By Nic Lindh on Wednesday, 10 August 2011
It used to be, publishing your content on the Web was technically challenging. If you weren’t a pretty hardcore nerd, you needed one to help you out, and you needed to be willing to cope with a lot of tsuris.
These days, it’s easy. Most Web hosts offer one-click installs that perform the twiddly bits of installing blog software like WordPress and then WordPress allows you to do almost anything you need from inside your Web browser. Easy-peasy, right?
The problem is the hackers, scammers, and general scumbags who haunt the Internet. As soon as you hoist a website, it becomes a target for miscreants. Even blogs nobody reads are attack targets. Loathsome people from all over the world want to take over your site and use it for link farming, spamming, spreading malware, and Lord knows what else. The solution is the same as with any software: You have to keep updating it as patches come out and keep an eye on your logs for suspicious activity.
Which very few people do.
So if you want to publish on the Internet, you need to ask yourself: Do I really want to take on the responsibility of updating my software myself? Do I really want to have to keep looking over my shoulder for hoodlums?
This is a lot like when your child wants a puppy and swears he’ll take it for walks every day! I swear! Think about it. Are you really going to be spending the time to apply patches and stay informed of security issues? If not, you paint a big fat target on your back for hackers and their ilk. It really, really sucks when you lose content you’ve sweated over because some tool wants to share the joys of his V1AGRA shop with the world.
If the answer is no—as it is for most people if they’re honest—you should not get a Web hosting account. Just don’t. Sooner or later, pain will find you.
Pain like getting an email from a reader that your site is just showing a blank page all of a sudden. Pain like installing a really cool plugin that will integrate your social-media-brand-awareness-seo and finding you can no longer log in to enter content on your site. Pain that will take many hours of tech support calls to sort out.
Instead, use one of the fire-and-forget services that have sprung up all over the Web. WordPress, Tumblr, SquareSpace et al provide built-in platoons of nerds who get paid to worry about all the geeky stuff. They update the software whenever exploits are found. They back up your data. They worry about the hackers. You only worry about creating content—the reason you wanted a site in the first place.
As to which one of the services is right for you, that’s a question only you can answer. Check them all out. Kick the tires. Do some googling.
Granted, you lose some flexibility going with a hosted system, but chances are if you’re the kind of person who gets sweaty palms at the thought of updating your content management system, you don’t need the flexibility anyway. Think of it as buying a Hummer just on the off-chance you’ll need to go off-road to take on an invasion of crazed Jihadists. You know what? It’s not going to happen. And if it did happen, you’d have forgotten to fill the tank anyway, so the Hummer wouldn’t help. But, to stretch the analogy past breaking, one of the many beautiful things about the Internet is that if you buy a Prius and decide, dammit, the Jihadists showed up and you do need the Hummer, you are not SOL—moving Web hosts and taking your data with you is a slightly annoying but completely doable exercise (albeit one which will involve a nerd or at least some calls to tech support. Nevertheless, doable). All of a sudden, there you are in your Hummer, ready to take on the world.
So if you have an urge to publish your content on the Web, go with a hosted solution that will allow you to get your content out there without worrying about the technical stuff. At some point you may decide to go with a more flexible solution. In that case, you can take your content with you. In the meantime, you’ve focused on telling your story to the world instead of spending late nights fighting technology.
Let’s talk about how fun it is to have a go-cart people mover.
Is there reason to upgrade from a 3 to a 5?
The Internet tells Nic to install Ubiquiti gear in his house, so he does, and now he has thoughts.
What I wish I’d known when I started podcasting.
Nic reports his experiences so far with voice computing from Amazon and Google and is a bit mystified at the reaction to Apple’s HomePod.
After a few weeks of using iPhone X I’m ready to join the congratulatory choir.
Nic is interested in smart homes. His contractor let him know how the wealthy are already using them.
A concise guide to getting started with podcasting, including equipment, editing, mic technique and hosting.
Apple’s neglect of the pro market is causing a lot of gnashing of teeth in Apple-nerd circles, but it’s true to Apple’s vision.
There is unrest in the Mac community about Apple’s commitment to the platform. Some are turning their eyes to building a Hackintosh to get the kind of computer Apple doesn’t provide. Here’s what it’s like to run a Hackintosh.
Car nerds are dealing with some cognitive dissonance as car technology changes.
The Oasis is Amazon’s best e-ink reader to date, but it’s not good enough for the price.
Nic buys an Amazon Echo and is indubitably happy with the fantasy star ship in his head.
The problem isn’t ads. The problem is being stalked like an animal across the internet.
The DS416j is a nice NAS for light home use. Just don’t expect raw power.
The Core Dump is moving to GitHub Pages. This is a good thing, most likely.
Thoughts on Apple Watch after half a year of daily usage.
Predictably, the Paris attacks brought the anti-encryption crowd back out of the woodwork. They're at best being willfully disingenuous.
Things to consider when planning to build a site on a compressed time table.
Nic provides some basic not-too-paranoid tips for securing your digital life.
Installing Jekyll on an EC2 Amazon Linux AMI is easy. Here are the steps.
After wearing the watch for over a month, Nic has thoughts on its future. Spoiler: Depends on how you define success.
Turns out “it's just a big iPhone” is a stroke of genius.
Some technical terms still confuse people who should know better, like journalists.
How to host a static site on Amazon S3 with an apex domain without using Amazon’s Route 53.
People fear change, so new technology is used as as a faster version of the old. This makes technologists sad.
Nic provides a lesson plan for teaching total beginners HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
Nic loves his Pebble and looks forward to the Apple Watch, but realizes he’s in the minority.
Nic loves books, but he loves their content more.
Nic is worried about the fragile state of our technology and thinks you should be as well.
Nic tries to understand the WATCH. It doesn’t go well.
Nic thinks home integration could be Apple’s next major category. Read on to find out why.
Nic is frustrated with his Kindle and would love to see Apple make an e-ink reader.
Nic delves into the shady computer enthusiast underworld of the Hackintosh.
On the Mac’s 30th anniversary, Nic reminisces about his first.
The iPhone was announced Jan. 9, 2007. It now occupies a huge chunk of Nic’s life.
Nic is very impressed with the speed of the iPhone 5S and iPad Air.
Nic tells you how to find a theme for your new site.
Nic buys a Nexus 7 to test the Android waters.
All Nic wants for WWDC is sync that actually works
Nic is ecstatic about the backlighting on the Kindle Paperlight, but Amazon has made some strange design decisions and there’s a display hardware flaw.
Nic makes a new ebook and is dismayed by the sad state of ebook publishing.
One of the equivalences of haircut and clothing on the Internet is your email address.
Nic outlines some of the risks of ceding comments on news stories to Facebook.
Nic is bemused by the sturm und drang surrounding the iOS-ification of Mac OS X.
Nic is creating an e-book. He shares what he’s learned so far.
Nic really digs e-book readers. No, seriously, he really digs them. And you should, too.
The future and now of personal computing is appliances. This post parses why you shouldn’t worry about it.