Quickies: Assistance Requested

     I was at one time a first-rank software engineer; I specialized in operating systems and their customization, real-time executives, embedded applications, and communications. However, I am unschooled in the ways of the Web, especially blogging software and the database technology beneath it. (My knowledge of HTML ends with version 3.2.) As Google has proved hostile to opinions such as mine, and is becoming ever more likely to “do something about it,” I’m contemplating abandoning Blogger, a Google subsidiary, and moving to an independently hosted website beholden to no one but myself.

     I need help setting up such a website:

• What blogging software is best for the sort of material that appears here?
• Where do I get it?
• What does it cost?
• How is it installed and customized?
• What does the administrator need to learn to manage it?

     Are there any Gentle Readers willing to walk me through this process?

Quickies: For My Blog-Savvy Readers (Sticky Through August 20, 2018)

     Those who’ve been reading my crap for a while might remember Eternity Road, where I blogged before I moved here. I did so because I and my Webmaster had a falling-out, and I, being ignorant about blogging software, could not maintain the site by myself.

     However, I’ve begun to have misgivings about Blogger. Yes, it’s free of cost. Yes, it’s easy to use. And yes, I’ve been here for six years now and nothing terrible has happened.

     But it’s a Google platform. And Google, like Facebook and Twitter, has become increasingly hostile to opinion from conservatives and libertarians.

     So I’m thinking seriously about re-establishing Liberty’s Torch at a location less likely to turn on me without warning. But I’m as ignorant about blogging software as I was in 2012. So I need:

1. Suggestions about Web hosts that are committed to freedom of expression;
2. Ideas about what blogging engine I should use and what supports it requires;
3. A Webmaster who knows his stuff and won’t ask a fortune for his services.

     Would any of my Gentle Readers care to contribute their thoughts...or offer their expertise?

An Embarrassment

     Please forgive me, Gentle Readers. I’ve overlooked a condition I really should have noticed long before this.

     Until about three weeks ago, Blogger would send me email to notify me that someone had submitted a comment to a post here at Liberty’s Torch. For the past three weeks, I’ve received no such emails, which I naively took to mean that no one had submitted any comments. Silly me.

     Just yesterday, longtime reader Pascal wrote to ask me why I hadn’t approved any comments in so long. I replied that it might just be that no one had submitted any. Pascal wrote to inform me that he most certainly had. Silly me.

     Anyway, to cut a long story short, I just went to the Comments in Moderation section of my Blogger control panel and approved comments that go all the way back to May 24. I have no idea why Blogger didn’t email me about them. Research must continue.

     Comment away, Gentle Readers. I’m “back on the job.”

Quickies: Hear Ye, Hear Ye

     As I’ve grown tired of having to moderate precious little sniping comments from “Anonymous” cowards, I have changed the “Comments” setting at Liberty’s Torch from “anyone, including Anonymous” to “Users with Google accounts.” As Google accounts are free and have no concomitant obligations, this should not occasion unrest among legitimate commenters. At any rate, it’s preferable to the requirement, growing more common at heavily trafficked sites, for a “Facebook” account.

     To those who find what I write offensive, boring, or otherwise not to their taste: just imagine what I think of you. Oh, pardon me, my mistake: you can’t imagine; you haven’t the brainpower. So out of my infinite kindness toward the mentally challenged, I’ll make it explicit: I have nothing but contempt for you room-temperature IQ types who think derision constitutes worthwhile discourse. Your “comments” are the emissions of persons whose last substantive thought occurred before they were toilet trained. Have a nice life.