Tag Archives: DreamHost

How to Host a Site Network for All Your Friends

Posted on June 2, 2024 by mariteaux

So about a week ago, I got a very nice email from a Somnolescent reader named Cyrano. I don’t normally post reader mail–for starters, I don’t get enough of it to make mailbag posts a thing–but this time, I got a mailer daemon every time I tried to reply. There’s nothing personal in it, so I’m gonna take the risk and post things on the blog. Hopefully you see this, Cyrano, and you don’t think I simply ignored you. Your reply address isn’t working is all.

Somnolescent has a pretty unique setup as far as little amateur indie Web stuff goes. Everyone on somnolescent.net has their own account where only they can access their subdomains’ files, and potentially the files of domains outside somnolescent.net. Because I know Somnolescent attracts people who are in little online art collectives and Web groups and sometimes would like to know how to start their own site like ours, I’ve elected to lightly edit the book I wrote for Cyrano and post it here to Letters instead. Hopefully, someone finds the information useful.

Continue reading →

Posted in Projects | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

The Death of HTTPS (on somnolescent.net)

Posted on February 2, 2021 by mariteaux

One of my biggest pet peeves with being a webmaster is HTTPS. The way that HTTPS is handled on the backend is so invasive, so exclusionary, that it regularly gets in the way of some very basic things I’d like to be able to do around here.

By the end of this year, with few exceptions, somnolescent.net will be going HTTP-only. I’m writing this post in the hopes of staving off any upset or confusion on behalf of you, our loyal readers (and also you, the Somnolians). Continue reading →

Posted in Essays, Happenings | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Somnolescent’s 2020 Traffic Report

Posted on January 1, 2021 by mariteaux

Happy New Year, everyone! Now that 2020’s over and I have a full year’s worth of data, I figured it’d be fun to look back at how we did as far as our Google rankings and traffic across our network goes. Of course, nothing here is especially mind-blowing as far as the numbers go, but fuck the numbers, it’s just curious to see what people are looking at. There’s lots of line graphs and pie charts too, if you like those. And…I might… Continue reading →

Posted in 2020: Two Years Glowing, Retrospectives | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

A Year Under the Bulb: An Ode to DreamHost

Posted on December 6, 2019 by mariteaux

As you might be aware, when Somnolescent first got a web presence, it did so under a little site called Neocities. (No link, doesn’t deserve it.) As casual web hosting, it’s…fine. It’s hard to get excited about its lack of features, its style-over-substance presentation, how broken it really is, the abysmal Supporter’s plan, and especially its community, but for just getting a website online, it’s okay.

For our needs, Neocities wasn’t about to satisfy. We needed something sturdier, something with a better featureset, better support, and people who give a shit at the helm. The search didn’t last long, and the choice for us was pretty clear: only DreamHost would do. And we love it.

Over the past year, we’ve had nothing but good things to say about DreamHost. It’s been able to support nearly every little venture and idea we’ve had so far, and we’ve had many. Frankly, for what we get, it makes Supporter’s look like a ripoff. Come, as I rave about getting far more than you pay for. Continue reading →

Posted in 2019: A Year Under the Bulb, Retrospectives | Tagged , , | Leave a comment