Dealing with various technical issues; thoughts about blogging systems
The chief advantage of Wordpress.com is that this is a place that one's blog can live virtually forever, rent-free. Even after one is dead (I actually did once set up an in memoriam site for someone there (something someone once asked, as a favor). And it's all well-managed, so there is less of a worry about hacking. The disadvantage is that, more and more, Wordpress is corporate-packaged. Just now, they are phasing out their Android Wordpress app in favour of JetPack, for example. I took a look at that and instantly hated it.
Wordpress constitutes such a large target that it is vulnerable to hacking - in fact like all php and mysql based systems. So what this means for me is that it is better that the system will be managed by professionals. (This is the same for Hubzilla).
A disadvantage for Wordpress is also the inability to fine-tune permissions (unlike, say, Hubzilla). Posts can be "public", password protected, or marked as private.
A disadvantage of org-static blog is that it depends on the use of a computer, with the program configured. So it is impossible to compose, for example, on an Android phone. This limits the usability of the blog while traveling.
While it is easy to write, adding photos to a post is fraught with problems, and many opportunities to get things wrong. I never remember the syntax, so have to look back at my Cherry Tree notes each time (I know, I should be using org-mode for those notes.)
I did not find a programmatic way of importing all of my old posts from Wordpress into Org-static-blog.
But with Hubzilla there are various problems too - foremost among them that it cannot import my old blog, and, when I do import articles, the time sequence is all wrong. Hubzilla's hosting of photos is very flexible with regard to permissions. however it doesn't shine as a purveyor of online photo galleries, in the way that, say, a program like Piwigo does. What it does offer is the ability to post photos to a specific gallery, and have some of these depend on a guest-token, so that, for example in the case of a travel gallery, for example, one could provide to family members a link that would include besides photos of places visited, also photos of the family from the trip too.
Improving internet connection speed
Spent the last couple of days sorting out various technical issues. The first was finding a way of improving the internet connection speed. We have a 1 Gb fiber mesh network, but my old Thinkpad, placed a little far away from the mesh repeater (if that's what it's called), doesn't achieve much more than 100 Mb speed; whereas my phone, in the same place, gets 300 Mb. The solution was to move the mesh repeater to a place where I could attach an ethernet cable to it. After that, by cable connection, the computer gets about 450 Mb. Very happy about that; just that it can receive only a fraction of that when connecting through Mullvad VPN. Mullvad seems also to have stopped renting a server in Israel.Getting static blog working again
The second task was getting my static blog to work again; it hasn't since I upgraded MX Linux a few months ago (now I need to upgrade it yet again). The static blog is org-static-blog, developed by Bastian Bechtold. It is powered by emacs - it's a very lightweight program employing emacs orgmode. I am not sure whether I will continue using it, because there are advantages to using Hubzilla for blogging (see below), but want to at least have the opportunity.Resolving queue problem in hubzilla clone
The third task was to try to fix the queue issue I had with the hubzilla instance to which this channel is cloned. The instance is run on a VPN. I followed the suggestion given by RockyIII (the only one who showed any real interest, following numerous questions on the Hubzilla forum and in my stream). I may have succeeded, but time will tell. Right now, it appears to me that the queue is growing again.Changing desktop environment
The fourth task was to install on my laptop the XFCE desktop environment, in place of the KDE Plasma environment I have been using for the last few months. Plasma is great, but there were a couple of things that bothered me, mainly issues about speed. I think XFCE (which I have used quite a lot previously) will be lighter and better for me - though it's not as pretty.Where to post blog and photos
I am still in a quandary about where to write blog posts and post photos. The repository where the great majority of my posts exists is WordPress.com. I have gravitated several times between self-hosted WordPress.org instances and WordPress.com. I have also used various static blogs, of which Org-static-blog has proved to be the best. I have used Hubzilla's channel stream and the Articles add on. I have also tried blogging on Epicyon and even in simple HTML. There are various things - actually quite serious disadvantages - that bother me about all of these methods. Probably I will continue to be unhappy and in a quandary, well into old-age.Wordpress.com
The chief advantage of Wordpress.com is that this is a place that one's blog can live virtually forever, rent-free. Even after one is dead (I actually did once set up an in memoriam site for someone there (something someone once asked, as a favor). And it's all well-managed, so there is less of a worry about hacking. The disadvantage is that, more and more, Wordpress is corporate-packaged. Just now, they are phasing out their Android Wordpress app in favour of JetPack, for example. I took a look at that and instantly hated it.
Wordpress.org
Wordpress.com sites, if they are free and one is not paying for business or enterprise versions, are inflexible in that they do not permit plugins. Wordpress.org sites, on the other hand, have so many plugins that one can do almost anything with a Wordpress.org site, without needing programming skills. One plugin I discovered recently, for example, permits a complete overhaul of Wordpress's media management system, allowing assignment of directories to galleries, and providing a complete solution for photo management.Wordpress constitutes such a large target that it is vulnerable to hacking - in fact like all php and mysql based systems. So what this means for me is that it is better that the system will be managed by professionals. (This is the same for Hubzilla).
A disadvantage for Wordpress is also the inability to fine-tune permissions (unlike, say, Hubzilla). Posts can be "public", password protected, or marked as private.
Org-Static blog
Org-static-blog has many advantages. Being a data-base free blog makes it lightweight and virtually unhackable (files coexistence on one's own computer). It's possible to program the blog fairly easily, with minimum programming skills. It's easy to write, edit and post articles. I still have a learning curve with emacs, though, in order to improve the presentation. For example, the archive lists only titles. Tags (and tag-based discovery of similar articles, are findable only if one clicks on them at the end of an article.A disadvantage of org-static blog is that it depends on the use of a computer, with the program configured. So it is impossible to compose, for example, on an Android phone. This limits the usability of the blog while traveling.
While it is easy to write, adding photos to a post is fraught with problems, and many opportunities to get things wrong. I never remember the syntax, so have to look back at my Cherry Tree notes each time (I know, I should be using org-mode for those notes.)
I did not find a programmatic way of importing all of my old posts from Wordpress into Org-static-blog.
Hubzilla
Right now, the Hubzilla Articles add on seems to have the right balance that I am seeking of visibility and lack of visibility. In addition, the PWA features means that I don't need to be at a computer to write.But with Hubzilla there are various problems too - foremost among them that it cannot import my old blog, and, when I do import articles, the time sequence is all wrong. Hubzilla's hosting of photos is very flexible with regard to permissions. however it doesn't shine as a purveyor of online photo galleries, in the way that, say, a program like Piwigo does. What it does offer is the ability to post photos to a specific gallery, and have some of these depend on a guest-token, so that, for example in the case of a travel gallery, for example, one could provide to family members a link that would include besides photos of places visited, also photos of the family from the trip too.
Nova Gallery
As mentioned, all of these PHP and databased programs are vulnerable to hacking, whereas the rsync-based photo gallery manager I use, Nova Gallery, is great, because there is no database, simply syncing with one's offline photos. But that too has some deficiencies, such as the inability to post descriptions or metadata.Wiki|Docs
Completing the suite of "small web" programs is Wiki|Docs, a database-less repository for wikis and documents. Since I have such a complete solution, cobbled together from these various parts, perhaps I should be using it. But, on a day to day basis, Hubzilla is easier.
HTMLY
I began to think about replacing my org-static-blog software with blogging software that has the ability to edit in the browser. I thought the first place to look for a flat-file static blog style software could be to see what Bob Mottram has in Libreserver (an easy-to-implement server similar to YunoHost). (I briefly tried Libreserver before.)I discovered that he still has the same two blogging systems, HTMLY and the ominously named Bludit. HTMLY seemed the simplest, so I installed it on my VPS. But I had forgotten to check if it is still maintained; and it ain't. This means that, since it is implemented in PHP, that it is not supported in the current version 8.2. Besides the 501 or 502 error screen I ended up with (which may or may not be related), this is no good. I quickly got rid of it. Someone has made a fork that supports up to PHP 8.1, partially, but there's just one developer on that, and he doesn't seem totally committed to the project either. So there's Bludit, which is actively maintained. But that's also on PHP, and I had already grown weary from the previous failure. I don't want to use software that is in danger of breaking with software updates, and PHP seems almost notorious for breaking implementations in previous versions - it happened here with Hubzilla.
I did look for some flat blogging systems written in Python and other languages, but it seems like most of them are similar to what I've got, i.e. write offline and then publish online. For that, Org-static-blog is actually fine.
But I think I will just give up and leave everything on Hubzilla. I'm going to be traveling and away from home a lot, and I don't want to spend time maintaining things. I might not even have a computer with me. My Hubzilla system is on K&T Host, and they seem to be doing a fine job of maintaining it, and it isn't too expensive, so that's fine for me. In any case, I'm not such a serious blogger, these days.