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Run Your Own Website

zacs.site

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Re: Run Your Own Website

#61

I do run my own site. Moreover, I do all the coding, styling, and layout manually and without any 3rd-party libraries or frameworks. Or even in-house libraries for that matter. This works for me in terms of freedom. I can do interactive plots, quizzes, games and all kind of programmable things I can imagine. No restrictions. In fact, I left Medium because I was restricted to text and images only. I want more. I want…

I like the design of your site. It's extremely easy to read, and there's no clutter. If I want art, I'll go to a museum, when I want to read I prefer a site like yours.

Re: Run Your Own Website

#62
post #36
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI your font-size is uncomfortably huge, I can see maybe 25 lines of text on my desktop screen. It feels like I should step backward a meter or two.

Enormous fonts is a trend in modern web design for some reason. I browse most sites at about 66% zoom. Get used to the Ctrl+- shortcut.

It could have something to do with accessibility. My eyes aren't the best, so that font is about the smallest I can comfortably read.

Re: Run Your Own Website

#63
post #16

Sheesh, 20 years ago I had a static IP, along with my own server running web, mail, and DNS servers, in my apartment. Either things are more complicated these days, or I just got tired of running it. Probably the latter. Then again, doing something like putting a downloadable file on Wordpress is difficult. It was easy on my own server. At least I still have a static IP and my old domain name.

While you can still do what you did, likely you wouldn't have a static IP - at least not here in the United States.

Most home connections have a dynamic IP provided by DHCP; now, usually, that IP won't change (probably tied to the MAC address of the modem or router) - but it can change. So what most routers provide is a way to report the IP to a service like "Dynamic DNS" (https://dyn.com/dns/ - which used to be free, and this is first I've learned that it's now an Oracle project - sigh) - which can then be pointed to as the DNS service for the site - so if your address ever changes, name resolution will still be available. Other settings in your router can do various other functions to route the traffic to-and-from your server.

Which is where it also gets tricky.

Most providers "look the other way" when it comes to servers, provided they don't get popular. They also block more than a few ports, so you have to work around that as well (mainly standard ports like 80, 25, etc). But technically, most TOS contracts with broadband ISPs forbid the running of servers, and they can pull your connection if they want to for that TOS violation.

The other option would be to sign up for "business class" service with an ISP. Sometimes you can get this with your current home ISP - for a massively inflated price (and usually a drop in speed if you want to keep the costs the same). But usually you are given one or more static IPs, and the ability to run servers is part of the deal. Not all home ISPs provide this service, but the big names (COX, Comcast, etc) I believe all do.

Some, though, might throw in another "catch": You can't have business service to a residential address. This will vary based on your provider; most have realized the idea of SOHO setups and the need/want for business class service for these home-based systems. But not all have. So you have to keep that in mind, as well.

Which is why, instead of going thru all of that hassle (and it really isn't a minor amount - on top of everything else you have to do to run a home-based server, plus security, etc) - most people will instead go with some other hosted solution, a cloud virtual server being the first choice for most today.

Shared hosting is still available, of course, but last I checked, you can't get use a letsencrypt certificate with these, depending on how they have things set up (you can still purchase and set up your own certificate - but that's more money out the door).

Colocation is still an option - but it tends to be (always has been) an expensive proposition for most, unless you're planning on using it for a small amount of shared hosting (friends and family?), or you run a business providing such hosting as part of a package (I worked for an employer who did this for his clients as part of the custom websites we built - but if they wanted to host it themselves or with another provider, that was an option). Or it might be that for certain needs it would be cheaper to build the server yourself and colo it, than trying to use virtual or cloud hosting for a similar system (or you want more control over the system - the ability to visit the data center to upgrade or fix issues can be useful).

So there are plenty of options out there for someone who want to run their own piece of the internet. Ultimately, though, aside from cloud virtual hosting services, they all require a fair amount of technical competence that keeps most away, and even those who have the knowledge sometimes don't want the administrative and maintenance headaches that come with the territory.

That can be true to an extent even with shared hosting. For instance, I personally have an old shared hosting account with Hurricane Electric; I was running a website using PHP and MySQL, and about a year ago (or maybe it's been longer?) they upgraded their servers to a new version of PHP that ended up breaking my website something horrible (my website was originally a way for me to learn PHP years ago, and it never got the love it needed ultimately). I put up a quick "site broken - sorry" page and left it.

But the truth is, I don't want to have to maintain even that; worrying about issues with PHP and MySQL, dealing with thoughts of potential attacks, making sure my stuff is secure, etc. For my site, for what I used it for, all that is a hassle. Which is why I have been thinking (but have yet to execute) about going back to a simple static site. If I need comments or discussion (which I don't know if that is necessary), then I can rig up something with an outside provider - but ultimately, my pages should just be simple static HTML and some javascript. Some basic CSS to make things a little responsive, and nothing else much. I've been giving thought to doing this on a DO droplet; it'd be much cheaper than my HE hosting, and give me a bit more freedom (plus I can use an LE certificate).

I think all of this is what holds people back, and makes them seek other simpler paths; they just want to get something up and shown to the world, they don't want to deal with all the technical issues, they don't want to have to worry about security, and they don't want to have to deal with other complexities. This is why sites like Medium, and other providers (QIX, etc) have been so successful; they have removed such strain from the equation. Of course, it has come with more than a few visible, and at times hidden, costs, that content creators (and users) are beginning to experience, and more importantly, understand what they have given up.

We're probably in the process - or right on the edge - of yet another shift in "content hosting" for lack of a better term. Between the censoring on platforms, and other reasons, there is some shuffling going on it seems. What I honestly hope comes out of this is a move to distributed content (so-called "distributed web", for instance) - but I don't think things are quite there for people to really use it (though some distributed platforms I have seen really seem to be right on the cusp for adoption - if they can just market it right).

Re: Run Your Own Website

#64
post #31

I do run my own site. Moreover, I do all the coding, styling, and layout manually and without any 3rd-party libraries or frameworks. Or even in-house libraries for that matter. This works for me in terms of freedom. I can do interactive plots, quizzes, games and all kind of programmable things I can imagine. No restrictions. In fact, I left Medium because I was restricted to text and images only. I want more. I want…

FYI your font-size is uncomfortably huge, I can see maybe 25 lines of text on my desktop screen. It feels like I should step backward a meter or two.

And on the other hand, I'm running a 12" notebook at 1080p with no scaling, and I find the text to be exactly the right size. If anything, I'm tempted to zoom in a notch or two.

Zooming on the web is a critical feature to me. I find pages all the time with nearly unreadably small text, and occasionally with text too large for me. Firefox remembers zoom levels for me, so I only have to adjust once per site, usually.

This is not meant to be a criticism, just sharing another experience for your awareness. Based on your comment, I don't think the author could make both of us simultaneously happy.

Re: Run Your Own Website

#65
"your website as a record" resonates with me. I recently redesigned my website (which is online since 2001) and one new feature I added is a random button. Clicking it will open a random page which is often a blog post I wrote many years ago. It's easily the most fun feature for me personally as it makes me remember things of my life... I don't know how much other visitors use or like it. If you want, give it a try at https://www.splitbrain.org - it's the dice in the menu.

Re: Run Your Own Website

#66
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it really is that simple, if you are taking about a “website”, not a “web application” or some sort of “platform”. Learn to do it by hand or you will forever be dependent on tools. VSCode or Atom is what everyone seems to be using but the more you are able to treat it as a text editor the better you will be. But since you say you are comfortable with programming, then a static site generator might be interesting…

You seem to not understand what I’m asking. I have Atom, VSCode, Sublime, JetBrains, ... I know vi and Emacs. I’ve programmed websites in Perl, Python, Java, Go, ... I didn’t realize we differentiate between applications and sites these days. In 2019, I’m one person who is willing to start with a clean slate. What current tools should I choose so, as one person, I’m most productive 6 months from now, once I’ve master…

You're looking for buzzwords when the parent is trying to give you a stack that has worked worked for decades. You bringing up the "Beating the Averages" post isn't relevant.

Re: Run Your Own Website

#67
post #41

For my personal websites, I only ever tried wordpress around 10 years ago before I built my own from scratch. https://idiallo.com What I find interesting is that a swat of new developers thinks that the only options are: 1. free hosting with lock-in platforms (medium, blogger, ...) 2. Clever hacks (github, netlify, cloudflare...) 3. Expensive hosting ($40/m+) The alternative is to use shared hosting for simple conten…

I use the “clever hacks” because I’m afraid of one of my blog articles getting linked to on Reddit. Even if there are no ads on my site, I want it to stay up and readable, and I don’t want to suddenly get an egress-bandwidth bill in the process! Also, despite having done ops for years, I don’t want my continued willingness to do ops (as with DO/Linode/Vultr) or my continued usage of my small municipal ISP (or even my…

> I want my works to outlive me!

I don't share your confidence in GitHub or the other "hacks" outliving you: after all, they are free services that might go away at any point.

Re: Run Your Own Website

#68

At least own your domain name and be able to easily move your website content to whereever you want. I think for most people it's cheaper and more convenient to use a hosting service, and that's fine... as long as you can change hosting services. I've had my personal site ( https://dwheeler.com ) since 1999. As noted in https://dwheeler.com/aboutsite.html my site has been hosted on 4 different systems, and I'm sure t…

> At least own your domain name

I agree and I have a story to add to this.

Despite there being a couple ways to spell my first name and literally dozens of ways to spell my last name, I share the same name as a rock star of similar age as myself down to the letter.

While I do understand I didn't necessarily need a ".com" TLD URL and that I had other TLD options, it was the first availability I checked for obvious reasons; this is how I discovered my semi-famed name-double. I eventually went with a ".net" TLD URL of my name and it's turned out alright so far -- and it makes perfect sense to me that my alternate actually should have the ".com" version instead of myself. I'm content, likely even happy, with how things turned out.

Enter SEO stage left.

Re: Run Your Own Website

#69
I totally agree with this. While running and maintaining your own website isn't trivial enough yet that _anybody_ can just up and do it, it's definitely something most anyone willing to spend a weekend can pick up and learn, with maybe a bit of help.

Been considering moving towards a static site generator setup myself, and is currently looking at Gatsby.

I'm curious though --- barring preference for language, which generator would you recommend? I keep hearing about Jekyll, Hugo, Gatsby, etc. but haven't really come across any objective comparisons between options.

Re: Run Your Own Website

#70
> Under my definition, you must have 1) total control over your content, and 2) the ability to make it public or private at any time.

I run my own website (https://saagarjha.com, naturally) but I can't guarantee either of these. My host (GitHub Pages) can take down my content at any time if I annoy them enough, and once I make something public I don't suffer from the misconception that I can make it private again. I can, however, rehost my content (crucially, at the same "location"), which I think is nearly good enough.

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