Category: What’s New?

Blogs are becoming an easy way of having a presence on the web. Most of personal sites these days are blogs. TypePad and Blogger are getting into the mainstream. They had normally been called the ICQ of web sites .The former is fee-based while the latter is freebie. What sets them apart from the old days of free (or, paid) website? The richness of content and ease of use. Most of the content on blogs are syndicated (RSS) and links are, most of the time, ads. With blogs, you simply type away, add your images or photos, click a button, and, ergo, instant but professional-looking website – uh, er – blog!

Blogs are great if you simply love to write and put your ideas on the web. Unlike regular web sites, blogs lack the snazzy extra features that enables one to have total control of what to put on the site. But what it lacked in features, its ease of use is what casual web users loved the most and lured them to sign up for their services.

Since I host this site on my own web server, I decided give the most popular one – Movable Type from SixApart – a peek.

From what I had read before, I needed the latest versions of Movable Type, MySQL and the database hooks – they were quickly downloaded and installed (Perl also required but this is already included in OS X) on the server. After doing a lot of web searches, it took me some time to set it up and get it running, using instructions from maczealots.com. My plan was to incorporate the ‘blogger’ into this website but I backed out on the last-minute. It was a hardware hog – well, at least for my current setup and use. Rebuilding was quite slow. Since the Mac G4 is also my FTP server and web cam host, I didn’t like the extra strain Movable Type put on the server. Maybe, I can incorporate it on this site later on…when I get my hands on a G5!

—notes:

After acquiring an Apple iMac G5 a few months later and testing other blogging software, I integrated the same blogger – Movable Type- to my web site in Oct. 01, 2004.

My other blog: kupitero.blogspot.com

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The graphics and overall design were obviously aging. The more I looked at it, the more I remember my carefree days in Manila in the 80s and 90s.

The original Kupitero’s Keep website, I created in 1998 but launched in 1999 when I finally got a decent web hosting site – Surfshop.net. Prior to them, I had tried a lot of freebie site-hosting like GeoCities, Angelfire, etc., as well as, other local ISPs like Epic.net and Tri-Isys.

The tools of the trade were basically the same ones I used back then: an HTML editor, Photoshop, an image animator, an image mapper, and a file transfer program (FTP).

I ported the site to Netscape’s free hosting – simply called, WebSites– after we terminated our contract with Surfshop.net in 2001. The nice thing was: it was only in 2003 that they put down the site. Unfortunately, Netscape’s freebie hosting didn’t last long as well — they stopped most of their free services after they merged with AOL (America Online).

I decided to put up my own web server only after I got broadband access — with download speeds of about 7 Mbps. I learned from the past that hosting your own site via dial-up is like torturing your viewers.

Plus, it didn’t make a lot of sense if you only have a single phone line in the house – all your relatives will give you the ‘look’ for hogging the phone line just to make your webserver/website available.

Also, imagine using dial-up to dial-up link while streaming a large video file. Dial-up was king during the glory days of electronic bulletin board service (EBBS). Those were the pre-browser Internet days. In short, forget web serving and hosting if all you’ve got is dial-up.

The makeover I had in mind will make the overall site smaller in size but will retain most of the features of the original site. Faster page loading – for those accessing the site via dial-up – will be my priority and I had decided that bulky graphic files will have to go.

So, the components are set: the server, the gateway, and the site.  Looks like it’s 1984 again for me.  Just trying to keep in step with the times.

notes:

After drinking countless pots of coffee, I launched the 4th revision of this site on May 10, 2004.

Click here if you like to view the old home page of this site (some links there are gone while some will lead you to the new pages within this revamped site).