Just in Time
Just in Time
Time For A Change
I have had some sort of website since the 1990s. Most of these used some sort of CMS underneath. Of course, in the beginning, there was HTML with tables used for layout. Later came Drupal, BlogCFC (based on Coldfusion!), and others like Joomla that didn't really "click" with me. Finally I caved in and used Wordpress for a number of years. The previous version of this blog ran a full blown portfolio site hosted on Siteground. However, a number of things began to change that made me see that it was finally time for a change.
Wordpress got in the way.
Wordpress (WP) has always been a jumble of plug-ins and updates and people trying to exploit vulnerabilities. A portfolio site really doesn't need to have user accounts so at least I mostly avoided dealing with that. Still, the constant maintenance can be wearing on a single person.
Then came the political mess between WP and WP Engine. Let's just say that things got weird with the project management. I won't try to explain here but if you are interested Techcrunch [1] has a good explanation of the drama. It was enough for me to wonder about the stability of the platform for me.
The cost of hosting also became more than I needed. I no longer needed a fancy site so I no longer needed fancy hosting. Moving away from WP allowed me to cut my hosting costs in half while giving me more control over my server.
Technology
I entered the technology world oh so long ago because I wanted to learn, first about electronics then a bit later about computers. It was a heady time when I spent a year and a half learning electronics and how to fix high end aircraft weapons systems for the Navy. Back then they really took the time to give you a very in depth knowledge of just about every electronic and electro-mechanical device out there. Soon I came across some of the early personal computers from Apple, Atari, Commodore, and others. I was even introduced to Unix based systems. Unfortunately I didn't really get the significance of that opportunity until much later. It was a shame because it would have really made me a gray beard.
Then along came Linux and I was hooked. I spent way too much time getting Slackware to work with the CDROM in the Packard Bell 486 I had. It was frustrating at the time but I really learned how operating systems worked with CDROMs.
Fast forward to today and electronics aren't even fixed routinely, nevermind training techs to do it. If they are fixed the techs just do what the computer tells them to do. Similarly so much software is done at such a high level that you can't even see the details, forget about manipulating them. AI will just make this worse with vibe coding and such.
I want to learn again, I want to be in control. This site is part of that journey.
PHP and Frameworks
The PHP2Shell vulnerability just proves that my decision to strip down was right. I'm serving up a static site to get away from complexity and vulnerabilities of scripting languages and frameworks. The problems with these is that you can do everything absolutely right and someone will hack you through a supply chain exploit you have no control over.
I'm here to save money, be more secure, and learn. I'll let you know how that goes. I'll also figure out what this site will be, eventually.