MennWebs.com - Built with Astro, translated by Gemini

Introduction

In the past, I tried writing blog posts in English, but I found it time-consuming and difficult to organize my thoughts. As a result, I would often end up leaving my drafts unfinished.

With my new project, Menn Page, I’ve found that it’s much easier to write short and concise blog posts in Thai. I’ve been experimenting with translating these posts into English using language models, and I’ve been impressed with the results.

Translation with ChatGPT vs. Gemini

I tried using both ChatGPT and Gemini to translate my Thai posts into English. I found that Gemini produced better translations that were ready to use immediately. Gemini also added some additional information, such as a note about the Vercel drama and the migration to Coolify. Overall, I found that I could simply translate my posts with Gemini, proofread them quickly, and then publish them to my website.

Building with Astro and Markdown

I’ve been enjoying writing my blog posts in Markdown and then pushing them to Git. This approach is especially appealing to me as a geek because it allows me to easily manage my content and include high-quality images. Astro then automatically generates webp versions of these images. I feel like I have more control over my data with this approach, and I know that my content will be accessible even if the technology changes in the future. This is much simpler than using WordPress (at least for geeks like me).

Hosting with Cloudflare Pages

Another advantage of using Astro to generate static files is that I can deploy my website to a serverless hosting platform (Cloudflare Pages) and forget about it. I don’t have to worry about maintenance, downtime, or hosting fees.

Theme and Design

I used the Dante Theme by Just Good UI for starter site, and Spotlight by Tailwind UI for cover inspiration. I also created some of my own designs, but I realized that I wouldn’t be able to finish everything before the Songkran holiday, so I decided to use some of the pre-made components instead.

100/100 Page Speed

I was able to achieve a Page Speed score of 100/100 when testing on my own device with a fast internet connection. However, when I tested the site using PageSpeed Insights, which simulates a 4G connection with lower speeds, the score dropped below 100.

Conclusion

I invite you to visit my website at MennWebs.com and let me know what you think.