So I’m sitting here wondering what I’m going to do with this.
Geocities is shutting down their web hosting services by the end of this month. That is what I’m used to. I’ve been building, tearing down, and rebuilding a personal site on there for about 10 years. It’s kind of depressing me. However, I don’t know why. It’s almost been too much work coding and putting updates up for my family members and friends to see, especially since in the last ten years I now have:
- Social Networking via Twitter and Facebook that my family and friends access on a regular basis.
- Photo hosting on sites such as Photobucket and Picasa that has more photo hosting space than Geocities ever provided to build a full web page.
- Video hosting on YouTube that shows funny baby moments for my family.
- Web Logs such as this one to tie everything together.
All of these are meant for normal people. They are easily used without any knowledge of HTML. I don’t need to jot things down in Notepad, upload it, and start fixing it. I don’t need to change an opening frame, post an update. make a thumbnail, and upload everything to put up new pictures from vacation, a project I’m working on, or pictures of the family. I upload pics, send a mail, and I’m good.
So why am I upset that I have to ditch something difficult to use something easier?
I’m still trying to figure that one out.
I think a major part of it is, I like to build things.
Models, props, costumes, these things I do not have the room or the money or the time for right now. A website? That’s different. I don’t need any tools, I don’t need any glues. My workspace is a screen, mouse and keyboard.
Yes, I guess I’m still creating while typing things like a blog post, choosing what themed background I would like to use on Photobucket, and trying to think of a status message on Facebook, but that’s not the same.
I can’t design a layout, I can’t choose the colors or fonts people see, I can’t have one section designated for the Family, one for Hobbies, one for my lame brand of comedy.
In essence, I don’t feel that there’s enough freedom for me.
Oh well. I don’t have the time for freedom anymore.
Instead of freedom, instead of spending money on dedicated web hosting and a domain name, I am now working with a plethora of different sites. Where the challenge used to be in finding where I missed putting the backslash, now the challenge is remembering different sites and different passwords. Trying to tie everything together in the semblance of a cohesive unit.
Trying to update it more than once a quarter.
I have ideas on what I want to do, ideas on what I want on here. I know a lot of people use WordPress, so I’m anxious to take the time to figure it out, see what the limits of my freedom are.
I figure I’m going to set a goal to start of updating once a week with little observations about the site, and how I figure I’m going to organize this.
First things first, post this up and find out why WordPress thinks it 1:02 AM on Friday, October 2. It’s 6:08 PM on Thursday, October 1. :-/
T
troxellpack
