I have been inspired by all the talk on mastodon of getting back to basics with web sites. I tried a Wordpress site by using the fedipress.au service offered by Shlee, my instance admin on aus.social, but I wasn't totally happy with the result because my little OCD brain just wants to be in charge of "all the things". So when Shlee offered to provide hosted sites to those of us who donate to his patreon (the Australian branch of the International Posters Union) I jumped at the opportunity.
It's been a stretch for my elderly brain to remember things I haven't done for a long time, like aquiring a domain name. A lot has changed since the beginning of the century when I last messed with this sort of thing. The option is now available for Australian residents to register a domain in the .au space, so I find myself in possession of lynfox.au, purchased from Ventraip for the reasonable price of $9.95 AUD. It may cost me more like $20 to renew it each year but I rarely buy take-away coffee and I don't eat avocado toast at all so I'm entitled to splurge on something that makes me smile.
Fortunately Shlee is on hand to manage the technical details of server management. So all I have to do is try and remember everything I used to know about html and css. I have spent a bit of time in the last few years converting the writing of a friend of mine into ebooks and POD paperbacks, so I still have a few of the basic skills required for ebook format, and I have a copy of CSS: The Definitive Guide, Fourth Edition by Eric A Meyer & Estelle Weyl, and after reading Chapter 13 a couple of times I now understand enough about CSS grid layout to create a simple, "modern", responsive web site layout.
I have spent the last week or so converting the main pages and structure of my fediverse blog into a more handcrafted version using php include files and some hints from Blake Watson's clever site for beginners HTML for People, and modifying the stylesheet from simplecss.com. Yesterday I got an access password from Shlee to use the IPUA hosting service and uploaded my half finished web site complete with "under construction" images in the grand tradition of the 1990s. Here are the steps from the Australian Posters Union mastodon post which I followed to get the site up and running. [I've added my comments in square brackets].
Register a domain with any provider
[I chose Ventraip because it is local to me - In the current political climate I've been trying to use products and services from Australia, New Zealand, Canada or Europe.]
Login to the enhance portal using the username/password provided by shlee
[DO NOT typo 9fives as 9lives or you'll get a Secure Connection Failed error in your browser - don't ask me how I know!]
Create a new site using your domain, or setup as a subdomain. "blog.shl.ee"
[I added the WordPress web site package (which includes PHP) in case I ever decide to us WP in the future.]
Update the nameservers on the domain or add NS records for the sub domain
[Login to your domain registrar's web site to do this]
Wait for the DNS to replicate globally (this can take 15 minutes or more than 24 hours)
[I think it took about an hour but I didn't check it until after dinner.]
Free blog!
[I renamed the index.php file to wp_index.php and uploaded all my files and folders which I had been building and testing on my linux desktop and you're looking at the result.]
The site is designed to be View Page Source Friendly too. So if you're new to html have a look at the code and the comments and steal anything that takes your fancy - that's how the historical web was built before big tech corporations and frameworks took all the fun out of it.
