I think that should be enough for now.
The advice I got online suggested that for a professional blog, which I intend this to be, I should run my own (or pay for individual service), rather than depend on something like Blogspot. Wordpress seems to be the blogging software of choice.
My hosting service gives me full root access so setting it up was just a matter of following instructions. I did have to install MySQL, which fortunately is automated, and I threw in phpmyadmin as well. The rest was digging up some information I’d already learned to do some redirection. Any of the following URLs will work:
- blog.nonken.net
- bmb.nonken.net
- baremetal.nonken.net
- baremetalblog.nonken.net (default)
- www.nonken.net/blog
They all redirect except the last two. Eventually I may play with the appearance but for now this works.
My biggest complaint is the slow response to typing. It looks like every character has to do a round trip, and backspace is particularly bad. What’s worse is that backspace needs to be fast; it’s way too easy to overrun far past where you intended. On any other editor I can use the keyboard’s built-in auto-repeat and take my cues visually.
I hereby invoke the Principle of Least Astonishment. It doesn’t work as I expect and I don’t like it. I can tolerate it for now but it could be a deal-breaker; it might be enough by itself to make me try other blogging software. (It looks like it’s a function of my connection. Unfortunately I share this connection with at least six other people, and it’s the cheapest one I can get. This means that the software depends on you having a fast, reliable connection all the time. Still not good.)
In the meantime the temptation is to start blogging immediately. I have to restrain myself; I’ve spent several hours getting to this point, it’s not going to end up with a full set of insightful postings overnight. Time to relax and find something else to do.