Like most beginners, I had no idea, no conception of what I was getting into much less doing when I decided to try IT, so I started with Shared Hosting. I used Namecheap after a short time because they had VPS as well. I knew that VPS was where I wanted to go but I knew nothing about server administration plus I was old, still am. What in the world was I thinking? Well, I was thinking that the world was changing and I decided to change with it. Simple? No, difficult. A difficult decision that I can now look back on and feel quite justified in having chosen.
What am I doing this for? I am legitimately doing this for you. It seems to me not to be a choice but an obligation as there was no A.I. to help me along. Instead there was a veritable jungle of information dispersed all over this internet of ours. Most of it either wrong or so out of date as to no longer be viable. How many servers did I create at how many hosting companies, I don’t recall? A hundred? Ten? Doesn’t really matter now. What does matter is that I would not let mistakes keep me from yet another attempt. Gumption is the word I use for this process of weaning out companies that cared versus companies that took your money and only grudgingly would assist.
Shared hosting does not allow you to learn servers. This is either a good or bad thing, depending on your goals. If ours is to merely have a web presence then shared hosting is expensive but fine. If we want control over how we present ourselves to the world then we have to learn VPS servers and who has the least expensive with the greatest bang for the buck. It is not cheap but it can be reasonable. I chose reasonable and went with Webdock and Hetzner after much debate, trial, and error but finally understanding that to knuckle down and grit my teeth was the only thing I could do. Then I found how much I loved the challenge of building and then understanding what a server was, how it worked, and what it could or could not do for me. It was only after about fifteen years of doing this that Tech Pute came to mind.
Why not help out those who were also attempting this challenge. After all, I reasoned, how much fun was it to be lost before I started? Not a lot, I’ll tell you. It was one of the hardest things I have done in my life yet I saw the potential outcome so I crossed the wasteland of ignorance and here I am. I offer this to you as I know what it is like to want to do this yet have no foundation available to you to even start.
This,then, is your foundation and I urge you to jump into these waters if you’re brave and persistent enough to follow your heart. It isn’t easy but it is, oh, so satisfying to master. To build from nothing a presence on the internet. It is well worth the bumpy ride across the wasteland.
