Five Years of tedohara.net

I noticed last month when I renewed my domain registrations that it’s been five years since I first set up this site. I meant to say something on the actual anniversary, but it slipped my mind.

I initially set up the site because I was concerned about my job. I felt uncertain about the company’s prospects, and was unhappy with the commute, and felt that as a web developer, I’d be more credible if I had my own site. I wanted to be able to show off my CSS and JavaScript skills. To my mind the actual content was secondary, though I figured I’d have some web development posts.

I knew from my own browsing that I wanted to use WordPress, but it took me a nearly a year to get to find a host and actually get going. I’d say it took me several months from thinking “I should do this,” to actually starting to look into hosting companies, and then a few months of frustration of looking at hosts casually, to a couple of months of thinking about it more seriously, to a month or so of trying to decide, to actually pulling the trigger on DreamHost.

I requested the domain on a Thursday night, August 11, 2011, and the domain became reachable on the internet the following day, with a ‘parked’ site. I spent Friday night setting up emails and excitedly exploring the DreamHost control panel, and finally that Saturday morning, I downloaded and installed WordPress and made my first post.

My First Post, using the stock Twenty-Eleven theme and imagery.

My first post, using the stock Twenty-Eleven theme and imagery.

I knew I wanted something more custom, so I quickly customized the header images. Still, I knew I wanted something less generic looking, but I wasn’t sure what I wanted. I also didn’t know how to implement what I wanted once I figured out what I wanted. I initially thought I needed to write my own theme, but stumbled upon child themes, and figured out how to implement what I wanted over the 2011 holidays. The present theme debuted New Years Eve of 2011.

As I said, initially, the content was secondary to simply having a site, though I did want to focus some on web development. Over time, I’ve done fewer work related posts, and it’s become more of a place where I can show off my pictures, talk about things I’ve done, or simply spout off about something. I do try to post something at least once a month, but otherwise, I post when I have something to say.

I’m under no illusions that many people are reading this. I’ve long suspected it’s basically my sister, my mother (hi Mum!) and occasionally my dive buddies, and when I finally installed Jetpack in May, the stats tend to back this up. My post “I Expect My Leaders to be Grownups” did get some notice, chiefly because I @ replied to something Marco Arment posted to Twitter with a link to the post, and he retweeted it to his 100,000 followers.

Still, it’s nice having my own site. It gives me a place to talk about things if I want, and a place to post my photography. It’s also nice owning a domain name, as it allows me to create sub-domains and create email addresses at will. And I agree with Marco Arment that it’s best to own your online identity.

So what’s next? I tinker with things periodically. A few weeks back I switched the sidebar from the right to the left, and I’ve been experimenting with adding Twitter support. I switched over all the imagery to retina quality over the past year. I’m aware that my current theme is getting long in the tooth, but for better or worse, I like the way it looks, so I’m not sure what to do. Right now, I’m leaning towards creating a version that keeps the basic colors and typography, but is more responsive, handling both larger and smaller sizes better.

Stay tuned.