Hard to believe that an accomplished computer programmer with a flare for writing and speaking his mind managed to somehow take 13+ years to create a blog. Well I was busy, yes, since 1995.
I have always thought I preferred to maintain my own web site (www.toddtown.com) and that whatever I wanted to say I would say there. Why not? Doing that means I have complete control over the look and feel, content, programming language, servers, etc. True, I have all of those things, but it’s a real pain in the ass. Oh let me count the ways…
Hosting your own web site means you have to have and maintain the hardware (server) required to do it. I have plenty of machines around that are capable of hosting a simple site like ToddTown, so that is not really a problem. In fact, ToddTown.com runs in a virtual machine (VMWare Server) on the same computer that hosts my Windows Media Center, as well as a bunch of other stuff. It is a very powerful Intel Quad Core computer that I built myself and is more than up for the task. Other than doing 300MB downloaded updates from Microsoft every Tuesday for Windows Vista Ultimate and Windows Server 2003 (in the virtual machine), this is pretty easy. Yeah, I know this is odd, combining a Media Center with an Internet Server, but it works well and I get the most bang for my buck doing it this way.
Charter Communications; Other than Experian, TransUnion and EquiFax, I doubt there is any other company out there that I hate as much as Charter. To host your own web site (and email server), they make you pony up for their ‘business class’ Internet. This is basically a way of getting a static IP address that allows inbound connections, which allows you to easily host web and email servers. You get a little bandwidth, much less than residential customers get, for $120 per month with basic cable TV service, and are committed to 3-year contracts. The ‘business class’ service is no more reliable than residential, with at least 2-3 hours a month of downtime. This is okay for a lightweight personal web site, but I sure could not see hosting a real business site using Charter. Charter has no clue about reliable Internet connections. Hell, they only provide a single DNS server, no backup, so when they are doing maintenance on it, I cannot even get out to the Internet. Of course our phone (AT&T) is also done through this connection, so when Charter is down, so is our phone. The small amount of bandwidth I get easily gets bogged down, which can make phone call quality sporadic as well.
We are planning to move this summer into a real house, one that we own. I am not planning to take Charter with me. I will either go DSL, or if that is not a option, I will have to keep Charter, but will only pay for residential Internet service. I plan to get DirecTV for television, which I have not had for years, but miss. Look, I don’t give a rats ass about the fight between the NFL Network and Charter, they are both greedy assholes in my book, but I am tired of missing Green Bay Packers games because those two cannot work out their differences.
Damn, I knew that would happen. I start talking about one thing and end in a rant about something totally different. Well, that’s what you can expect on my blog. The next battleground here is going to be about credit scores and credit reporting agencies, and the education I have (involuntarily) received in the last several weeks.