On being self hosted.

Posted bycasey coombsPosted inToo lazy to label.

It kind of sucks.

Sometimes.

And when it does suck it’s up to you to fix it.

It’s AAALLLL on you.

Now if you enjoy this kind of pressure, then self hosted is for you.

I personally don’t dig this kind of pressure so much, but alas, I am probably the foremost authority in blog sadomasochism.

If you only knew how many times I tried to change something simple and ended up turning my blog into an enormous error message at 2 am you’d probably snicker at the poor girl who can barley keep her blog bananas together. Just tonight I tried to post something and got this,

Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 33554432 bytes exhausted

(tried to allocate 79800 bytes) in /home/mooshini/public_html/wp-includes/cache.php

on line 48

 

Who knows what THAT means? And why they have to use the word “fatal” is beyond me, it’s so doomsday pessimistic.

Thankfully I called some boy (who sounded like a smokin’ hottie) at LiquidWeb who happened to have his wits about him and he fixed my problem.

How?

I dunno.

But he did.

Those LiquidWeb guys probably know me as “that moosh lady who deletes her blog all. the time.“

And yet they are nice enough not to treat me like the amateur bozo that I pretty much am.

 

A lot of you ask me how I went about being self hosted.

I was forced at gunpoint had my hand held by two very lovely ladies at BlogHer last year.

If it weren’t for them, I’d still be a blogspot casualty.

So unless your husband or best friend is a whiz at this kind of stuff and has no problem bailing you out of the pits of despair when you try to mess around with your template and it only results in a deleted blog at 2 am in a crazy batch of insomnia, don’t do it.

 

Although I must say being self hosted is incredibly spectacular when everything is going swimmingly.

So maybe you should do it.

 

If you do do it (do be do be doo) use LiquidWeb and use GoDaddy. And use this tutorial here.

And don’t come crying to me when you turn into a big error message.

I told you it kind of sucked, sometimes.

 

29 thoughts on “On being self hosted.”

  1. Totally, TOTALLY hear you on this one.
    I like having my own URL but I am not so awesome in the technical department.

    I am terrified about changing ANYTHING on my blog because I know it will explode and shut off the traffic lights in my town.

    :S

    Still…It IS pretty cool to have a URL of my very own. 🙂

    Loralee’s last blog post..Still not there!

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  3. Okay, I am totally not anywhere near as awesome as the two who helped you hop over from Blogspot (but still plenty awesome though ;), but if you need help with something, I’m totally here for you–just drop me an email.

    Also, nice technical support (who at least wait until they’re off the phone to laugh) are worth their weight in gold. I once had to ask a really really stupid question (so stupid that mid-way through asking technical support the question, the answer came to me, but by that point it was too late) and the guy on the other end was so nice and totally did not make me feel like I was the stupidest person on the planet.

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  4. My problem is not access to an in-house techie (because I’m sleeping with one) (um, ’cause he’s my husband), but getting him to actually help me on my journey in blogland. Hmm, maybe it’s time for some persuasion…

    Barb’s last blog post..Happy Birthday Week!

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  7. So…what you’re telling me is…self-hosting is kind of like growing up on the internet? No thanks. I had to do that in real life. And while when everything is going good, it’s fun…when it doesn’t…and I’m all on my own to fix it…it kinda sucks.

    But you’re such a brave girl! I’m just waiting until you get your brain full of self-hosting knowledge so I can have me a mentor.

    Butrfly Garden’s last blog post..I’m Locking Her Up.

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  16. Let me tell you, having that techy husband doesn’t really help either. Sure he was all encouraging and helpful when I said I wanted to start a blog, but now when I want to make changes he is useless. The thrill is gone for him. Now I have to beg and plead and promise things I don’t even do for his birthday.

    Megan’s last blog post..My dog has super powers.

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  19. Bossy got a phone call from the GoDaddy president last time she pimped him. Hope you get similar love, but maybe ask him for a couple of lobster tails?

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  21. hmm I have CSS for dummies but haven’t even open it. I love my little blog just the way it is I just want to tweek the format a little bit. Sounds like too much of a pain in the butt just to make my banner a bit bigger and add some funky colors!!

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  24. There. That is reason enough for me not to do it. I know a fair bit about that kind of crap, but I really get obsessed when things don’t go as planned, and I can’t afford to lose any more sleep than I already do having a toddler who wakes up at 5:00 am and still has trouble sleeping all the way through the night. Oh, and a baby on the way.

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  28. Pingback: Previously Cool. | I am a Dummy

  29. I’ve used Blogspot for a couple years now. I think I’m hooked on Google-crack. I use it instead of my own server because I just don’t have the time to maintain my own site on top of Palm Pilot software devel, Pocket PC software devel, keeping all the computers in the house running, keeping all the computers and servers at work running and leveling my character on the latest game I’m playing.

    Do you have a post on your experiences with Blogspot to give us an idea why you don’t like them? Thanks.

    Aaron

    Aaron Vail’s last blog post..My Favorite Software

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