Installing Jekyll

Jekyll can be installed easily as a Rubg Gem from the source using your terminal window. Full instructions explain how it's installed, with a link provided if you need to install on a Windows OS.

Advantages Using Jekyll and Ruby over CMS

• Pure HTML
• Compiled from simple markdown files
• No database dependencies

Available Features

• Pagination
• Comments Using Discus
• 404 Error Page
• Social Sharing
• Publish Files With Github

What convinced me to go about using Jekyll to create my blog was being able to accomplish it without the need for WordPress, and its heavy dependence on a database, and reliance on media libraries. My inspiration came from an artcle wriiten by Donovan Hutchinson that gave step by step instructions on how to create the layout.

To get started on the project I downloaded the template Jekyll boilerplate by Necolas that includes a README file explaining the layout, and configuration files.

Once your Markdown files are placed into the _posts folder, you can run jekyll build, which will compile the files into the _site folder. Deployment to your live website can be accomplished by using FTP, or easily using Github Pages.