I Ain't Afraid Of No Ghost!

Do you know what people charge to do web design these days?!?! Don't get me wrong, I'm all for paying for design work, but when you have a limited budget what's a fella to do? Lots of people turn to Wordpress in times like these. And those people aren't wrong. They're doing a great thing. It allows a novice to spin up a website in minutes. We've used it in the past and it's worked tremendously well. But Wordpress is old news, there's a new kid on the block and quite honestly, I'm in love.

Enter Ghost. They market themselves as "Just another Blogging Platform." But that's underselling it in my humble opinion. Ghost is an open source publishing platform which is beautifully designed, easy to use, and free for everyone. What started as a Kickstarter campaign by a former Wordpress engineer, Ghost has grown year over year in its short three year existence. It's incredibly easy to use and its simplicity is second to none. Wordpress feels rather bloated these days, kind of like how I felt after the pizza crawl I did last year. (Peet-suh Krawl: Go to as many pizza places as you can and consume one slice of pizza until you can't go any more.) Ghost on the other hand is like a vegan who runs marathons, almost emaciated yet very fast and nimble, and still finishes the race in record time.

I'm no web developer. And I don't want to be one. I do understand basic html and file structure. So with the combination of Digital Ocean, Ghost, and the $19 Ghost Theme I purchased, I have a beautiful new website and blog platform. And I'm really pleased with the results. (You can try ghost for free here. FYI they're not paying me to say any of this, I just like it so much that I want to spread the word.) Like the song says: I ain't afraid of no ghost!