web-goddess

Category: Meta

  • Wrapstodon

    My Mastodon instance (aus.social) is participating in “Wrapstodon,” where the server generates some fun end-year-stats for you. My most popular post was this one featuring my niece Indie’s embroidered sneakers!

    Wrapstodon

  • Custom Bluesky and Mastodon usernames with your own domain

    I recently went through the process of setting up custom handles/aliases for myself using my domain name on Bluesky and Mastodon. I figure I’ll share the steps here in case anybody else with a similar setup (WordPress on Amazon Lightsail) wants to do the same.

    Bluesky

    Simply follow the instructions that Bluesky have provided here. In Step 5, you will need to add a TXT record to your domain DNS. If you use Amazon Lightsail, click on the Domains & DNS option and then select the relevant DNS zone (in my case, web-goddess.org).

    Lightsail console DNS zone

    Then click on the DNS records tab and click the + Add record button.

    Lightsail console DNS zone

    Change the record type to TXT record and then put in the name and response provided by you by Bluesky. (The “host” is the “Record name,” and the “value” is the “Responds with.”) Click save.

    Adding a new TXT record

    Wait a little bit — in my experience, 30 seconds is usually sufficient — and then click that Verify DNS Record button in Bluesky. And then you’re done!

    In my case, you can now find me at @web-goddess.org on Bluesky.

    Mastodon

    Mastodon is a slightly more involved process, and it doesn’t change your official server username but rather gives you an alias that you can give out. In my case, my current Mastodon account is @web_goddess@aus.social. However, if I give out an alias instead, then it doesn’t matter if I change servers in the future — you’ll still be able to find me. I was inspired by these posts by Phil Nash and Maarten Balliauw for how to do it.

    First, open up a new browser tab and go to this URL, substituting your own Mastodon account values in there:

    https://{instance}/.well-known/webfinger?resource=acct:{username}@{instance}

    So in my case, I went to https://aus.social/.well-known/webfinger?resource=acct:web_goddess@aus.social. What you’ll get back is a blob of text (JSON). Copy that and set it aside for the moment.

    Then go to the Lightsail console and click on the little terminal icon to Connect using SSH to your instance.

    Lightsail console

    A window with a terminal will appear.

    Lightsail terminal

    Now you need to go to where the WordPress files are stored for your site. Type in this command in the terminal and hit enter.

    cd stack/wordpress/

    Important note: The path above is for one of the newer WordPress Bitnami instances. If you have an older instance, the path to where your WordPress files are stored might be different.

    Then you’ll need to create a new directory called “.well-known.” (Note the dot in front of the name.) Type in this command and hit enter.

    mkdir .well-known/

    Then go into that directory. Type in this command and hit enter.

    cd .well-known

    Now you will need to make a special file called webfinger. Type in this command and hit enter to open a text editor in the terminal.

    nano webfinger

    This is where you will paste in the blob of JSON text you copied from your Mastodon server. Copy and paste it straight into the editor, and then hit CTRL-X to exit.

    The editor will ask if you want to “Save modified buffer?” Type Y for Yes, leave the name as webfinger, and hit enter to save.

    You can then exit the Lightsail terminal and close the pop-up window.

    exit

    If everything worked correctly, you should now be able to go to your own domain and receive the JSON blob back by substituting your domain in this address:

    https://{yourdomain}/.well-known/webfinger

    In my case, I went to https://www.web-goddess.org/.well-known/webfinger in a browser tab and verified that the JSON was returned.

    And that’s it! What does this actually mean? It means I can tell people that my Mastodon username is @kris@web-goddess.org, and if they type that into a search box on Mastodon, it will point them to my official account.

    Mastodon search

    If I change servers in the future, I’ll just have to update the JSON blob with the correct values from my new Mastodon server, and people will continue to be able to find me from the alias.

  • New web-goddess theme!

    I’ve been feeling like the site needed a new lick of paint, so I spent some time today installing and customising a new theme. I used the Björk theme from Anders Norén, who made my previous theme. My logo remains the awesome one that my friend Matt Hinrichs drew for me many years ago. I also decommissioned my old krishoward.org personal site, moving some of the relevant content here and then changing that domain to a redirect. Please let me know if you find any broken links or anything that looks weird!

  • A new home for w-g

    Well, that was an ordeal.

    A few weeks ago I got an email that my shared web hosting account (that I use for both this site and RoaldDahlFans) was up for renewal, and it reminded me that I didn’t like the host I was using. I was stuck on PHP5 and they were going to charge me more to move to a server with PHP7, and that pissed me off. So I asked Twitter what to do.

    Wordpress hosting tweet

    I got a lot of different answers, most of which were a LOT more expensive than I was spending. I was okay with going up a little bit, but these are both hobby sites rather than professional so anything over, say, $20/month was too much. A few folks threw out the suggestion to use Amazon Lightsail, which was intriguing. After all, it’s always a good idea to eat your own dog food. (I should also mention that these sites are and have always been hosted and paid for by me personally, so they’re not running on my employee AWS account or anything like that.)

    I thought I’d document the process that I followed for the sites, which was based on this blog post and this AWS tutorial. Truthfully, setting up a new WordPress site on Lightsail is super easy and takes less than hour. All the complexity was because I was migrating two very old and very crufty sites from PHP5 to PHP7 and trying to preserve twenty years’ worth of old URLs. So even though I encountered a few hurdles not described in the tutorials, I wouldn’t let that stop you. Read on for the details…

    (more…)

  • Linkrot diminishes us all.

    Losing the Internet You Grew Up With – The Atlantic – I think about this a lot. It’s why I maintain a blog with fifteen years of archives, as well as a fan site that’s existed for almost twenty years. We’re at the point now where that’s pretty much ancient. At what point will I have the oldest functioning blog on the Internet?

  • web-goddess is eight!

    Web-goddess is now officially eight-years-old. Good grief. Have I really been doing it that long? Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time on Facebook, and it’s been weird to see how many of my high school and college classmates have kids now. I guess – for better or worse – this blog is my baby. This is what I have to show for the past eight years. Each anniversary has become sort of a special point of reflection for me, when I can look back over the highlights of the past twelve months. As usual, I’ve compiled some fun statistics to celebrate. (Previously: 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003.)

    So goodbye to 2008! I just had a look over last year’s resolutions, and I did pretty well at keeping them! I ran regularly through most of the year and completed my first half-marathon (along with a second and several other races). I took swimming lessons and learned to do a proper stroke. I got a new job back in I.T. that paid better than the knitting shop. I was more organised both at work and at home. Not too bad!

    Okay then, what’s for 2009? I’d like to keep up my running and improve my half-marathon time, with a goal towards running a full marathon in 2010. Towards that end, I need to drop about 10kg. I’d like to take a few more steps down the path towards becoming a full-time Business Analyst. I’d like to win a blue ribbon at the Easter Show. I’d like to do some volunteer work. Here’s to a great year, everybody!

  • Now we are seven.

    This website is now seven-years-old. Wow, that really crept up on me! I remembered late in December that the anniversary was coming up, but somehow it slipped my mind over the holidays. It wasn’t until I saw M-H’s blog birthday post this morning (Hey, we’re twins!) that I realised the big day had arrived. So, just as I’ve done the past few years (2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003), I’ve compiled some fun statistics to celebrate 2007…

    There are a few interesting trends there. Many of the top 10 commenters are new to the list, and most of them are bloggers themselves. Actually, most of them are people that I’ve met in real life. And while the majority are female, I still had several male commenters not far below them. Also, it seems that the longer I do this, the more the focus of the site seems to change and evolve. I don’t have that many “ZOMG! LOOK AT THIS COOL INTERNET THINGY!” posts anymore. There’s a lot more about my life, my family, and my interests. I spend more time on external sites (like Ravelry and Ask Metafilter). I can’t wait to see what 2008 has in store…

  • Comment Spam

    The comment spammers are driving me nuts today. I may have to escalate the war. Possible options include forcing you to use a Captcha (which somewhat annoys me when I have to do it on other people’s sites) or requiring commenters to formally register (which REALLY annoys me and I never do it on other people’s sites). Any other ideas? Would either of those strategies keep you from commenting here?

    Afterthought: Hmm, what about putting a time limit on how often you can comment? Would, say, an enforced one-minute wait between comments suck too much? Might even cut down on some of the double posts, I guess…

  • Happy Blog Birthday to Me…

    As of today, I’ve been blogging as web-goddess for six years. SIX YEARS! It blows my mind. And just as I’ve done the past few years (2006, 2005, 2004, 2003), I’ve pulled together some statistics to celebrate and reflect…

    Thanks to all of you who stop by, and especially to those of you who comment and e-mail. It’s especially nice that so many of you have become friends in real life. May we all have an interesting 2007!

  • User Friendly LOTD!

    UF - LOTDHoly crap; I was a User Friendly Link of the Day! I was just checking my server statistics, and geez, that’s the closest thing to a Slashdotting I’ve ever experienced. We’re talking more than triple my normal amount of hits.