It was about ten years ago that I first signed up for a Linode instance. My goal at the time was to use it to host a new website (johnkiv.us) and also be a place that I could do things like play with Ruby development or other programming tasks.
Over time, that little Linode instance grew to support multiple other websites (my father’s dental practice; Elyssa’s photograph business, Kivus & Camera; and, my Disney site, Rope Drop DOT Net). I also wrote a few posts that I am still particularly proud of, namely:
- Months that Lasted Year – A post about the two months after we found Elyssa’s brain tumor and her surgery and recovery.
- Best Disney Podcasts – Revisited – Where I first wrote about Mighty Men of Mouse. I would never have guessed I would become such good friends with Kip, Russ, and Dutch. I miss listening to those guys every week.
As time went on, however, I started “writing” less and ended up mainly just sharing links. In 2017, I stopped writing at johnkiv.us altogether. Also, during that time, my father hired a firm to design his website, and Elyssa moved to a platform specially designed for photography businesses. I would still write occasionally on Rope Drop DOT Net, but not as much as I would like. I would also think about setting up a new site for more general writing.
Unfortunately, my efforts to stand up a new site failed on several occasions. Also, I realized that I no longer wanted to deal with all the security configuration, updates, etc.. associated with running a Linode instance. Instead, I just wanted a place that I could write.
On a recent episode of the Six Colors, Jason Snell explained that he was moving his site to Pressable, a WordPress hosting service provided by Automatic (i.e., the people who make WordPress and Jetpack.) Though Pressable is more expensive than my old Linode instance, it took me about 20 minutes to get this new site set up (instead of the hours it would take via Linode.) Also, I was able to automatically migrate Rope Drop DOT Net over without any issues (well, issues that I have been able to find so far.)
Ultimately, this is an end of an era for me. Once I get johnkiv.us moved over (in some form—the site is so old, I wonder what the Pressable people are going to say), I will turn off that Linode instance I have been using for almost a decade. Maybe, at some point, I will decide I want to maintain a server again, but, for now, I just want a place that I can acutally write something again.
