This is a better place to blog than Twitter
As I explore different blogging platforms, I'm learning that true automation is an illusion. I'm looking for cheaper options with less tech liability, while still remembering the debt I owe computers after being stung twice. Join me on my journey to find the perfect blogging platform.
Exploring Alternatives: My Search for the Perfect Blogging Platform
By Michael Levin
Sunday, March 5, 2023
Start several parallel discussions. Think them through in your secret public blog here on MikeLev.in/blog/. Talk about short, descriptive URLs, huh? It’s okay to thing things through out loud in your head through language, forcibly encoded through writing and shared via a clever chaining up of low tech-liability pieces.
Sometimes you just get tired of writing in 280 character self-contained yet still part of a larger Twitter “blog” thread. I’ve been experimenting a lot with that lately. I don’t like it. I just want to write. But if I’m doing that for the social media boost, why not just use Medium.com.
For that matter why not just stay on WordPress? Didn’t it win the blog platform wars for everyone who doesn’t want to use Medium.com or paid platforms like Squarespace? We’ll both WorPress and the paid alternatives have tech liabilities like keeping x-versions of PHP and plug-ins updated across y-sites.
I used to use the CPanel host, Hostmonster. It was a great deal for it’s day. Unlimited domain hosting for what worked out to about $400/year. Not bad for unlimited site hosting back in the day. But if you’re not using those dynamic site hosting features and your site is mostly just a static old school site, you could be paying much less to host all the same stuff but at a lower cost and with much less tech liability.
People don’t talk about it much but many things you build out of tech weigh you down and bind you. They are liabilities. Examples include the choosing of a database platform. Does your data need rows and columns or can you get away with just key/value pairs? Once chosen, data starts accumulating in a running instance and it takes some tender love and care forever forward.
True automation is an illusion. You might as well face facts right up front when you start to learn tech. Don’t discover these things 20 years in after being stung twice, such as I was. I say stung twice, first by the Amiga computer, then by Microsoft Active Server Page (.asp VBScript). But in reality, I owe them both a great debt. In the case of the Amiga, their kooky OS was based on TRIP