How to Browse or Find Posts on jvns.ca

Updated

The fastest way to find writing on jvns.ca is to start from the homepage, which lists the 10 most recent posts and links to a full archive organized by category. If you already know what you want, use the category index or the popular posts list; if you want to keep up over time, subscribe to the weekly digest.

What the homepage gives you

The homepage is a personal blog index rather than a search-driven site. It presents:

  • The 10 most recent posts, each with a date and title. Recent entries include "Replacing the old battery on rechargeable bike lights" (Sep 27 2026), "Some more things about Django I've been enjoying" (Jul 21 2026), and "Learning a few things about running SQLite" (Jul 17 2026).
  • A link to every post ever written, organized by category.
  • A popular posts link for the most-read entries.
  • A weekly digest subscription for blog posts.

The page also points to Wizard Zines, where Julia publishes computer zines — useful if you are looking for longer-form, illustrated explanations rather than blog posts.

Browsing by category

The category view is the main way to explore older material. The homepage shows one category, "Cool computer tools / features / ideas," with posts such as:

Date Post
Sep 2024 Some Go web dev notes
Sep 2024 Reasons I still love the fish shell
Aug 2023 What helps people get comfortable on the command line?
Jul 2023 Lima: a nice way to run Linux VMs on Mac
Jun 2022 Notes on running containers with bubblewrap
Apr 2022 A list of new(ish) command line tools
Jan 2021 Server-sent events: a simple way to stream events from a server
Oct 2020 ninja: a simple way to do builds
Jun 2020 entr: rerun your build when files change

Other categories visible in the archive include "Uncategorized," which holds many of the recent posts, and a docs-related category covering items like "A data model for Git (and other docs updates)." To browse, open the category index from the homepage and pick the theme closest to your interest — command-line tools, Go, CSS, Django, SQLite, or editors such as Helix and vim.

Finding a specific post

  1. Check the recent 10 first if the post is new; the homepage list covers roughly the last year of writing.
  2. Open the full archive by category and scan the category that matches the topic. Titles are descriptive, so scanning is usually enough.
  3. Try the popular posts page if you want the well-known essays rather than a specific title.
  4. Use your browser's find function on the archive page to match a keyword in a title.

There is no indication on the site of a built-in search box, so title scanning and category filtering are the practical routes.

Staying updated

The site offers a weekly digest of blog posts via a subscription link on the homepage. This is the intended way to follow new writing without checking back manually. The digest covers blog posts; zines are published separately at Wizard Zines.

Common snags

  • Recent posts are mostly filed under "Uncategorized." If you are browsing by topic, older categorized posts are easier to find than the newest ones.
  • Dates on the homepage run into 2026, so the "most recent" list may include posts you have already read if you visit infrequently — the digest helps here.
  • Zines are not blog posts. If a topic you remember was covered in a zine, look at Wizard Zines rather than the blog archive.