Advent of Bloggers 2021: Day 22

I am writing a blog post every day from December 1st to December 24th, 2021, about a blogger whose writing or site I follow. My aim for this series is to help you discover new blogs and to help get the word out about content creators whose blogs I appreciate. You can read more about this series in the inaugural Day 1 post.

@hacdias.com' Blog

Henrique Dias runs hacdias' corner, a personal website filled with IndieWeb features. I first encountered hacdias.com earlier this year when I was surfing the IndieWeb for new websites to explore. I was quickly drawn in to Henrique's site through its eye-catching and colourful backgrounds. There is a unique background on each page, often relevant to the topic discussed on the page. I haven't seen this on any other website. I love it. The idea that the background for each page shows the level of detail Henrique goes into when building out pages on his website.

Henrique's website has two main content types: social posts and articles. Social posts, of which there are many sub-types, are posts that are shorter in nature and resemble a status update or a thought. Henrique posts short notes, updates on what he has been watching on television, itineraries for his trips, and more. If you follow this content, you'll be able to kepe up to date with what Henrique is thinking about or doing.

Henrique writes regular posts on what he has been doing in the last month, in a similar style to weeknotes that I have discussed in previous blog posts. But, Henrique's monthly posts are usually shorter than weeknotes. They are easy to digest and almost feel like a postcard that has been sent to you. I love reading short updates from the people behind websites. These sorts of update posts act as a constant reminder that personal websites are designed to help us express ourselves. If you own a website, you can control exactly how you express yourself, more so than you could on a social network.

One of my favourite features of Henrique's site is his more page. This page includes links to all of the main content types on his site. Using this page, it is easy to find what you are looking for, from Henrique's blogroll of blogs he follows to Henrique's guestbook. When I am browsing sites, I enjoy seeing pages that list links akin to Henrique's "more" page. These pages give me a high level overview of what there is to explore on a site and plenty of links I can follow to do said exploring.

In addition to following the written content on hacdias.com, there are dozens of photographs from multiple locations and activities to peruse. One of the most recent ones was someone breathing fire. The photograph immediately caught my eye, evoking thoughts of wonder. My wonder extended both to the possibility of the scenario in which someone could breath fire and also the detail visible in the photograph.

I would encourage you to go to Henrique's blog and go deep. There plenty of posts to explore. You'll be amazed and intrigued by many of the backgrounds on the site. And, as a bonus, Henrique's site implements IndieWeb protocols. You can send webmentions and they will show up on Henrique's site. You can even submit an entry to Henrique's guestbook by sending a webmention. One more thing: @hacdias.com has a candy cane and holiday theme background on its home page for the holiday season (although that image may be gone depending on if you are reading this post after the holiday season!).

I shall see you tomorrow for the second-last edition of this series!