Updating my web hosting
For years I've had the domain jsweeting.me which has always been a basic website that contains general professional facing information about myself, rather than relying solely on an existing template from a service that could cease to exist any day.
The webpage itself has taken a couple of different forms. Initially a slightly too convoluted WordPress site with an attached blog. WordPress can be great, but it can do so much. It became overwhelming by paralysing me with choice. I could never get the blog right in mind as to what I wanted to use it for.
I often left it unattended for months at a time with information becoming outdated. I then made a dramatic change and cut everything right down, leaving only a straightforward home page and an accompanying bibliography page for my academic work.
This was fine, but I wasn't truly happy with it. In part because I was using my own domain to only link to a WordPress rather than host it. Plus, WordPress made the free version less attractive by letting visitors know very clearly that not only was this a free one, but that they too should create a WordPress account. Oh, and also they inserted adverts onto my page!
I then deleted everything and just used my domain to link to my about.me page while I looked for a solution of what to do next. I then discovered that GitHub could be used to host basic websites. This seemed idea, but in practice it was an absolute pain to set up. Not only the HTML for it, but also the backend linking with my domain provider. Plus, despite what GitHub said, it never provided the secure certificate which I had to do myself (see my previous post about having to fix that). It did the job, but I wasn't happy with how it functioned, especially as making any changes was a pain.
Then the other day when I was checking the files function on Fastmail I remembered that it too can be used to host basic (static) websites, just like the one I have. Plus, I'm currently helping out some close colleagues with their web hosting so I've been in the mood for playing around with more domain settings.
Initially I could only get the initial connection set up, but couldn't get the website itself to function, especially with the all important secure certificate. After an hour going back and forwards I finally got the settings correct.
As for editing the website itself, it is incredibly straight forward. I keep a copy of the files locally/cloud sync and I edit the HTML files in Notepad. Then I upload to Fastmail replacing the existing file(s). Job done. This is the straight forward solution (once its all set up) that I've been looking for.
Now I've got my two domains properly set up and being used meaningfully. I am also considering upgrading to the Pro option for this blog so that I can take advantage of the extra features and using a custom domain. But, I wouldn't get a whole new domain, instead I would make this the blog of my personal site. I'm not going to rush into it, got other things that need doing. Keep an eye out of blog.jsweeting.me. Maybe something neat will be there.
The webpage itself has taken a couple of different forms. Initially a slightly too convoluted WordPress site with an attached blog. WordPress can be great, but it can do so much. It became overwhelming by paralysing me with choice. I could never get the blog right in mind as to what I wanted to use it for.
I often left it unattended for months at a time with information becoming outdated. I then made a dramatic change and cut everything right down, leaving only a straightforward home page and an accompanying bibliography page for my academic work.
This was fine, but I wasn't truly happy with it. In part because I was using my own domain to only link to a WordPress rather than host it. Plus, WordPress made the free version less attractive by letting visitors know very clearly that not only was this a free one, but that they too should create a WordPress account. Oh, and also they inserted adverts onto my page!
I then deleted everything and just used my domain to link to my about.me page while I looked for a solution of what to do next. I then discovered that GitHub could be used to host basic websites. This seemed idea, but in practice it was an absolute pain to set up. Not only the HTML for it, but also the backend linking with my domain provider. Plus, despite what GitHub said, it never provided the secure certificate which I had to do myself (see my previous post about having to fix that). It did the job, but I wasn't happy with how it functioned, especially as making any changes was a pain.
Then the other day when I was checking the files function on Fastmail I remembered that it too can be used to host basic (static) websites, just like the one I have. Plus, I'm currently helping out some close colleagues with their web hosting so I've been in the mood for playing around with more domain settings.
Initially I could only get the initial connection set up, but couldn't get the website itself to function, especially with the all important secure certificate. After an hour going back and forwards I finally got the settings correct.
As for editing the website itself, it is incredibly straight forward. I keep a copy of the files locally/cloud sync and I edit the HTML files in Notepad. Then I upload to Fastmail replacing the existing file(s). Job done. This is the straight forward solution (once its all set up) that I've been looking for.
Now I've got my two domains properly set up and being used meaningfully. I am also considering upgrading to the Pro option for this blog so that I can take advantage of the extra features and using a custom domain. But, I wouldn't get a whole new domain, instead I would make this the blog of my personal site. I'm not going to rush into it, got other things that need doing. Keep an eye out of blog.jsweeting.me. Maybe something neat will be there.