Novem Corner is now Live!
Hello! I’m happy to announce that this website is now live! This was one heck of a ride getting setting everything up.
In this blog post, I will tell you the tale of hosting my first website.
My Motivation
I wanted to make a personal website where I can blog about stuff and share my own artworks*, I have been looking to get into the Indie Web.
*This website is in Alpha stage, so Art Catalog is not implemented yet.
I have two reasons why I want to do that:
One, to reject the modern web where it is full of ads, AI slop, privacy invasive tracking and now wanting your government-issued ID.
Two, out of my apprehension toward social media and just lack of good options. DeviantArt used to be a good place to put your artworks here, however this platform got very enshittified, it is very pro-AI which is really baffling for a platform that is art-oriented and many artists left the platform for good reasons.
Artists mostly use Instagram to publish their artworks… yeah this isn’t really any better as Instagram is owned by Meta and is probably training your artworks to feed into AI anyways. Other than that? You don’t really have many options to put your artworks.
Some people use Twitter (and no I’m not calling X) to publish their artworks, ehhhhhhhhhh…. yeah not only Twitter is owned by a billionaire but I don’t really like the vertical feed with infinite scrolling, I feel like you can’t really organize your artworks and it gets pretty messy.
Speaking of which, I have been using Mastodon to publish my artworks and although it is one of the better social media, it still has the same issues as Twitter where your artworks are laid out in a vertical feed, leading to very messy organization. I want a platform where your artworks are laid in a grid, complete with pagination but the closest is DeviantArt (which is unfortunately pro-AI) and Instagram (you know what), but outside of that? You don’t really have a lot of good options, and it kind of lead me to build my own website because that way I decide how content should be organized.
What I want from a website?
I want my website to have a blog and an art gallery. I was feeling anxious about how this could be implemented, my thoughts would be to use a database engine for blogs and artworks, however I asked the Fediverse about it and some people pointed me in the right direction which is to use a static site generator. I went with Jekyll. I think going the database route would made it a lot more complicated, so I’m grateful for static site generators.
The Guidelines
Because my motivation behind making a website is to reject the modern internet, there are a few guidelines that I set out for myself.
I want to avoid using services that are controlled by big tech. When it comes to static websites, the easiest way to deploy is through
code-hosting platforms like GitHub. Unfortunately, GitHub SlopHub is controlled by Microsoft and Microsoft is a big tech.
Wait, what’s wrong with using GitHub?
Well, Big Tech such as Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta (formerly named Facebook) are who they ruined the internet. They made the internet more closed down, more privacy invasive and if this isn’t enough to show that their goal is to control the internet, they lobbied for ID verifications laws which have serious privacy and human freedom concerns.
I do feel that by using a platform that is controlled by big tech, I am depending on big tech which isn’t what I want, and I feel it is against the spirit of the indie web which is to reject the modern web, the web that is controlled by big tech. I am depending on tech companies that made the internet worse.
The Journey of Making a Website
So I started a development project with Jekyll. I followed the step by step tutorial from Jekyll official documentation, then I started a real project, occassionally referring the documentation as I need it.
Let me tell you, it was a joy to write HTML code and seeing Jekyll do its magic.
I do find myself struggling writing CSS as there are some gaps in my knowledge, but I ended up making the website looks the way I want it to.
The Art Gallery Challenge
A question that I ask to myself, is it possible to implement an art gallery? The answer to this, yes this is possible!
There are a few ways to implement this:
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There is a plugin that generates a gallery. However, the drawback is that it doesn’t support pagination but also, GitHub Pages doesn’t support plugins unfortunately.
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There are ways to do this manually, this is one of them. The advantage is that you have more control over the design and you might be able to use pagination if you use
jekyll-paginate-v2plugin (side note: this plugin is NOT supported on GitHub Pages).
I’m most likely going to go for the latter as I like to have the control.
And… cut!
Yeah, I decided that I would release the website in an alpha stage because I was starting to get fatigued, I worked really hard on an earlier project which is a web game, so not only I was tired from writing HTML and CSS but I was tired of programming in general and I would like to pay attention to my other hobbies such as drawing.
And I need to figure out hosting which is a big thing. Oh boy…
Web Hosting
So, this is the part where I am the most anxious about, web hosting.
If your website is static, the easiest way to host is to use GitHub Pages… except I don’t want to use GitHub Pages.
So what else should I use?
I looked into other options:
Codeberg
I looked at Codeberg which is an European alternative to GitHub, it’s not owned by Big Tech.
My concerns with Codeberg is the license requirement, as per Terms of Service, from what I understand, they require your codebase to be under a free license, not only that but the assets must also be under free culture license such as Creative Commons.
Copyright licences of this kind are referred to as ‘licences for free and open source software, free and open source hardware, or free cultural works’. Examples of such licences include those created or approved for free software projects by the Free Software Foundation, for open source projects by the Open Source Initiative, and for free cultural works by Creative Commons. Note, however, that the Creative Commons licences with Non-Commercial (NC) or No Derivatives (ND) restrictions are not licences for free cultural works and thus do not fulfil the licensing requirement.
I don’t mind the codebase being open source, but I do mind my artworks being under Creative Commons. I would like to hold the copyright to my artworks.
With that being said, I’m not that protective over my artworks, for instance I don’t mind if people make a fanart of my characters, even though my characters might be under copyright.
I’m a music composer and because I grew up with the internet, I understand the importance of internet cultures, so while my musics might be under copyright, I don’t mind if a YouTuber uses my music and even monetize it (if the focus of the video isn’t all about my music)
However, I do mind people recoloring, reposting, tracing and stealing my artwork to feed into AI machine. This isn’t a “do what the heck you want” type of thing.
However, I read the Terms of Service further and it seems like maybe… I might be OK
As an exception to this requirement, works which primarily describe the personal opinions or experiences of the author, or which embody the unique personal creative spirit of the author, may be included in public repositories under a copyright licence which does not allow modification and/or commercial use, such as a Creative Commons licence with NC or ND restrictions.
If I read that correctly, that means that I could put my artworks under copyright
Actually, hold on, I may have misread it. I think I read “copyright license” and stopped here, and went like “oh cool I can copyright my artwork” but I think your works still need to be under Creative Commons license, however they do allow your work to be under more restrictive copyright license such as Creative Commons Non-Commercial and Creative Commons Non-Derivative
But considering that I said that I’m not that protective over my artworks, maybe I’m probably not going to mind my artworks being under Creative Commons.
Side note: I thought that by putting your artworks under Creative Commons, that AI scrapers could scrape your artwork and you can’t do anything about it because you permitted others to reuse your work. However, I think AI scrapers still violate CC-BY license and that is because these license requires you to give attribution. Except, AI scrapers don’t give attribution to your work!
Another thing to consider is that Codeberg offers less storage than GitHub which is 750MB instead of 1GB. The most noticeable is the LFS, GitHub offers 10GB of LFS, Codeberg offers 1.5GB. This may seem like little, but considering that my artworks are usually 2MB in size, it would take over 500 images to hit the cap. It would take a long time to reach that cap.
But it does offer less storage. Codeberg is a small business after all…
Neocities
If you are new to web development and you want to get into the indie web. Neocities is the best platform to go for.
Yeah… unless Neocities supports Git, if you use a static site generator… it might be possible to bring your files generated by the SSG over to Neocities, but thing is… SSG has great synergy with Git because of Continous Integration and Webhooks. Without those, you’ll have to manually transfer the files and it just seems… bad.
Maybe Neocities supports Git? I haven’t looked into it, if you know about it, feel free to let me know!
Netlify
I looked at Netlify and already they boast about being AI-ready which already makes me want to not use it.
I don’t know much about it, so I can’t say much…
Traditional Web Hosting
I looked into traditional web hosting, yeah… this led to an analysis paralysis. Basically, you would rent a server from hosting providers like Netcup.
Except that there are two ways you could host your static website.
Special Web Hosting Plan
Some providers offer a special plan specifically for web hosting which is cheaper than renting a VPS. They do a bunch of tasks such as domains, mail servers, encryption and so on…
I don’t know, the thing is, they offer databases and mail servers and I feel like it’s just unnecessary bloat if you just want a static website.
VPS
You can host your static website on a VPS. I talked about it on a neurodivergent Discord server. I was about to go for this route because a VPS is minimal and you can bring stuff that you really need, however one person cautioned against it.
This is because a VPS, you’re on your own, you’ll have to configure everything such as security, firewall, daemons and it’s a lot of work just so your static website is accessible to anyone.
Analysis Paralysis and Anxiety Spiral
When thinking about how I should host my website. I was in an anxiety spiral, my head was not clear and It feel like my brain is stuck in an infinite while loop that I can’t get out of. My dad often tells me that “I ask too many questions”
I just have so many questions and it doesn’t help that I have social anxiety, Does Codeberg allows PG-13 artworks and blog posts about more sensitive topics like mental health? Should I really use the repository to put my artwork files, or is it just a bad idea?* Should I go with something like Codeberg Pages, GitHub Pages? Statichost? Or would I be better off going with a VPS? If I go with a VPS, is there a way to automate the process of updating the website? Can I easily move my website away from GitHub or Codeberg if it turns out that it’s not working out for me?
*one person in the autistic Discord server recommended against putting MBs of artwork files into the repository
I have so many questions, yet so little answers.
When I was thinking of web hosting, I was reluctant to go with Codeberg Pages (or any git-hosting platforms that happen to have their own Pages) because the idea of putting potentially hundred of artwork files into the repository seems bad… and I just don’t know if they would be okay with PG-13 content because these kind of platforms, they are professional platforms.
Plus, I would feel bad for Codeberg or GitHub to be used as some sort of cloud storage for my artwork files.
However, traditional web hosting was causing me a lot of anxiety and it lead to a whole bunch of questions. Going for a special web hosting plan where the company does everything for me gives me anxiety because it comes with stuff that I dont need such as a database or a mail server. But the VPS gave me a lot of anxiety as well because you have to configure a lot.
But then… I told to myself… “I’ll just choose what I feel might works the best and if I don’t like it, I’ll find another way” and then my anxiety subsided.
Besides, even if it doesn’t work out for me, at least I learned about web hosting, and that’s the spirit
And if I really have to, I can break my own rules. I am somewhat ideological about what software I use, but I feel that it shouldn’t come at my own detriment. Yes, if I absolutely have to, I’ll use GitHub to put the repository of this website here. If Codeberg and statichost.eu doesn’t work for me, I’ll consider Netlify, I’ll consider Render, I’ll consider other things.
So what did I end up choosing?
After contemplating, I decided to go with Codeberg. You might think that I use Codeberg Pages however this is not the case. I actually use a hosting provider called statichost.eu which is an European web hosting for static website.
I don’t know if statichost.eu is going to work with me. I don’t know how much storage it allows me to store, I checked their pricing but there is no mention of storage limit. This lack of detail gave me anxiety, but then I remind myself that if it doesn’t work, I’ll find another way. Then the anxiety subsided. Even if I do hit the storage limit, maybe I’ll find another way to store my artwork files.
But so far, statichost.eu seems pretty cool.
Hosting with statichost.eu
So, hosting with statichost.eu at first was a bit of a bumpy ride. This repository uses Jekyll plugins such as jekyll-paginate-v2 which is not installed
by default.
So when statichost.eu tried to build my website, it failed. However, the solution is pretty easy, you need to configure statichost.eu by a file
called statichost.yml. You can copy the configuration from the documentation then you
need to tell statichost.eu to install jekyll-paginate-v2.
So, I tried building it for the second time.
It looks good so far… except…
ERROR
What happened? Well good news is, it went through the installation process but something went wrong when building the website. It turns out this is an issue of the Ruby version.
So, the configuration that the documentation provides, basically it is a Docker image of Ruby v3.4
The issue is, it seems like Liquid depends on a standard library called bigdecimal which is deprecated.
The solution is to edit the statichost.yml file and use a Docker image of an older version of Ruby which is v3.3
Yeah… this is an issue that I didn’t really see it coming, because I use a Debian derivative on my local machine and the thing is about
Debian derivatives is that softwares are out of date mostly for stability reasons. The version of Ruby that I was using when coding the Jekyll
website is v3.0.2, this version doesn’t deprecate bigdecimal
Anyways, third time the charm and…
SUCCESS
The build was successful and the website is now working.
Because this website isn’t exactly ready yet, I don’t want random people to view my website when it’s not ready. It wouldn’t be a good experience. So I password protected the website temporarily while I tidy things up and I set up the domain name.
The final part, the web domain
So, for the web domain, I went with Namecheap* and I bought a .me domain mostly because this website is all about me and I feel like .me domains are good for personal websites.
*some people might criticize me for using Namecheap and this is because Namecheap is an American company, American tech is what also contributed to the enshittification of the internet and United States is notorious for having poor consumer protection laws and poor privacy laws. However, when I think of web domain, I think of Namecheap because I heard the most about it, and I don’t feel like going on an adventure about other domains provider. Maybe I’ll consider moving to an European web domain provider, but that will do for now.
I had to enter my customer information and then my credit card. It was a bit intimidating at first because I am autistic and it was my third time paying for something with my credit card, with the additional step of entering my customer information.
I was able to register a web domain and now I need to configure it.
I looked at the statichost.eu documentation for web domains.
Configuring on Namecheap was a bit confusing you could probably blame my lack of tech skills however I went through it.
I wait for a few hours because it takes a while for the web domain to update.
I tried to access through my custom domain and it takes me to my own website.
I was so proud of myself and it feel like I made the greatest achievement of my life. I screamed about it on Mastodon.
Now all I need to do is tidy things up, remove password protection and publish this blog post.
The End
Hosting a website while having to adhere to my own ideologies was pretty fun. I think that if you’re new to web development and you want to get into the indie web, Neocities might be better for you. I do need to know about Git, then know how to use Codeberg, then work with the command line which can be intimidating for people looking to get into the indie web.
Writing the HTML and CSS was REALLY fun, it was mostly a joyful experience except me struggling with CSS.
I’m not sure if Codeberg is going to work with me, nor is statichost.eu. If it doesn’t work out for me, I’ll consider other hosting providers, but for now that will do.
This website is open-source on Codeberg, so if you have any suggestions or if you spot an issue, you’re welcome to open an issue.
Because this website is part of the Indie Web, it’s going to have my own 88x31 badge which you can link to in your own website. However, I went through a lot this day, so that will be for later.
If you have your own badge that you would like it to be on my website, please get in touch with me. Note: If you’re trying to Private Mention me on Mastodon, it’s possible that I might not see it because my notifications filters are set to filter out unsolificated PMs. Please consider mentioning me with a Quiet Public visibility if possible, I’m more likely to see your message.
Credits
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Thanks to the Fediverse community for providing me useful resources.
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Thanks to people on the autistic Discord server for having a listening ear and also providing me advices.
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Special thanks to Brib for being so helpful.
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Thanks to Codeberg and statichost.eu for making web hosting possible.
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