// portfolio & learning log

Building my first website,
and learning to ship it myself.

I'm Alex — currently teaching myself web development from the ground up: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and how to actually put a site live on a real server.

See my learning path Get in touch

About me

I'm a self-taught developer working through the fundamentals one project at a time. This site is itself a project — built from scratch and deployed on my own VPS, no website builders involved.

I like understanding how things actually work under the hood: not just writing a page, but knowing exactly how it gets from my laptop onto a server that anyone in the world can reach.

01website built from scratch
1VPS configured by hand
things still to learn
// toolkit

What I'm working with

The core building blocks for this project, front to back.

markup

HTML

style

CSS

behavior

JavaScript

os

Linux

server

Nginx

access

SSH

// the path so far

My learning journey

In order — each step had to work before the next one made sense.

01

HTML & CSS fundamentals

Structure first, then how to make it look intentional.

02

JavaScript basics

Making a page respond instead of just sitting there.

03

Git & the command line

Getting comfortable enough in a terminal to not panic.

04

Linux & my own VPS in progress

SSH, users, permissions, and a web server that isn't "localhost."

05

Deploying this site for real

Getting this exact page live at a public IP — then a domain.

// step 05, live

How this site actually goes live

The real commands I run to ship this page to my VPS.

alex@vps: ~/my-site

Let's talk

Following along with my progress, or want to compare notes on learning to self-host? Send a message.