Digital Norseman: Musings

"One's own house is best,
though small it may be;
each man is master at home;
though he have but two goats
and a bark-thatched hut
'tis better than craving a boon."

Håvamål

Welcome to the Norseman's new home - his new domain

Finally it happened to me, too. I got my own domain name. And moved my site. Well, replicated it really. I'm still up in the old location as well. I'll be updating only this one site going forward, but will put in notification of the move and links to the new domain on the old site.

Took just a little longer to figure out the FTP hook-up than i had thought. I learnt one thing,though. It sure helps to dial in to the ISP before trying the FTP connection! It's far enough behind me now that I can laugh at it. Boy, was I ever confused there for a while. I wonder what tech support is thinking about their brilliant new customer...

The email connection got me stumped, though. I have some more tricks of the trade to learn, that much is clear. But that's OK, it'll come. Once it's set up, it's pretty much static anyway.

So why a domain name of my own? Well, it's a virtual stake in the ground of sorts. Vanity is also part of it, I suppose. But, an intuitive URL is certainly very convenient. It's pretty easy to remember www.digitalnorseman.com, don't you think? And I get more control over email addresses. I now have some short and sweet email addresses set up under my own domain name.

Another thing that is important to me is the increased control I get over my own site now that I am hosted under a commercial plan. Free is great and I was happy with the service I was getting. But free hosting comes with some strings attached. It limits what you can do with things like site search, cgi-scripts to interact with visitors and not to mention comprehensive web statistics about the traffic.

A lot of that stuff is not very important for a small site, I know, but things are changing. I am over the first part of the learning curve and am becoming more comfortable with the tools and the medium. I have a clearer idea today about where my virtual longship "Vidfarne" will be voyaging than I did a year ago when I was getting ready to launch.

At some point in the not too distant future, most everyone will have their own personal web site. It is still a bit of a novelty, but won't be for long. I have to confess I am enjoying the novelty aspect quite a bit.

There is something very satisfying about building things. For me, this site is very much about building and creating. I sit down in front of my Mac and fire up my various tools. Bring up page or maybe a template if I am starting a new piece. Find a suitable quote for the page. Maybe I make a new graphic and configure the image tags.

I write the text and do a preview of the new stuff in the browser, run an HTML syntax check and a link check. Looking good! So I fire up the FTP program and connect to the server. All my folders and top level pages show up in the window. I select the right folder on the server for the new piece and start the upload. It's done in a flash.

After a restructuring or when I add a new section, I have to upload the whole site because every navigation bar on every page must show the new section. That takes a little longer, of course, even if I can skip the images.

Then I switch to the browser, toggle my bookmark for the site and the pages start loading. Voila! There it is. My new stuff! I check the links back and forth just to make sure that nothing broke. And generally just sit back and look at it for a spell. Thinking about what other things I should be onto next.