Setting up Pages on Git Hub + Jekyll

I always wondered if there was an easy way of setting up an elegant personal webpage, without the hassles of learning a lot of front end development. The quest for finding the path of least resistance led me to set up a site at Google Sites. But the layout of the site and lack of customizability made me cringe from time to time.

The recent solution I have found strikes a perfect balance between ease of set up, maintenance etc and customizability on the other hand. Jekyll with Git Hub Pages for hosting. Git Hub provides the content management and hosting services, with repositories named for the following format: {$username}.github.io . Jekyll is a wonderful ruby based tool that lets you edit plain text files and compiles static websites. You need not install Jekyll on your computer to use Git Hub Pages, since github “complies” your pages repository using Jekyll when you make a commit !

Jekyll Documentation: http://jekyllrb.com/docs/home/
Using Jekyll with GitHub: https://help.github.com/categories/20/articles
Some great layouts and designs (including this one): http://jekyllthemes.org/