Post APnzGIjVIB8obcZPlI by soapdog@toot.cafe
(DIR) More posts by soapdog@toot.cafe
(DIR) Post #APnzGH7tGXSZcfxrUm by soapdog@toot.cafe
2022-11-20T13:39:50Z
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Folks who enjoy having a digital presence, hear me out. This is a smol thread, a #PSA on owning your digital platform.Mastodon is amazing. ActivityPub is even more amazing. But federated infrastructures are not yours. They may be managed by cool people, by people you trust, but in the end if your online presence is important to you, and you can’t trust these instances or any social network to be with you all the steps of your journey.You need to have your own site. (+)
(DIR) Post #APnzGHkAyC5JXPsRAe by soapdog@toot.cafe
2022-11-20T13:39:51Z
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Your site doesn’t need to be fancy or be monetised or anything like that. All it really needs is to be yours. You need to be able to make backups of it and start a copy from the backups using a different service provider than your current one (this is so that you can be safe you can move it around).It is only on your site that you’re in control and have agency to be yourself without fear of having the rug pulled from under you.(+)
(DIR) Post #APnzGIF17Wkr54J4F6 by soapdog@toot.cafe
2022-11-20T13:39:51Z
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There are many resources available to learn how to do it. It can go from easy turn-key solutions being provided by third parties such as #Wordpress. Or if you have the will to learn a bit more, you can roll your own site using free tools that require a bit of tech skills.What I want to say is that it is easier to have your own site than it initially appears. Your own site can grow with you as your skills and needs change over time. You don’t need to know everything from the start.(+)
(DIR) Post #APnzGIjVIB8obcZPlI by soapdog@toot.cafe
2022-11-20T13:39:52Z
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For the rest of this thread, I’m going to list some resources that you might find useful but before checking any of them, I want you to know that the most important one is the #IndieWeb movement: https://indieweb.org getting familiar with the concepts and reasoning behind this movement will help you make more informed choices.(+)
(DIR) Post #APnzGJARg0gxxBAvku by soapdog@toot.cafe
2022-11-20T13:39:52Z
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http://wordpress.com#WordPress is the world’s most popular publishing tool. It is everywhere and I bet you can find a tutorial about how to use it in your native language. If you want the simplest and most straightforward solution to get you started, you can’t go wrong with their managed solution. Like a social network, they take care of running it for you, but unlike social networks you can export your data and take it elsewhere under your control if needed.(+)
(DIR) Post #APnzGJZy976nEL7JXU by soapdog@toot.cafe
2022-11-20T13:40:17Z
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Static Site GeneratorsIt is a family of different and independent software that all do the same thing. They pick some text files you write and generate a website from them. The advantage is that they don’t require anything special on the server to run. The files they generate can be uploaded to any web server.Github offers a ready-to-use SSG solution called Github Pages powered by an SSG called Jekyllhttps://getpublii.com is an easy-to-use app that is an SSG and can get you started(+)
(DIR) Post #APnzGK0CZa5mXhOGQa by soapdog@toot.cafe
2022-11-20T13:40:18Z
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The world of static site generators is vast. Most of them require some knowledge of terminals / command-line to use them, so be prepared to just learn a tiny bit. The one I mentioned before doesn’t.There are way too many static site generators to be able to compile a list.(+)
(DIR) Post #APnzGKVkgHKU7Y9SbY by soapdog@toot.cafe
2022-11-20T13:40:18Z
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You can also use some fancy web design application to create your website. This can be a double-edged sword because there might be no way to migrate your project from the app into another. I’m talking about applications such as RapidWeaver, BlueGriffon, and many others. If you’re a person more at home in softwares such as the Adobe Suite or Word, you might like those apps. I’d recommend using one of the other approaches in this thread though, mostly because of vendor lock-in.(+)
(DIR) Post #APnzGL1ImyZBhOuemW by soapdog@toot.cafe
2022-11-20T13:40:19Z
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Many blogging solutions have plugins to become a part of the Fediverse. People here on Mastodon will be able to follow and check on posts from your site without leaving the Fediverse ecosystem. Sum that with RSS/Atom, OPML, WebMentions and other cool tech and you can have a platform of your own that is not an isolated island but part of a larger blogosphere. A platform to last decades and be with you for as long as you want it to be.
(DIR) Post #APnzGLNzQciMplWm92 by borko@mastodon.social
2022-11-20T14:03:06Z
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@soapdog related: http://boris-marinov.github.io/text/
(DIR) Post #APnzGLrlduXAK7SYYi by borko@mastodon.social
2022-11-20T16:40:00Z
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@soapdog What I am seeking now is just hosting - stable hosting that will last long. What options do I have?
(DIR) Post #APnzGMJPz6eThsOdeq by soapdog@toot.cafe
2022-11-20T19:16:28Z
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@borko I've been happy with Linode for more than a decade. I have a small VPS there. People say good things about Yunohost and there appear to be some pre-baked scripts or images or whatever they use over there that allows you to quickly deploy a mastodon server.
(DIR) Post #APnzGMiwSD4Iz2L1RQ by borko@mastodon.social
2022-11-20T19:32:15Z
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@soapdog I want it to be free though, else it is bound to disappear at some time.
(DIR) Post #APnzGNHgN2rEimalai by soapdog@toot.cafe
2022-11-20T19:51:10Z
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@borko it is the other way around. If it the hosting is free then it is harder for the company to offer it for a long time. If you're paying it is easier since they have a revenue stream. I've been a customer for linode for more than 10 years and it has never failed me, while free products come and go.
(DIR) Post #APnzGNzHkvjgu0zaYS by soapdog@toot.cafe
2022-11-20T19:51:39Z
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@borko I'm talking specifically about hosting. The only free hosting I trust is @SDF