So for the past month I have been busy moving my web hosting to a different server. I have chosen Digital Ocean, an SSD Cloud Hosting service and, so far, I’m like what I’m seeing from them.

However, hosting my silverglass.net site with them means that I have to do all the back-end stuff myself, as it is not a shared host. I create my own server, using what they call a droplet, and I have to install the server software I want to use and everything else to run the site - meaning installing things such as Apache and PHP.

Usually that mean using the Terminal and command lines, something I honestly hadn’t done since college and was learning C++. (And yeah, I haven’t used C++ since college either, and have pretty much forgotten all I knew about it).

I’m glad a switched back to a Mac, since that meant I could use the Terminal that already came with it, and didn’t have to install something like PuTTY or whatever, if I was still on Windows. (Though I went and downloaded the iTerm app anyway, since I could customize it more than the regular Terminal.)

I’ve been reading the documentation forum on Digital Ocean as well as looking up tutorials on YouTube and, even though I had no experience at all in doing this stuff (I didn’t even know what LAMP stood for before I installed it) everything has been installed correctly and the new server is up and running.

There is no content there yet. Mostly because I can’t decide if I want to use a Content Management System (CMS) for the site yet or not.

And if I do use one, I can’t decide whether to use WordPress, or to use a more open source CMS like Wagtail.

With WordPress, not only am I familiar with it having used it for years, but the web templates I’ve already designed (and the ones I’m working on now), the majority are for WordPress. So it would make sense to use WordPress for my own CMS.

However, I’m really trying to learn more coding languages than just the more design-based ones I know (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP) and branch out into languages I’ve gotten a taste of in setting up this GitHub blog (Ruby) as well as setting up my new server. Wagtail runs on the Django script, a programming framework I’ve only just started reading and hearing about and have never used. Like with Ruby, I want to learn more about it, and when it comes to learning new things with regards to programming, I pick things up quicker when using the programming language in question, not just reading about it.

Learning by using it was pretty much how I started learning PHP. Only after I got the basics under my belt from using it was I able to go back and start learning more things by reading about it.

Plus I really like the open source movement going on right now. I think a lot of what I’ve learned with regards to coding in just the past year, as well as even just getting the idea of taking my site off of a shared host onto a dedicated one comes from the open source community.

The main drawback however is that it doesn’t look like Wagtail is used many places yet. Meaning it probably doesn’t have the thousands of resources and plugins that WordPress do. And I love WordPress’ plugin ability. They really help in giving me flexibility when I design.

So, in the end, I am probably going to stick with WordPress as my CMS (again, assuming I even use a CMS for my site this time).

However, I have just installed MAMP for the first time just a few days ago, and now have a localhost on my computer that lets me run a version of WordPress to use strictly for designing. (MAMP is another thing I wish I had learned about sooner; and again makes me happy I switched back to a Mac. I tried setting up and installing a localhost on my Dell XPS a few years ago, and ended up just making the MySQL I tried to install screw-up a bunch of stuff on my system).

Anyway, I think I might look into installing Wagtail locally if possible, if to just get a feel for it. Even if I never end up using it, I think it - and especially Django - would be good knowledge to have.

It really is never too late to learn something new. Especially when it comes to computer programming. This are forever and always on the move.

This is a test to get the .md to work