A screenshot of a Nihongo Familiar blogpost on desktop.

Nihongo Familiar

This is the blog and core hub for Nihongo Familiar LLC projects. It is for accumulating knowledge and tools to help study the Japanese language.

Important Links

Why?

I want to create useful tools to help myself study Japanese, and I would like to share my findings and effort with others in their quest to do the same.

Screen recording of the banner particle effects. Screenshot of the Discus comment section of a blog post.

Relevant contributions

  • Architectural choices
  • Frontend development
  • Devops

Major tools

Frontend:

  • Handlebars → Jekyll
  • Javascript
  • Disqus
  • HTML
  • SVG
  • CSS

Backend:

  • NodeJS
  • GhostCMS on Heroku → Github Pages

Big decisions

  • Heroku
    • Familiarity with the platform.
    • Historically great for testing applications for free.
      • A decision I would come to regret later.
  • GhostCMS (later switched to Jekyll on Github Pages)
    • Easy “set and forget” options with Heroku.
    • Node compatible.
    • A fun new learning experience!
    • Full frontend theming.
    • It has a cool name!
      (Look, I know that isn't the most responsible way to make a decision, but damn it, coolness used to mean something!)
  • Github Pages
    • Best financial option with easy access.
    • A new learning experience I can use later!
    • Full frontend theming.
Screen recording of hover effects for blog post listings.

Hurdles

  • Heroku had a major pricing shift & loss of feature support in late 2022.
    • I had to do lots of research & a hosting platform shift.
    • I switched to Github Pages with the Jekyll framework.
    • I lost a lot of features by switching away from Ghost, but Jekyll + Pages is a sick combo!
  • Setting up an S3 server with AWS was a process.
    • There is a reason AWS has whole certification programs.
    • I got it set up with a lot of Stack Overflow help, but still not sure if I did it securely.
    • Switching to Github Pages fixed my ever-lingering concerns!

What did I learn?

  • Setting up blogging with the Ghost CMS.
  • Setting up blogging with Jekyll.
  • AWS is very vast and intimidating. It is way above my pay grade.

What would I improve if I did it again?

  • I kind of already did do it again while switching from Heroku to Github Pages, lol.
    • Implemented big money savings.
    • I had a lot of doubts about the security of my instance of S3.
  • If I had the time, I would probably learn more about AWS, & switch to it's tools.
Screenshot of the desktop version of the blog homepage. Screenshot of the blog archive screen.