Hosting

This is a blog hosted using an ElasticHosts container which is a dynamic scaling virtual machine that bills on the clock tick.

Tech

It uses Ghost, which I prefer over Wordpress because of its architecture. It uses JavaScript to dynamically create pages which are then cashed as static html and doesn't rely on a huge and complex SQL backend. If you've ever tried to restore a corrupted/hacked SQL DB, you'll understand why this is good, for a blog which is essentially static content. It uses Markdown which is much lighter than LaTeX or HTML.

Security

I've had a couple of blogs but they've all been hacked! I made sure to change the default SSH port and to also make sure all ports that weren't needed were closed. Once I'd configured it, I tested it using Nmap which basically batters the ports on a server and checks if anything is responding. When I checked I had to set a flag because Nmap didn't think a server was there, if you find something otherwise let me know please ; ).

Backups

I've also written a short script which backs up everything on the Blog. Ideally this would be run as a Cron job on a remote server but currently I just run it whenever I have written a few posts which saves paying to two servers.

Theme

The theme I am using is based on Breathe which is quite minimal but isn't Futura or another really common font/theme. The only issue is that I've had a some problems with the CSS being written in a brittle way.

I sometimes wonder about why when the internet (HTML) had been created to allow user to apply their own styles and enable screen readers etc... everything went away from that. Obviously it's branding and presentation but what I'm curious about is why the tools and ability to apply brand and style were butchered e.g. Flash rather than integrate with the designed systems.