Well after about 5 years of running this website, including the hardware in the basement that it runs on (Hardware that I bought on the cheap for less than $50), I have moved it off to a webhost. I have learned quite a bit along the way about Apache software and various operating systems that it runs on. From Windows, to Unix and Linux. I have run it all and noticed the differences, fought battles and overcame challenges. Lately though I have been running into problems by not having enough horsepower on the computer running it. Rather than buying new hardware, I decided it was time to move the site. This isn’t something anyone should notice, except maybe that things are faster.
I have run my own backups and have setup failover systems so that in the event of a crash, the site would still come up. I have also solved some pretty quarky issues here and there to get things to work. There have been DOS attacks (denial of service), there have been LOTS of spammers and even hacks. It has been a learning experience but running the hardware won’t be something I can do when we move to Rincon.
The internet to our house in Colorado was pretty solid/fast and hardly ever went down. That will change when we are in Rincon where even the water and electric are spotty, plus it fairly expensive to have an internet subscription and we are trying to elimnate costly bills. Moving the site to a hosting provider is a lot less expensive than hosting it myself and all the maintenance will be someone else’s responsibility. It will also serve as a resource as I will be able to setup sites for businesses and others.
Another step in moving on and letting go! I guess it makes sense that if we move to a new home, our blog should too! What other constructive activities will I do with the time I usually spent messing around with the webserver? I am anxious to find out.
