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How to Start Your Blog in 2023

molodtsov.me

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Re: How to Start Your Blog in 2023

#171

Post by throwaway675309 »

fleddr wrote: post #157

Really weird that a very obvious choice, Medium, did not make the cut. I'm quite aware of how unpopular it is here on HN, but that's mostly a meme. It doesn't cost anything and there's no ads. Even linking your domain to it used to be free (sadly no longer true). It has a very decent writing experience and the out of the box design is simple but effective. It has a reasonable amount of customization. It has wide supp…

I feel like a lot of people here have moved from medium to sub stack. Also medium just sort of naturally gatekeeps your articles by eventually forcing potential readers to login to medium.

Re: How to Start Your Blog in 2023

#172

Post by troops_h8r »

margorczynski wrote: post #134

Can recommend Ghost self-hosted. Really good installation process and fine documentation with a big community around it - hosting with Ghost + Hetzner VPS my blog from my bio.

Heads up, it's failing to let me subscribe ('failed to send magic link email')

Re: How to Start Your Blog in 2023

#173

Post by onli »

criddell wrote: post #154
onli wrote: post #7

I honestly think starting a blog in 2023 is exactly as easy as it was 2004 (the year he references), if you take the easiest route: 1. You pick a cheap shared hoster 2. You buy a domain and connect it 3. You download a PHP blog system, like Wordpress 4. You unpack the files into the webroot, configure the database (or use a blog system that supports sqlite, like Serendipity [which I develop for]) 5. Pick a theme, ins…

I don’t know if you can still do this, but you used to be able to create public folders on Dropbox. Dave Winer ran a bunch of experiments serving a blog from a public Dropbox folder and IIRC, it worked great. If you are already paying for cloud storage somewhere, you might be able to start by saving your writing to a public folder. Instant blog.

No, sadly Dropbox shut that down many years ago. First the ability to host from there, then the concept of public folders in general (they are behind an UI now).

Re: How to Start Your Blog in 2023

#175

Post by anothernewdude »

fleddr wrote: post #157

Really weird that a very obvious choice, Medium, did not make the cut. I'm quite aware of how unpopular it is here on HN, but that's mostly a meme. It doesn't cost anything and there's no ads. Even linking your domain to it used to be free (sadly no longer true). It has a very decent writing experience and the out of the box design is simple but effective. It has a reasonable amount of customization. It has wide supp…

Medium is such a poor blogging platform that you need every post rehosted on archive sites so people can actually read them.

Re: How to Start Your Blog in 2023

#176

Post by warner25 »

lapcat wrote: post #106

I am the "weird dude who writes raw HTML" LOL. I had a self-hosted WordPress blog from 2006-2010, but security updates become a burden, especially since I had to modify the WP source code a little to do exactly what I wanted with the RSS feeds. After a few years of not blogging at all, I decided to use the simplest possible "system", which is writing blog posts in raw HTML in a text editor, as well as writing the RSS…

Oh my goodness, I just looked through your submission history to find your website, clicked through to a random page, and I was blown away by how fast the page loaded. I love it.

Re: How to Start Your Blog in 2023

#177

Post by vezuchyy »

BizarreByte wrote: post #147
flangola7 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's so many better options better than .com (commercial) .net .org .me .io .blog .info You can make it topical too .expert .engineer .doctor .camera .software Or have fun with it .lol .wtf .foo

Always worth considering your national domain if it’s easy to register. I use .ca because really why wouldn’t I?

There's a problem with a national domain: people move. My .me domain is registered in 2009 (well, I know that it's a national domain) and I lived in three different countries since then with a permanent status in the current one and without plans to come back to my homeland.

Re: How to Start Your Blog in 2023

#178

Post by warner25 »

schemescape wrote: post #153
lapcat wrote: post #106

I am the "weird dude who writes raw HTML" LOL. I had a self-hosted WordPress blog from 2006-2010, but security updates become a burden, especially since I had to modify the WP source code a little to do exactly what I wanted with the RSS feeds. After a few years of not blogging at all, I decided to use the simplest possible "system", which is writing blog posts in raw HTML in a text editor, as well as writing the RSS…

Mind sharing a link to your blog? I'm also a "tooling minimalist", but I'm curious how you handle things like grouping posts (or do you just not bother?). Assuming everything's not on a single page, how do you avoid tedious duplication?

I'm assuming it's https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/

As noted in my other comment, I looked for it out of curiosity too, and it's incredibly satisfying to see how fast it loads.

Re: How to Start Your Blog in 2023

#179

Post by naet »

How to start your blog in 2023: start writing. Upload wherever you want on whatever platform you want. You can always change it later.

Content should come first, before worrying about optimizing your static build or tweaking your CSS or moving to Substack or whatever else. That can all be done later when you've found your writing rhythm.

Re: How to Start Your Blog in 2023

#180

Post by keithnz »

warner25 wrote: post #176
lapcat wrote: post #106

I am the "weird dude who writes raw HTML" LOL. I had a self-hosted WordPress blog from 2006-2010, but security updates become a burden, especially since I had to modify the WP source code a little to do exactly what I wanted with the RSS feeds. After a few years of not blogging at all, I decided to use the simplest possible "system", which is writing blog posts in raw HTML in a text editor, as well as writing the RSS…

Oh my goodness, I just looked through your submission history to find your website, clicked through to a random page, and I was blown away by how fast the page loaded. I love it.

the other thing you get is information density, I can see posts back till midway last year.... on my large monitor on many sites, you can be luck to see the last 3. Scrolling, I can quickly see 10 years of posts. Fantastic
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