Thank you all for your comments and emails regarding yesterday’s post! This is exactly why I *don’t* want to call it quits or move to super-secure but extremely-lame LJ – I really, really appreciate the support and community I’ve found through blogging, and I don’t want to change that.
So I’m going to just toss a couple ideas out there. I’m wrestling with two problems right now: (a) complete and total blog ennui, and (b) the need for more security. Were it not for (a), I’d solve (b) by hosting my own blog. Or moving back to Typepad. But the cheapskate shoe lover in me does the math and says “Hey! That’s a hundred bucks a year! I could buy these Keens with that!” and that’s the end of that idea. Then the web geek in me says “Consider it an investment toward your education. Think of all the stuff you could learn by hosting your own!” and the idea starts sounding pretty good.
I’m going to let my inner cheapskate and inner web geek battle it out for a while. I’m also going to toy with the idea of solely using Flickr as my blog. Or I may just try to get over the whole scraped-by-a-pr0n-splog thing, stay right here, and not worry that my posts are infrequent and, to me anyway, pretty boring.
In the meantime, I’d welcome your thoughts on the whole hosting-your-own thing, if you have experience with that.
May 8, 2008 at 7:19 am
I don’t have ANY experience in hosting my own blog, let along even blogging! I tried to set up an account over at LJ yesterday so that I would be able to continue reading your blog and friended you, but for some reason I never got their validation email. WUWT?
I hope you will continue blogging and I hope that your blog being hacked was a one-time thing. I very much enjoy reading your blog and even ended-up ordering the four Camilla Engman prints for myself that I read about in your blog! I have “Listen” and “Spring” hanging in my office/craft room and love them!
May 8, 2008 at 7:45 am
In December I bought a domain name and signed up for hosting. I haven’t installed WordPress yet but I do intend to (I am slowed down by not having internet at home right now.) So far all I’ve done is rework the design I had used on my Simmons website and post those pages.
I’m not sure the $125/year that the hosting & domain will cost me is really worth it in terms of the kind of traffic I get, but whatever. It’ll be a good learning experience and I consider myself techie enough that I should be hosting my own, as it were.
May 8, 2008 at 8:39 am
I paid $10 to register my domain (through goDaddy) and about $40 for a year’s hosting (through Total Choice Hosting, which looks sketchy but was recommended by my web designer). I got my site design for free because the designer is a friend of mine and was building her portfolio, but there are tons of awesome free WordPress templates that you can easily modify yourself (e.g. change the header image).
So anyway, that’s only one Keen, not a whole pair!
May 8, 2008 at 12:31 pm
having your own domain has its perks, but its annoying because you’re your own technician. I recently switched to dreamhost for $99/2years. they have one click install for wordpresss and more bandwidth or disk space then you’ll ever use. You could always split the costs with someone and share a domain.
I personally struggle with keeping my blog persona separate from my professional one (not that I keep it a secret). Using my own domain for both these purposes runs the risk of the two lives being less separate.
I hear you on the ennui, being that its been two months since my last post. I could blame it on ravelry, but I know its not the whole truth.
May 22, 2008 at 8:32 am
Sorry to intrude, but I saw your post because I work with the TypePad team, and just wanted to suggest Movable Type. It’s free at movabletype.org and can import your WordPress blog, and isn’t prone to the same kinds of security holes. Just thought I’d throw the suggestion out there.