Personal IT: Website & weblog

Having decided that I should have grown out of server administration by now, I needed to come up with a simple solution for running a personal web site. For me, the criteria are:

• Quick and easy to update, which in 2005 means a weblog.
• Minimal effort to maintain and improve.
• A site that can grow with my many ventures and changing circumstances.
• Minimal cost.
• Easy to backup.
• URLs and content that can last a lifetime.

All of the above is easy, once you decide that the site will be completely static. Static files:

• Never break.
• Can be easily copied or moved.
• Don’t need to be upgraded or maintained. Just because you like weblogs in 2005 doesn’t mean you’ll want to be maintaining some crazy weblog CMS written in the coolest language of today in 5 years time.
• Are incredibly cheap and fast for website hosting (e.g. Jodohost or PowWeb).
• Can be maintained or edited using your favourite tool of the time (e.g. FrontPage).

The only remaining problem is easy updates to a weblog. Enter another free Google service, Blogger, with a customised template and publishing via FTP to my preferred location. We can publish as many weblogs to the site as desired, while the infrastructure is maintained and improved for free.

So, the entire infrastructure for e-gineer is now the cheapest possible web hosting and a Blogger account. I’m haven’t looked back once.