A collection of tech notes, personal reflections, and evolving thoughts about whatever’s caught my curiosity.

Awesome personal websites

1 January 2019

Here’s a curated collection of awesome personal websites by inspiring individuals across the web. These creators contribute to the online community by sharing knowledge, resources, and personal insights, promoting a culture of continuous learning and support.

Most of these sites feature a diverse range of topics, from personal reflections and technology to design and media. I’ve included brief bios and categorized each site based on its primary focus, though these categories are flexible. I encourage you to explore these sites and discover your own favorites.

This list will continue to grow, and I hope you find inspiration among the websites and people below!

Attenion please!

You can explore the wonderful personal blogs curated by Manu on Blogroll website.

Maggie Appleton

Maggie makes visual essays about programming, design, and anthropology.

Shawn Wang

Writer, Speaker, Developer Advocate. He help developers to Learn in Public!

Sara Soueidan

Sara is an independent inclusive design engineer, author, speaker, and trainer.

Brian Lovin

Brian is a designer, podcaster, writer, and software tinkerer.

Max Böck

Max Böck is a front-end developer and co-founder of Codista, a software studio in Vienna.

Kailash Nadh

Kailash is a hobbyist software developer and a tinkerer.

Lee Robinson

He is helping developers build a faster web.

Monica Powell

She is a software engineer, content creator & community organizer

Fatih Arslan

Software Engineer interested in Photography, Design, Distributed Systems, Go, Tooling, and Coffee.

Josh W. Comeau

He is solo indie hacker focused on empowering up-and-coming software developers.

Joel Gascoigne

A problem solver at heart and the Founder CEO of Buffer.

Ken

Developer and designer freelancer

Cassidy Williams

A startup advisor and investor, developer experience expert, and meme-maker on the internet.

Julia Evans

A software developer and programming zines creator.

Robin Rendle

A British designer, writer, and typographic nuisance from San Francisco.

Paul Graham

He is a programmer, writer, and investor.

Kev Quirk

Writing about web design, blogging, technology, watch collecting or homesteading.

Tobias van Schneider

An award-winning designer living in Stockholm New York.

Ben

He is trying to understand the world, building things that improve it, and talking about it on the Internet.

Candost

Hunting timeless insights into humans and software and helping others on the way.

Nicolas Magand

He write and comment mainly on software, the internet, Apple, and media news.

Keenan

On a journey to heal his inner-creative.

Rach Smith

Developer building software for CodePen, wife, mother of two, productivity nerd and recovering screen addict.

Spencer

Programmer, artist, and internet caretaker.

Ken

Designer, sensemaker, word nerd, giving dimension to ideas.

Arun Venkatesan

He is a product designer, engineer, photographer, and writer.

Blog Roadmap

This is the roadmap for my blog, where I list the features I want to add to this website.

1 January 2019

Mar 26

  • Add comments to the posts.
  • Add a random button to view a random post from the website.
  • Add ‘Made in India’ tag to the footer.

Changelog

Website updates and events, listed in reverse chronological order.

1 January 2019

01 Apr 26

  • Changed website background to #F4F5F6 and post background to #FFFFFF.

29 Mar 26

  • Removed fw-light from the intor heading and description in the home page.

24 Mar 26

  • Modified footer text to ‘Made with ♥️ and ✨ by Bino from India’.
  • Improved pages.

23 Mar 26

  • Modified Blog Statistics page to add the target and actuals posts for tracking my writng progress.
  • Added Blog Roadmap page to list the features I want to add to this website.
  • Removed slash pages and added pages to list all my links in this website.
  • Improvements in trravel page design.
  • Removed ‘More button’ from the menu bar and added pages link.
  • Imporved pages link details.

14 Mar 26

  • Added movies page to list all the movies and series I watched.

11 Mar 26

  • Updated Hugo version to v0.157.0.
  • Added new shortcodes to image responsive in library and other pages.
  • In Now page last modified date is disabled.
  • Disabled navigation between pages using the left (←) and right (→) arrow keys as its conflicting with Glightbox.
  • Added sketches and photos in slashes page.

10 Mar 26

  • Instead of Now page page link travel page page link added in the more section.
  • Updated open graph and twitter protocol metadata tags updated to show the image correctly.
  • Updated scheme metadata to include more details.

08 Mar 26

07 Mar 26

06 Mar 26

  • Added ‘Playfair Display’ font for headings in the website.
  • Updated contact section in the blog post to add contact page link.
  • Updated About page to add contact page link.
  • Updated headings in the main page as h2 and blog listing titles as h3.
  • Modified home page to show image cards in the Desk section.
  • Updated profile pic in about page.
  • Modified Wall page to fix the dark mode issues and updated card to add images..

01 Mar 26

  • Added photos page for my random clicks. Still work in progress.

26 Feb 26

  • Updated Bootstrap to version 5.3.2
  • Removed dark theme using by inversion method and added dark theme based on Bootstrap.

25 Feb 26

24 Feb 2026

  • Improvements in footer section padding and font sizing. Also added slashes, favorites, and Wall links.
  • Removed now from the more section in the menu.
23 Feb 2026
18 Feb 2026
06 Feb 2026
21 Jan 2026
  • Created projects section and updated in the menu.
29 Oct 2025
  • Updated images back to the essay sections.
17 Oct 2025
  • Added last updated time in the footer.
09 Oct 2025
  • Reduced space between cards in the Room, and Notes.
21 Sep 2025
  • Changed background to #FAFAFA and the blog posts background as white.
26 Aug 2025
  • Card color changed from #FFFFFF, again.
19 Aug 2025
  • Modified footer to display random quotes in the footer when user is refereshing the page.
  • Others section added in the main menu.
18 Aug 2025
  • Card color changed from #FFFFFF to #F9FAFB.
  • Text color changed from hsl(222deg, 22%, 5%) to #090408.
  • Modified title and sub heading to make it more bold.
  • Footer texts color also updated from #596073 to #F9FAFB.
  • Updated bio with links in the home page.
05 Aug 2025
04 Aug 2025
  • Added statistics in the home page in the ‘more on this site’ section.
  • Added Favourites section in the home page.
30 Jul 2025
  • Modified cards to add rounded (rounded-4) corner in every sections.
23 Jul 2025
  • Added Essays and Notes section in the Room which will include all the posts other than Malayalam posts.
16 Jun 2025
12 Jun 2025
  • Changed Room style to display the full content if the post is from the notes section and otherwise summary only with a read more button.
  • Changed hovering color of essays to same blue as in the all section.
28 May 2025
  • Added blog statistics in the webiste. This is one of the updates I’m most satisfied with recently.
  • Restructured internal pages for easy maintenance.
  • Minor improvements in the cards in the home and all section
27 May 2025
  • Renamed Garden to Room, Coder to Workbench, Writer to Desk.
  • Removed colored border for essays and notes in the All section of the sections.
26 May 2025
  • Changed Coder space and Writer space to feed like structure, If its a note or drawer post, it will show full. Otherwise summary with link will show.
  • Added colors to identify the post type in the above spaces.
24 May 2025
  • Updated the About page to dynamically display featured blog sections using front matter tags, replacing the previous hardcoded approach.
  • Heading icons fonts size reduced in all the spaces.
20 May 2025
  • Added icons in the writer and malayali space posts listing.
19 May 2025
  • Added icons in the coder space headings such as All, Essays, and notes.
18 May 2025
  • Updated back the post images from the preview cards in the Desk section.
  • Hovering color changed to #FF373C from #27AE60.
13 May 2025
  • Added section link in the top blog post, so user can back to the list of section.
10 May 2025
  • Menu changes to Malayali from ML.
  • Malayalam font added in post preview and Malayali Space.
  • Cleaned up the layout by removing post images from the ‘More Posts’ section beneath each article.
09 May 2025
  • Added Writer space section to view the all the non tech essays and notes in one section.
  • Redesigned the home page to incorporate Garden, Coder space , Writer space, and Malayali Space.
  • Modified menu to add the spaces and removed the sub links like Essays, Notes, Desk, and Drawer.
  • Removed post images from the preview cards in the Desk section.
08 May 2025
  • Added navigation between pages using the left (←) and right (→) arrow keys.
  • Added Coder space section to view the tech essays and notes in one section.
  • Feed section renamed to Garden.
07 May 2025
  • Feed style changed from cards design to minimal listing style.
06 May 2025
  • Added Shelf to write my notes about everything other than tech. Drawer will be used to write poetry, musings, and social media posts only.
05 May 2025
  • Added a menu footer below the actual footer to include various links.
  • Added shadow effect in the blog post images.
10 Dec 2024
  • Added date in the feed page.
23 Nov 2024
  • Added English books to the library section.
  • Also added menu for English and Malayalam books.
  • Updated Malayalam writings, Now, Library, and tags links in the home page.
19 Nov 2024
  • The heading alignment issue in the Drawer and Notes sections has been fixed.
  • Fixed: Images are opening twice when clicking in gallery.
17 Nov 24
  • Inside a card, added a ‘Reply via Email’ link at the end of each blog post.
  • Also added email share button in the social sharing section.
  • Added tag icon along with tags.
14 Nov 2024
  • Updated the feed to organize and display all posts grouped by month and year.
13 Nov 2024
  • Updated about content and minor modifications in the styles.
12 Nov 2024
  • Changed text colur (hsl(222deg, 22%, 5%)) and heading color (#0F1031).
11-Nov 2024
  • Implemented image gallery feature.
  • Added links curated by me to the desk section. Previously, link posts were hidden.
03-Nov 2024
  • Reverted drawer style to card with lesser width.
  • Card footer added for feed section.
02-Nov 2024
  • Changed drawer style from regular card to masonry layout.
01-Nov 2024
  • Added read more link in the search results.
  • RSS feed updated with full content.
31 Oct 2024
  • Added search option in the menu.
27 Oct 2024
  • Started to migrating my various social media posts to drawer.
22 Oct 2024
  • Updated 404 page. Do you want to view that, go here.
  • Added explore button in the home page to get an idea about my blog and various links in it.
21 Oct 2024
  • Reactivated drawer link on the menu.
  • Temporarily disabled now link from the menu.
19 Oct 2024
16 Oct 2024
08 Oct 2024
18 Jun 2024
  • Added drawer link on the menu.
29 May 2024
  • Removed images from tech essays.
2 Apr 2024
  • Tags link updated in the feed page.
17 Mar 2024
  • Updated last modified date in posts.
07 Mar 2024
  • Collections removed.
01 Mar 2024
  • Collections link removed from the menu.
21 Feb 2024
  • Link color updated as green.
  • Added notes and removed collections from the home page.
02 Feb 2024
  • Improved dark mode CSS and JS to avoid the flashing when switching pages.
  • Limited image zooming to blog posts only.
  • Added collections of links and notes from the web community on various topics.
  • Added link to notes in the menu.
  • Removed Codbix newsletter posts from collections.
01 Feb 2024
  • Image zoom feature implemented.
29 Jan 2024
  • Feed link added in the menu.
27-Jan-2024
  • Feed page implemented.
24 Jan 2024
  • Secondary color added to summary text and card hover style added.
14 Jan 2024
  • Added drawer section.
02 Jan 2024
  • Removed my reading highlights from this website.
01 Jan 2024
  • If there is no description auto summary will show in the blog cards.

Contact me

1 January 2019

Send an email

Comments? Questions? Suggestions? I would love to hear from you. Please write to binovarghese8120@gmail.com. I will try to reply as soon as I can.

Signal

If you’re on Signal and prefer to chat, my username is bino.02 or click this link.

I’ll read it

If you have a blog, or you’ve written something and are looking for your first reader, send it to me. I will read it.

Projects

If you like to suggest a feature or report an issue in any of my projects, please open an issue on GitHub against the repo (if you can), or send me an email.

Social media

Even though I’m on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X, I don’t check them regularly, and replies to DMs may take days, months, or sometimes never arrive.

Credits

1 January 2019

This site would not have been possible without the help of many open source tools and services, and I’m deeply grateful to all the contributors who have shared their work with the community.

Built with a JAMstack architecture, the site uses Hugo as the static site generator and is hosted on Netlify. It’s served securely via HTTPS, with a free SSL certificate provided by Let’s Encrypt and automatically managed by Netlify for seamless delivery.

Other tools used include:

Disclaimer

1 January 2019

Personal website and opinions

This is my personal website, and the opinions expressed here are entirely my own. They do not represent the views of any organization or individual I may be associated with. My thoughts and opinions evolve over time; I see this as a natural outcome of continuous learning and maintaining an open mind.

This blog serves as a semi-permanent snapshot of my thoughts at various points. As such, the views expressed in past posts may not reflect the ones I hold today, and may change as I continue to grow.

Technical posts

I often share technical posts, ranging from long essays to short notes. I treat this website as a digital garden, where content is constantly being refined, updated, and interconnected. These posts describe processes that worked for me at the time of writing. If I discover errors or find better solutions, I will update the content. I aim to provide context behind my decisions, but keep in mind that these posts are written primarily for my own reference.

I cannot guarantee that my technical posts are error-free, and I am not responsible for any harm to your systems, data, or anything else as a result of following the information provided. All technical content is provided “as-is,” with no warranty whatsoever.

Non-technical posts

In addition to technical content, I also share reflections on topics such as poetry, books, philosophy, travel, and life in general. These non-technical posts are for informational and personal expression purposes only. The views and insights reflect my experiences and research at the time of writing. While I strive for accuracy, I do not claim to be an expert in these areas, and the content may not reflect the most current information.

Readers should seek professional advice if needed, as my reflections are not intended to serve as professional guidance.

This disclaimer is subject to change at any time without prior notice.

Pages

1 January 2019

These are the pages on this site, paths that lead you to its many corners.

About me

  • About me — Get to know who I am.
  • Contact — Ways to get in touch, including my social media links.

The Writings

Other Updates

  • Projects — Things I’m working on beyond this blog.
  • Travel tales — Photos and stories from my journeys.
  • Movies — A list of films I’ve watched.
  • Photos — Random clicks, mostly from my phone.
  • Sketches — Occasional sketches, simple and silly.
  • Now — what I’ve been up to lately.
  • Uses — The tools I use, both hardware and software.

Library

Meta

Miscellaneous

  • The Wall — A place for posters and paths to different corners of the site.
  • Search — Explore the site and (hopefully) find something magical.

Sketches

1 January 2019

What I Use

1 January 2019

This is a curated list of the apps, tools, and everyday essentials I use for work and daily life. It covers everything from software I depend on, to hardware I love, and even a few small things that make my life smoother.

Hardware

Mobile

  • iPhone 15 Pro
    The color is Natural Titanium. I love switching cases every few months and have built up a small collection.
  • AirPods Pro 2
    These are my everyday carry headphones—what I love most is the noise cancellation.

Software

The below are the default apps I am using and this is inspired by default apps site by Robb Knight.

📨 Mail Client: Apple Mail
📮 Mail Server: Gmail
📝 Notes: Apple Notes and Obsidian.
✅ To-Do: Notepad and pen are working fine for me.
📷 Photo Shooting: iPhone
🎨 Design: Canva
📆 Calendar: Apple Calendar
📁 Cloud File Storage: iCloud and Google Drive
📖 RSS: NetNewsWire
🙍🏻‍♂️ Contacts: Apple Contacts
🌐 Browser: Safari for general purpose and Brave for work.
💬 Chat: WhatsApp, Discord
🔖 Bookmarks: Brave
📑 Read It Later: Raindrop
📜 Word Processing: MS Word
📈 Spreadsheets: MS Excel, Google Sheets
📊 Presentations: N/A
🛒 Shopping Lists: Apple Reminders
🍴 Meal Planning: N/A
💰 Budgeting and Personal Finance: Excel, ya its working for me.
📰 News: No, thank you.
🎵 Music: YTMusic
🎤 Podcasts: Apple podcasts
🔐 Password Management: Apple Passwords
🧑‍💻 Code Editor: VS Code
✈️ VPN: N/A
🗄️ Code Repositories: GitHub
💽 Hosting: Netlify
📖 Reading: Kindle (Nowadays mostly physical books.)
📓 Journaling: Apple Journal
🗺️ Maps + Driving Directions: Google Maps
⌨️ For learning typing: Typing club
🪶 Malayalam dictionary: Olam
✏️ Programming font: FiraCode

As we all know, we use many apps and software daily. Here, I’ve highlighted just the main ones, though I’ll add more if I come across something interesting. For more setups, check out the awesome collection at uses.tech, where people share their favorites.