Introducing My Site: A Home-Hosted Haven

Hey there, fellow cyber travelers! Welcome to my corner of the internet. Today, I'm excited to peel back the digital curtain and give you a glimpse into the inner workings of my website. From its inception to its infrastructure, I'll be sharing the story behind this online oasis.

Origins and Infrastructure

My site is built upon the sturdy foundations of Tailwind Next.js Starter Blog. I decided to take the DIY route and host it from the comfort of my own home, leveraging the power of NGINX for web serving. Why did I choose this over deploying to GitHub Pages or Vercel? Well, it all boils down to versatility and necessity.

You see, my home server isn't just a web host; it's a multitasking marvel. In addition to serving up these digital delights, it moonlights as my algotrading system (named "TailTitanPro") and even plays host to some Telegram bots (One of them is for my local book club, article here). With such diverse responsibilities, uptime is paramount. To keep a vigilant eye on server stability, I've enlisted the help of not one, but three free uptime monitoring services: UptimeRobot, Better Stack, and StatusCake. These trusty watchdogs alert me in real-time should my server ever decide to take an unscheduled siesta.

Handy uptime monitoring dashboard by UptimeRobot

Whenever I'm ready to push out a new update to the website, I simply run yarn build and then dispatch a command to my personal Telegram bot using update_blog_server_files. This sets in motion a series of scripts that seamlessly update the files in the web folder, ensuring my site stays fresh and relevant.

Privacy and Principles

Now, let's address the elephant in the server room: analytics. While I acknowledge the merits of tools like Plausible Analytics for businesses seeking insights into web traffic, my site marches to the beat of a different drum. Here's the scoop: I've made a solemn vow that this site will never be monetized. It's not about chasing clicks or optimizing ad revenue; it's about fostering genuine connections with the people I love interacting with.

Behind the Digital Curtain

Peek behind the digital curtain, and you'll find a couple more pieces of the puzzle. To keep my site accessible and secure, I've enlisted the help of a free DDNS service from noIP, ensuring that visitors can always find their way to my virtual doorstep. Additionally, I've embraced the security of Let's Encrypt by utilizing their free SSL certificates. While the renewal process has been automated thanks to a nifty script, I still find myself performing a periodic digital dance with reCAPTCHA every three weeks to maintain the subdomain.

And there you have it—a brief glimpse into the inner workings of my humble abode on the web. As I continue to tinker and tweak, I invite you to join me on this digital journey. Together, let's explore, create, and connect in this vast and wondrous cyberspace.

Happy browsing!