Updated June 8th, 2023 --- (Latest revision: April 14, 2024)
(This is a now page. And if you have your own site, you should make one.)
This is my own, handcrafted website.
Recently, I found myself thinking about how much I rely on "the cloud" for so many things. Work. Personal photos. Contacts. Calendar. These are the services many of us use every day. I can't presume to speak for you, but I found myself using most of these services as-is, right out of the box with no questions asked. And sure, the tech giants (Apple, Google, and so on) seem to be doing me/us a solid by offering to take care of my/our data. But, something about allowing them today that without question didn't sit right with me.
And so, I decided to try to set up and manage my own servers for:
I am not "anti-cloud" or opposed to companies that provide such services – I still use some of them for a couple things I can't (yet) do without. Instead, it's about embracing a more self-sufficient approach. It's more about trying to do something myself and about understanding what's going on "under the hood". Rather than just accepting these services that the big companies provide, I can know something about what goes into these technologies and decide whether I want to "buy into" a given tech service.
Plus, it's just fun. I've really enjoyed the process. While I have dabbled in HTML, JavaScript, and other tools over the years, this marks my first time coding an entire site myself. It is very simple for now, but I look forward to growing it and keeping it up!
If you're interested in doing the same, I'd recommend checking out Derek Sivers' excellent step-by-step guide. You can hear Derek's point of view on tech independence and other ideas on his most recent interview on the Tim Ferriss Show and the first chapter of his book of joyfully contradictory philosphies, How to Live. The interview especially resonated with me and is the reason I finally saw this project as doable.
Now that I have made some progress on this project, I think I'll turn my attention back to playing and writing music for a while. Feel free to check in occasionally if you're interested.
