Comment by Brajeshwar | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Brajeshwar | Hacker News Reader

1. What you use or wherever you host, make sure that you can export your content in either plain text or a universal format that can be used by another tool or host it yourself. In short, own the content and use whatever tool it fits your current situations and limitations.

2. Possibly, try to get a domain of your own, and preferably a `.com`. Point that to whichever server you use (if they don't allow you to point, that is a net negative). Keep pointing to the services that you keep moving as they keep dying. One day, you might just end up writing in plain HTML and (s)FTP into a folder.

3. If you are going to use images/audio/video quite a tad more than usual -- start using a CDN (pretty cheap and some are free these days). If those are hosted on https://cdn.mydomain.com, you can move your content wherever you want and those images, audio, video just works. I was able to change WordPress hosting providers in minutes because I don't have to move the static assets.

edit: added the 3rd point.

For a simple blog, micro.blog hits all of those points. It’s very non scammy.

I wanted to love it but I agree with Kev Quirk's take:

https://kevquirk.com/micro-blog-is-still-confusing/

The one thing that drew me to micro blog was that it was a paid service.

But honestly, my blog there is not about “engagement”. I don’t really care if anyone reads it. It’s more of a personal journal to blog about the multi year, “hybrid digital nomad” life we started last year.

Seems like the biggest limiting factor for Hugo, Jekyll, and other SSGs is the need for a CDN for most images. Are there any free CDN services that are worthwhile?

There's so many better options better than .com (commercial)

.net .org .me .io .blog .info

You can make it topical too .expert .engineer .doctor .camera .software

Or have fun with it .lol .wtf .foo

Very true. I picked one that uses the last two letters of my last name, so that my website it just my last name!

My domain is firstnamelastname.me.

Lots of good options, but what in your opinion would make .net or .org a better choice than .com ?

While perhaps not as pervasive as during the 1990s, I still feel like most people are more familiar with / assume / default to ".com" than any of the others.

In some ways, having one of the weird TLDs can serve as a filter to keep out less-technical users who assume .com is the only TLD.

I'd advise against using "exotic" TLDs if you plan to send mail from this domain.

Define exotic? The large company I work for uses .systems

.systems wasn't one of the most affordable new gTLDs used for spamming but a lot of mail sites blocked or at least increased "SPAM score" for most if not all new gTLDs.

With .systems I would expect somewhat reduced inbox deliverability but with .icu, .xyz, .top, .live and similar, you can forget about egress email.

Always worth considering your national domain if it’s easy to register. I use .ca because really why wouldn’t I?

There's a problem with a national domain: people move. My .me domain is registered in 2009 (well, I know that it's a national domain) and I lived in three different countries since then with a permanent status in the current one and without plans to come back to my homeland.

So what? Unless there's a requirement for residence to renew why should it matter?

CIRA's privacy policy is one of the reasons why I've stayed with .ca for my digital presence:

> The registrant name and administrative and technical contact information of non-individual registrants, such as corporations, is displayed by default. The registrant name and administrative and technical contact information of individuals, such as Canadian citizens or permanent residents is not displayed in WHOIS per the CIRA Privacy Policy. Generally non-individuals are public and individuals are private.

https://www.cira.ca/ca-domains/whois

Isn't free WHOIS privacy standard these days?

"Free domain privacy, forever", in GoDaddy's wording, seems fairly standard now. But really it's a spin: Since 2018, domain privacy is required by EU's GDPR in many instances. But pre-GDPR it was frequently an add-on, demanding additional payment. IIRC, there are some domains for which it is not available.

CA domains have had a privacy default for individuals since 2008. As someone who's received personal threats as a result of WHOIS info, I'd rather stick with the more certain option.

These are great points.

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