In this article, I will be discussing why I decided to self host this website instead of using a web hosting service provider and why I wanted to make this blog in the first place.
Let me start with some background. For the past year, I have been very interested in self hosting. I have hosted many things on my laptop such as a website and an audio streaming service. I found it fun even though it was frustrating at times. Not only was it fun, but it also was very informative. I learned many new things but it was mostly related to linux. I also liked the idea of converting old devices into servers since hosting services for a limited number of users required little computing resources. This allows me to use devices for longer instead of throwing it away. The main disadvantage of self hosting for me was that I couldn't access my services outside my home network. Thankfully, Tailscale exists so I ended up using it to manage my devices and access my various services through it. Tailscale was, in part, why I ended up making this website.
A few weeks ago, I discovered that Tailscale has a feature called "Tailscale Funnel" which "lets you route traffic from the broader internet to a local service running on a device in your Tailscale network". With this, I can now make my services accessible to the internet. This was the perfect opportunity to reporpuse another old device I had. A while ago, I setup a minimal Alpine linux installation using Linux Deploy on my HTC U Play. This phone is almost 10 years old now and I couldn't come up with a use for it. I tried using it as a NAS but, due to reasons I don't fully understand, it was too slow. I also used it as a database server for my java application, but I didn't think that's enough. It is still sitting idle most of the time. Thus, when I found out about Tailscale Funnel, I wanted to turn it into a web server as well. After all, my website will barely have any visitors and it doesn't have a lot of content so the phone should handle that just fine. After all, why bother paying for a web hosting service when I have everything I need to host my website myself? While it is definitely more time consuming, I think it is worth it because of everything I learned and will learn in the future.
When I was a kid, I made a blog using blogspot but I abandoned it shortly after. I also hosted my own website multiple times on separate occasions but I abandoned them as well. I either lose interest in web development or I didn't have a good reason to make a website in the first place. However, things are different this time around. This website will be a way for me to learn about various things such as web development and self hosting. It is also a good way to share my ideas, projects, or things I have learned. This website can also act as my portfolio.
I am not sure how to conclude this. This is my first time writing a blog/article. I guess it is enough for me to say that I hope you got something useful out of reading this no matter how small.