 12:00 UTC, speakers from around the globe will be presenting topics for a 24 hour period. During this time, there will be an international fundraiser for Direct Relief and helping those affected most by COVID-19. The content will be featuring cross-platform topics spanning many technologies. Learn from renowned speakers all over the world. Find out more by visiting https://devaroundthesun.org/.

I’ve been messing around more and more with GitHub Pages and Jekyll as of late. Jekyll is a Ruby application that is built to run and support GitHub Pages and other static websites. The purpose of Jekyll is to provide a lightweight static content generator that operates off of Markdown pages. Since GitHub Pages is great for hosting a blog, I was curious to see what I could do with it. The first step in my process was to see if I could migrate from my existing blog provider, CloudScribe, over to GitHub Pages.

Latest Update: This library now supports .NET 6.0. You can read about it here.

Did you know that you can learn how to use git, how to become an open source company, what GitHub Actions are and even how to host a static website through GitHub using Jekyll? You can do all this using the GitHub Learning Lab. To get started, visit https://lab.github.com/install. You’ll notice that it will want to choose repositories for you to install the Learning Lab. I recommend creating a new repository just for the lab. Once the lab is installed, you’ll be able to use the GitHub Learning Lab. The github-learning-lab bot will track your progress so you can always come back to it. Along the way, it leverages GitHub by automatically creating issues, pull-requests, and repositories.

As of this post, TechBash 2020 is still planning on taking place from October 13-16, 2020 at the Kalahari Resort and Convention Center in Pocono Manor, Pennsylvania. This is just an hour or two drive from many major cities including New York City and Philadelphia. In addition, it’s within a reasonable drive from Baltimore, Boston, Hartford, Pittsburgh, State College, Syracuse, and Washington DC. Last year we received over 550 submissions from over 200 presenters.