Jul 15, 2023
Personal digital infrastructure I've been performing some long overdue computer maintenance activities:

  • I've had a server with Linode forever and been very happy. But I recently noticed it would periodically go inaccessible, perhaps after some idleness. Perhaps it had something to do with their acquisition. So I decided to switch providers.
  • Back in 2009 when I created my website I built it in Rails (backed by files rather than a database) Last week I replaced all that with raw html, generated with a tiny Lua script. It's nice to be able to unsubscribe from some mailing lists of vulnerability notifications.
  • I've been backing up my local laptop to my server, but that was causing me to overflow my disk. Cloud servers are a relatively expensive way to get storage. So I decoupled those concerns and now back up my laptop to rsync.net.

All in all, I'm much happier with my server. It's leaner, runs less stuff, and it'll be easier to move next time. With the way we've been seeing services degrade lately, I think it's useful to be thoughtful about how we cobble together our personal digital infrastructure, architect it to be nimble and easy to move around. If you keep options open you'll be less likely to need to use them.

This post is part of my Freewheeling Apps Devlog.

Comments gratefully appreciated. Please send them to me by any method of your choice and I'll include them here.

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