Well, I went through Derek Sivers set up to create an independent web server that can host a website, manage my emails, function like dropbox and sync my calendar and contacts.

It took me a month, caused my Micro.blog services to stop publishing, and involved a couple of failed attempts to finally get it set up but I’m actually glad I had all that hassle. Because things didn’t work out, I had to troubleshoot (with the help of chatgpt) and I learned a whole load about ssh, linux, and vim. It’s now the point where I feel confident I could make massive changes to this set up.

It’s also been a great way to apply some of the simple HTML/CSS lessons I’ve learned from FreeCodeCamp classes and it will hopefully motivate me to do some more simple development.

Back to being 13

This all reminds me of being 13 in the website club at school.

I used the basic text editor on the custom windows PC I had built with my Dad to create a simple Star Wars fan site. Later I used one of those early WYSIWYG website builders (I wish I could remember the name) but I wish I hadn’t. At various points I’ve wished I had more coder chops to be able to get my hands dirtier rather than stick with boilerplate solutions.

Maybe this will be the start of a change? And if not, then I still enjoyed the process.

What’s next?

Right now, I want to make my simple site look a bit better and have some more basic data on it.

After that, I’m wondering about spinning up some simple web apps to replace other proprietary tools.

Ultimately, I’m hoping this will provide a way to motivate me to actually try some basic development again – let’s see.