I’ll reiterate to folks, I’m software agnostic. Open source and on Linux? Grand. Often closed source, straight from that-supposed-devil company Microsoft? Nifty. OSX and whatever you want to run there? Sure enough.
I’m just looking to get the job done well. There really are times when one choice is better in my work, and times for the others also. Each of us may have reasons to choose a ‘preferred’ system, or package type. This is fine – live and let live, and all that. (your day will go better if you start to adopt that; I’m sure trying!)
I’d like to briefly hit a fave topic – cryptography. I suppose it all started with reading books too early, but that’s another story and I won’t bore you with my vice. Suffice it to say, I was interested in simple transposition ciphers by the age of six or so, pencil and paper style.
Now we have other options. Which is good, as my writing is terrible. PGP commercial style. GPG open source style. Phil Zimmermann, with two N’s please! (kudos to Phil for making the world a better place)
Hushmail for secure email. Full disk encryption by TrueCrypt, among others. Much more secure VoIP that most other implementations.
Be careful of snake oil; noted security folks tend to frown on this and generally have a “doghouse” category for things that just aren’t right. If something relies on security through obscurity, it automatically fails in my estimate.
http://ocaoimh.ie/wp-super-cache/ is enabled, & stuff™. Blogs can chew up a lot of resources, so hoping this one isn’t slow for visitors. We’re all pretty spoiled in these here broadband days. Why, when I was growing up, we had to WALK to and from the internet. Up hill. Yes, both ways.
There’s a ton to do yet, to come even with a second grader in functionality and looks. That’s what happens when you’re years late to the party, hah!
There are a lot of options out there when you’re about to choose a web host.
On the low end, where I live (for my personal sites, at least!) nearly all are “oversold”. If they weren’t, you really would not like the pricing. A related example : shop around, check with any internet pipe provider, and ask them what a guaranteed, non-shared pipe the size of your home broadband would cost per month. Be prepared for some sticker shock.
As soon as I find some good comparison article out there, I’ll no doubt link it. So far in 10 months time, I’ve been pretty happy at Dreamhost, with multiple users and domains all in that same < $10 per month package.
General disclaimer : pretty much any link to any sales site, web hosts included, gives the referrer (your blogger, in this case) some form of payout just for bringing you to their door. A yup, I admitted it.
Well met friends. Like all of the cool kids, I too wanted to blog. OK, perhaps just trying to be cool. Or a kid. Or something.
Not that there will be astounding wisdom here (though I’ll post close approximations from others) but it’s both a technological process (learn-to-RUN-the-blog), and fun.
Sure, I could be smart and host this ready-made on someone else’s wonderful, free, pre-rolled spot. But noooo, that’d be much too easy; no .com for me, I hit the .org to get into both the nit and the grit. I need to dive into the php, and config files, and mysql don’t y’know.
Anyway, I feel sure this’ll be a great excuse to quit thinking about optimizing mod_rewrite sections (though Apache does rock). Browsing the DH wiki has been a useful start in the learning, as has Google of course, plus the WP site itself. API keys, oh my.
I’m sure lots of the tech will filter over into this, as well as the usual pithy comments. I’ll try to toss a gem out there every now and then of course, to help your nerves. As well as a few random movie quotes.
