March 2021 Recap
Tags: watercooler, showdev
Published: 2021-04-01 18:28:38

---
title: March 2021 Recap
published: true
description: March was the month I redesigned and relaunched my personal website (at last!)
tags: watercooler,showdev
cover_image: https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/80tcvdomyzvpyk7n3v5k.png
series: monthly recaps
canonical_url: https://alvaromontoro.com/blog/67972/march-2021-recap
---

This month was mainly occupied with work on my personal website. I have told myself many times, "I need to update it," and maybe have even come up with a design but never really completed it. So this time, I told myself it was going to be different.

Apart from that, I wrote an article per week, and I came up with a smaller/simpler version for the website (see below).


Here are some of the things I did during March 2021:


## Tech Things

### Personal website

[My new personal website](https://alvaromontoro.com/) is (finally) up and running! Yay! 🥳🤓😏

It is not super fancy (I am not a designer), but I like it. It's goofy but not as _childish_ as my previous design, which is nice. It is all based on the header (which was based on a different header I saw online):

![Screenshot of alvaromontoro.com header](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/0gie3hiapk0consgwqdj.png)

The site is developed from scratch using PHP, HTML, CSS, JS. And the data is stored in a MySQL database. It doesn't use any framework or library for JS or CSS.

Some features of the website:

- Responsive (three different breakpoints)
- With a focus on accessibility
- Played with Grid and Flexbox
- Tried different widgets
- Moved [my blog](https://alvaromontoro.com/blog) to it. I will keep posting on DEV, but first there.

Of all the things on the site, the one I like the most is this tab panel showcasing projects:

![screenshot of alvaromontoro.com project widget (tab panel)](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/a3mav0qqiqldsmyjhma8.png)

### Minimalistic version of personal website

This simple design is based on IBM Cloud ads. It helped me practice with scroll properties (like snapping or behavior), plus it adds some animations and responsiveness/accessibility features, which are nice. It won't replace the other design, but it was fun to develop, and I kind of like it.

{% codepen https://codepen.io/alvaromontoro/pen/rNjjJyE %}

### CSS Clippy

The only _fun_ thing I coded over the past month. A CSS version of Clippy, the annoying Microsoft Office assistant. And I [created a video about the process](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51ZJ5iResvw).

{% codepen https://codepen.io/alvaromontoro/pen/WNoJPvv %}

## Non-Tech Things

This month I mainly read comic books and graphic novels:

| Title | Author | Style |
|-------+--------+-------|
| [The Wonderful Wizard of Oz](https://amzn.to/3m7X0kO) | L. Frank Baum | Fantasy |
| [Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk](https://amzn.to/3cCv99l) | David Sedaris | Short stories |
| [Something is Killing the Children (vol 1)](https://amzn.to/39wKzdm) | James Tynion IV & Werther Dell'Edera | Graphic Novel |
| [Something is Killing the Children (vol 2)](https://amzn.to/3sFBDKh) | James Tynion IV & Werther Dell'Edera | Graphic Novel |
| [Asterix y Los Pictos (Spanish edition)](https://amzn.to/3cDcMAY) | Jean Yves Ferri & Didier Conrad | Comic |
| [El Buscón en Las Indias (Spanish edition)](https://amzn.to/31DS1yM) | Alain Ayroles & Juanjo Guarnido | Graphic Novel |

All the graphic novels and comic books were mostly re-reads, so it feels a little bit like cheating... but I am really enjoying the "Something is Killing the Children" series (great horror story.)

I really enjoyed the Wizard of Oz. I've seen the movie many times but had never read the book... and I must say is really different in some parts, and really interesting.