7 Jun 2020

Self Hosting

Comments0

Pingdom provides a nice tool where you can see how quickly your webpage loads. It’s a nice thing to know and normally I get speeds of 1.5 to 2 seconds however once in a while I get super low loading times. I’m not sure what the conditions are for this but I suspect there are many factors at play for example I use Clouldflare as my DNS provider, and how their network is performing is not up to me 🙂 see my new best loading time below btw. 383 ms YEAH 😀

Also, I try to cache my pages when I can and serve up cached pages. I’m always looking at ways to have my server running as fast as I can. I host my website myself on my Raspberry Pi which had a steep learning curve at first but is worth it! I really enjoy having the flexibility of running my own server, you see, I’ve tried shared servers before and I find them too constricting! And paying (i.e. renting) your own dedicated server is too expensive.

So, if you are thinking of Self-Hosting, here are some tips

Use a service like Clouldflare to help server up your site faster and to give it some protection online
Use a lightweight computer like a Raspberry Pi
Use a CMS that is widespread like WordPress (many tutorials online and many plugins too)
Make sure you can open your ports on your router or at least give your server DMZ access
Stick with it, it is rewarding
Note, you normally can’t assess your website via the same internet connection you use to browse the web (as to host your site) so don’t panic if at first you can’t get to your website! Use a VPN or a DNS service like Clouldfare
Try to build on Linux and not windows, that is, keep it light
Always keep backups 🙂
Buy a good domain name
Watch out for bots, one of my first sites got spammed with 100s of postings because I had no captcha

I hope this all helps 🙂

John Ward

14/02/2022

Stephen is an absolute gentleman and master of his craft. He helped me achieve the level required in maths to start my degree course in electronic engineering having been away from education for 25 years. I can't thank him enough and would recommended him to anyone looking for help with maths.

Alexandra L.

06/09/2021

Stephen is one of the best teachers I have ever encountered. His patience, encouraging nature and ability to motivate has yet to be matched by anyone else. I was part of the 2021 leaving cert class and yes, it was a hard hard year all around. I started feeling buried in my maths work and all the tests we had weekly but Stephen helped me manage everything I needed to get done, either study for tests, complete my homework or explain maths problems I've always had a difficulty with. I could not reccomend his grinds more. Stephen puts so much of himself into helping his students and actually cares to see them improve and become more confident in their maths skills. I could have never done it without him. 1000/10 would reccomend so if you're thinking about it, I'd take up his grinds classes again in a heartbeat :))