Carl Parker, dba WebMonterey

Monterey Bay businesses and organizations run on WebMonterey, a managed website platform built for local marketing growth and AI-powered workflows.

[Carl Parker, dba WebMonterey @webmonterey]

WebMonterey v1 released yesterday for my client site framework. Officially stepped away from #WordPress after 15+ years to an all-in approach with:

@astrodotbuild sites hosted on @GitHub and deployed on @Cloudflare + @claudeai as a tool.

Breakdown in 🧵 ⤵️

[2 Minute Drill @TwoMinuteDrill0]

Think you can coach a game better than an NFL Head Coach?

Prove it with my new app.

https://t.co/Vvtegmo8fb

[Carl Parker, dba WebMonterey @webmonterey]

Been a #billsmafia fan since the 80s… it has been the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life.

#GoBills #BufVsLAR

[Buffalo Bills @BuffaloBills]

BILLS WIN!!!!!!!!!!

@MandT_Bank | #BUFvsLAR

[Carl Parker, dba WebMonterey @webmonterey]

Built a MCP into my Client Portal, setup a custom connection via #Claude Desktop (no API usage $). Now I can chat and take actions about Service Requests, Tasks, etc + PWA support with web notifications.

All running on my framework, powered by #Astro @astrodotbuild

[Carl Parker, dba WebMonterey @webmonterey]

@SeeSpect_ @astrodotbuild @github @Cloudflare @claudeai beyond the quality check it also lets me keep pulse of things and also expand if needed.

Like the url idea… was thinking of connecting branch preview urls to service requests also. Connect spin up a branch from request so it’s dynamically known from the start.

[Carl Parker, dba WebMonterey @webmonterey]

WebMonterey v1 released yesterday for my client site framework. Officially stepped away from #WordPress after 15+ years to an all-in approach with:

@astrodotbuild sites hosted on @GitHub and deployed on @Cloudflare + @claudeai as a tool.

Breakdown in 🧵 ⤵️

[Carl Parker, dba WebMonterey @webmonterey]

Trying this out… #claude

[Andrej Karpathy @karpathy]

We'll be spending a lot more time trying to understand the outputs of language models. A few thoughts, tips & tricks:

Writing. Something I've had success with: Ask your LLM to explain something in ASD-STE100, it's a controlled language specification originally developed for aerospace maintenance documentation. LLMs well-versed in this language and it comes with heavy constraints on clean writing style that I often find a lot more readable. Sometimes I've tried to soften it a bit e.g. ask for "80% of the way to ASD-STE100" because the spec is quite stringent. But even better:

Diagrams / images. Instead of writing, ask your LLM to create a diagram. These can be a lot easier to process, parse, and understand. But even better:

Web pages. Ask for output "in HTML" to get a beautiful, interactive webpage. LLMs are getting really good at frontend and can create beautiful experiences, animations, etc. But even better:

Explainer videos. The output format I am most bullish on is fully custom / bespoke explainer videos generated on any arbitrary topic. Experiment with things like "Create a 3b1b style video explainer on X. Use my ElevenLabs API key for audio narration". (you'd need an API key for the latter or you can ask your LLM to find you decent free alternatives that use your local compute). This is actually starting to work!

In summary:
- As LLMs get better, they will do more and more of the legwork autonomously, and a lot more of our work will rise up the abstractions into oversight and understanding.
- Luckily, LLMs can help here too because as intelligence and code are increasingly abundant, you can ask for large, custom, discardable software artifacts (e.g. web apps, video explainers) that would have never made sense to create before. Push the boundaries here and you'll be surprised.

[Carl Parker, dba WebMonterey @webmonterey]

I am debating on starting to publish more content of my journey away from #WP into using #Astro, #Cloudflare and #Claude AI.

WordPress will evolve. I'm not bashing it like many are. I had a custom theme framework, but the DX of hosting complexities & cost + staging was rough.

[Carl Parker, dba WebMonterey @webmonterey]

Copy is not coded into files, but json files for flexibility.

I'm an old-school webmaster. I manage client sites, not a fan of content editors due to code bloat, client learning curves, complications, etc.

MRR for service plan with unlimited changes + hourly for strategy work.

[Carl Parker, dba WebMonterey @webmonterey]

@danielhayesmith @mishterkurth Astro based.

[Carl Parker, dba WebMonterey @webmonterey]

That is the key IMO.

First step for me is the design token system for not just a unique start but for future consistency. Ive also just built in a private SiteAPI into my website framework so my client portal can pull those values for doing reports, graphics, etc with it.

Then when i prompt with screenshots of a mockup section i made or inspiration of something it can lean on the design tokens for conversion

[Carl Parker, dba WebMonterey @webmonterey]

@Cloudflare 👀

[Carl Parker, dba WebMonterey @webmonterey]

@astrodotbuild @EmDashCMS UPDATE: ported a few things over from an existing Astro site to a fresh Astro + EmDash v1.0 setup.

Giving me early ACF Pro vibes as when I built with WordPress, I used a custom starter theme, leveraged CPT and TAX, plus ACF fields / groups. No templates or builders.

[Carl Parker, dba WebMonterey @webmonterey]

Been building a lot of @astrodotbuild websites as of late. All content for those were built with json schema in hopes to support an editor at some point.

Maybe now that @EmDashCMS hit v1, it will be time?

Got something fun to play with today!

[EmDash CMS @EmDashCMS]

EmDash 1.0 is here. A secure, open Astro CMS built to be the spiritual successor to WordPress

https://t.co/0NalAS39nx

[Carl Parker, dba WebMonterey @webmonterey]

@EmDashCMS lol … nm just saw the next post. LFG 🔥

[Carl Parker, dba WebMonterey @webmonterey]

@EmDashCMS Will we see v1.0? 👀