ilyess

Browsing the internet, I landed on the IndieWeb site and went exploring that philosophy. I wasn’t new to the concept, but up until then I hadn’t taken the time to dig deep and really understand what it was all about. I knew it had to do with microformats — conventional HTML tags bloggers use to annotate information on their sites — and POSSE — which in practice for me means posting here first, then syndicating to Mastodon. But beyond that, I didn’t fully grasp the point. So I grabbed a cup of…

Where Are the Posts? # When I first set up this blog I had big plans for it. I wanted to share my tinkering with technology and online privacy. The main goal was to educate and inform others. The first target was 10 articles in year one. I published 3. I missed the same goalpost the next year, and every year after. Why? Why can’t I write as much as I want? My High Bar # I’m not short of ideas. I have a stack of drafts sitting on the back burner — posts that didn’t make the cut. Wait, what cut?…

When I first launched this blog, I wanted a short domain name for it. A name built around “ilyess”, which is the identity of this site. Obviously, ilyess.com was already taken. So I turned to the cheapest top-level domain I could get started with. After some promo hunting, I settled on ilyess.cc. It checked most of the boxes: short, centered around “ilyess”, and cheap. But this domain name is on an uncommon TLD and it’s not that “cool”. At least I didn’t think it was cool, and I still don’t.…

A few years ago, I decided I wanted more control over my data. I was tired of wondering what Google knew about me, tired of cloud services getting breached, and tired of relying on companies that could shut down tomorrow and take my data with them. So I started self-hosting — not to be optimal, but to be in control. If you’re here, you might be thinking about doing the same. Maybe you’ve heard about self-hosting but feel overwhelmed by where to start. Maybe you think it requires a server closet…