Category: Website

May 28, 2024 / Journal

Why write publicly? I’ve asked myself this question at least once a year, and my answer gets easier every year—no one cares.

Writing, for me, is a tool to organize my thoughts and process them. It’s also a log for me to remember and look back on to see how I’ve progressed over the years. But writing is a lonely hobby. If there is a limited audience, then what is the point? Put it into an email or a text message and be done with it, right?

Writing online with my domain, my website, and a server can be expensive. It doesn’t have to be, but I choose this over a third-party host and give up all of my rights, privacy, and autonomy.

Social media is not an option for those same reasons.

Social internet is an answer, but it takes too much time to build.

The hardest part of blogging, sharing my passions or thoughts, doesn’t always mean the people closest to you care to read them. Then the doubt creeps in, “Well, if they don’t care, why would anyone else? Why am I doing this, and putting myself out there?”

So, I do what I always do, which is to write for me first, and just hope that maybe someone else might find something of value in there. But over time I just became so frustrated with it all, I am going to close my website down and just go back to journaling for a while.

January 24, 2024 / Asides

Attempting to build a web page on this site dedicated to creative writing and the format is failing. Hmm. Create a separate subdomain?

December 31, 2023 / Website

Aaaaand to ring in the new year I have done a little redecorating to the website by adding new layouts, fonts and colors. The colors are lifted inspired by the Mercedes Formula 1 team colors

#111111

#C6C6C6

#00A19C

December 31, 2023 / Website

I spent some time cleaning up this website with the backend protocols, database and overall performances. It is streamlined and ready for the new year which is great because I plan on tweaking some more coding and giving it a fresh coat of paint soon.

November 4, 2023 / Website

Well shit. I have imported most of the old blog posts onto this database but there seems to be a gap from February 2022 to October 2023. Over a year’s worth of notes. Thankfully I have them backed up but do I want to cut/paste into new posts and backdate them?

No, but I will, and not soon. Too much going on at the moment.

For now, the Archives can be found at the top or by clicking here.

November 2, 2023 / Website

In addition to adding a page dedicated to the FoxCast, I added a “Currently” page.

This page is dedicated to this month’s quick thoughts and frequently updated as soon as possible. It is an ethereal experiment that will disappear in place of the next month’s thoughts in short form. Think Twitter but anti-social. I just erased October’s thoughts and added November. Not a lot on there…currently, as the month just started.

If you want to know what’s on my mind1, check out the Currently page.

  1. I know I do! ↩︎
November 2, 2023 / Technology

I just successfully migrated all of my digitized notes into a new personal database which I used to call “Grey Matter” as a second brain, or pensieve. A second brain is a system where I can collect, refine and process ideas that hopefully will lead to future insights or research.

It’s like adding additional RAM memory to your own brain to help me connect and visualize my thoughts. Every note is linked to another and if there is a general topic such as, photography, it creates a node for other notes to connect or backlink to.

Now that my clean slate initiative is almost complete and have removed my personal name offline, I’ve renamed the database as The Fox Operating System or simply FoxOS.

October 30, 2023 / Technology

The clean slate protocol I initiated a few days ago is a success. After creating a new domain name and building a new website, with a new e-mail account and a new Apple ID, I am slowly migrating some of my crucial data from backups.

I have yet to delete the old Apple ID for fear of missing a few crucial pieces of correspondence from companies I do business with but all that should be wrapped up by this coming week. For now, I can breathe a sigh of relief as I start building good organizational and privacy habits to ensure nothing gets out of control again.

October 29, 2023 / Technology

After recent price increases, subscription fatigue, privacy concerns and probably long overdue contentment, it’s time for a change. I’ll be withdrawing more from technology, technology blogs and restructuring everything to maximize privacy, reduce monthly subscription spending and pursuing avenues of personal interest.

I am heavily embedded into the Apple eco-system after decades of using Windows/Android. I have stuff scattered all over the internet, cloud storage and external hard drives with almost zero organization. That’s changing as of today.

First up, a new identity. I will no longer be using my personal name online. I don’t need to “brand myself” anymore since I am done playing the game. I created a new Apple ID that is generic and not personal. Then I created an iCloud account to go with it. Next, I purchased a new web domain here (silverfox.website) and email address to match it and then made THAT one the new/updated Apple ID. The hard part is switching everything from contact information to businesses and services I use over to the new account. Sure, I’ll lose a lot of subscriptions, but I am pairing them down and prioritizing anyway.

With iCloud+ services such as Private Relay and “Hide My Email” I can create generic, disposable email addresses. Apple then allows me to use random, generic passwords and will even store them for me using their KeyChain.

When all of this is sorted I need to discipline myself to keep it organized, unlike my previous attempts. Maybe then I can get back to enjoying what I love in peace such as photography, reading and geocaching.

October 27, 2023 / Journal

After recent price increases, subscription fatigue, privacy concerns and probably long overdue contentment, it’s time for a change. I’ll be withdrawing more from technology, technology blogs and restructuring everything to maximize privacy, reduce monthly subscription spending and pursuing avenues of personal interest.

I am heavily embedded into the Apple eco-system after decades of using Windows/Android. I have stuff scattered all over the internet, cloud storage and external hard drives with almost zero organization. That’s changing as of today.

First up, a new identity. I will no longer be using my personal name online. I don’t need to “brand myself” anymore since I am done playing the game. I created a new Apple ID that is generic and not personal. Then I created an iCloud account to go with it. Next, I purchased a new web domain (silverfox.website) and email address to match it and then made THAT one the new/updated Apple ID. The hard part is switching everything from contact information to businesses and services I use over to the new account. Sure, I’ll lose a lot of subscriptions, but I am pairing them down and prioritizing anyway.

With iCloud+ services such as Private Relay and “Hide My Email” I can create generic, disposable email addresses. Apple then allows me to use random, generic passwords and will even store them for me using their KeyChain.

When all of this is sorted I need to discipline myself to keep it organized, unlike my previous attempts. Maybe then I can get back to enjoying what I love in peace such as photography, reading and geocaching.

May 27, 2023 / Journal

After twenty-two years of owning and maintaining a website presence it is time to hang it up for now. There are a multitude of reasons behind this decision but I’ll keep most of them to myself. And yet after all this time it feels like I owe people an explanation for decades worth of loyalty.

Reasons:

As a friend once so eloquently put it: “I want to de-bullshit my life.”

It is costly to self-host your own website.

The articles have been stale because the day job does not allow time to create what I want.

Do I need to display a personal website on the WWW?

Why am I doing this?

Who the heck out there can remain interested in this site when I am not interested?

Alternative:

Grey Matter- it is my second brain. A digital garden where I have imported all my website articles, journals and notes into one massive database.

An article inside my database from six months ago about this goodbye process.

I have all those files backed up in plain text format so they are platform agnostic and portable with minimal file space used. These files are also linked and back linked together so if I performed a search on “Nikon” for example, then every article, note or mention will pop up and show me how my thoughts on the matter are connected.

When I now have the urge to write something for myself, I’ll place it in the “Journal” section and not the “Website” section. I was also paying an annual subscription service to the brilliant Day One journal app but now it is redundant in favor of my personal database.

Next Steps:

Now I am questioning the entire presence on the WWW and my software subscriptions. Regarding my photography website the same reasons apply as the blog:

“I want to de-bullshit my life.”
It is costly to self-host your own photography website.
The images have been stale because the day job does not allow time to create what I want.
Do I need to display a personal photography website on the WWW?
Why am I doing this?
Who the heck out there can remain interested in this site when I am not interested?

Once I have exported my articles from the website and import them into my database, I’ll shutter the website. I am still keeping the ChrisDenbow.com domain name and e-mail server of course. That is my digital real estate and no one else owns it. The same thing goes for PhotoDenbow.com. At some point in the future I am sure I’ll bring the website back online.

I am back in minimal essential mode to de-bullshit my life and maybe, just maybe, start to enjoy it again.

Thank you.

Chris Denbow
Saturday May 27, 2023 @ 10:30p
36.8.921, -95.58.145

June 4, 2017 / Journal

Why do I post consistently on someone else’s platform and not my own?

Yes, it is more social compared to the silence of my own thoughts.

Same goes for Instagram. I have my own photo website, why IG?

That’s it. I just answered my own question. This is for me and for introspection.

January 1, 2015 / Technology

Due to a denial of service (DoS) attack and suspected breach of my personal website security, I was contemplating just wiping the slate clean and start fresh with my entire web presence. 

No more chrisdenbow.website, new social media accounts, new accounts on the iTunes and Google Play which would force me to lose my digital media purchases, setup new accounts, passwords and all the rest of the inconvenient hassles.

But I’ve worked too hard these past few years building my web server, email server, content, web accounts and more to just walk away from it. With the support of my web server host support and enterprise software providers, etc, I think I’ve rooted out the issues and am staying put.

So what has changed? Nothing on the surface. All my systems have been secured as best as I could. 

The content here still stinks but I’ll still crank it out. So yeah, I’m back. 

February 1, 2012 / Technology
November 28, 2011 / Technology

The term “reboot” means to discard much or even all previous continuity and start over with fresh ideas. It could also imply that I just wanted to scratch the whole thing and start over again. Previous posts (2005-2011) have been backed-up and shelved until I create an archive.