Web Page Launch
Woohoo! The first iteration of my web page is finally ready to release. This is my personal web page, which includes information about who I am, what I do, how to get in contact with me and this blog. The latter is still kinda empty and I want to fill it gradually within the next months.
So what do I want to write about? It will not be limited to one topic. It may be a cool new project I found, a concert tour, some weird programming quirks, AI content, video games or whatsoever. It will follow the same principle as my web page in general: I don’t want it to have some corporate appearance. I am a human and I am a geek, and this is my very personal (web) space I want to invite the readers to. I want to show what inspires me – and maybe inspire others. (EDIT: 2020-12-10: I actually like the last two sentences and will use them on the welcome page from now on)
So, let’s get started with a few pieces of information about this web page. I’m using WordPress which is installed on a small V-Server instance. That means, in contrast to a managed hosting solution, I take the full control (but also responsibility) of my V-Server. While this indicates I have to do all the routing and software configuration, this also allows for the implementation of tools like Embetty or own software projects later on. Embetty allows for a privacy-friendly embedding of things such as youtube videos: the client (you) only communicates with Youtube servers once you click on the embedded video. Any communication with these servers is therefore completely opt-in. So how does this work? Embetty runs an own small server inside a Docker container. Each time a post with a supported embedding is requested, Embetty (which runs on my server!) requests the preview from youtube and serves this preview image to the client. Only if the client wants to start the video (and therefore opts in), a direct connection between client and youtube will be established.
Also, I configurated WordPress and some plugins so that no external sources are pulled by the client. I disabled WordPress Avatars and Emoji backwards compatibility which are on by default as they use external resources from US servers. Also, I do *not* use anything like Google Analytics, Akismet Anti-SpamPrivacy and so on. It is not as easy as one might think to make a modern web page privacy-friendly. As if that’s intended… 🤔
I also enabled comments. You can even post anonymously and don’t have to provide an email address if you don’t want to. However, note that this is subject to change if it gets abused or spam goes wild.
That’s it for now. I hope you will enjoy exploring my page! If you have any feedback or questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me. 🙂