Welcome to my personal site. It’s only been alive for half an hour, poor thing. Whether it’s worthwhile to come back remains to be seen. Hopefully there will be the typical mix of encounters with technology, family pictures and ruminations on the meaning of life. But first off, I am very proud of the address. Ouvaton is a French web hosting cooperative, which means that the hosts are the hosted, and there is no commercial company raking in the proceeds. The Ouvaton domain doesn’t have quite the same feel as Geocities or whatever since, I can honestly say I belong to it (or it belongs to me – at least a bit of it will when I’ve paid my dues). So I see no reason to personalize the domain name. It’s also quite a cheap solution, at least for small sites.
The second thing about this site is that it is set up under SPIP, a free open source content management system. Right now I am using the default template. This will evolve into something more interesting as the site develops. I have already used SPIP to manage three other web sites. Their references follow, if you are interested. SPIP is also from France, and learning it meant brushing up on my high-school French. But today, more and more of the documentation has been translated – not just to English, but to many other languages.
The third thing about this site is that it will be designed and developed on Linux, using open source software. I’m still quite a newbie with Linux – somehow I manage to make things work. I will also try to adhere as much as possible to web standards and do away with table layout.
The third thing about this site is that it will be designed and developed on Linux, using open source software. I’m still quite a newbie with Linux – somehow I manage to make things work. I will also try to adhere as much as possible to web standards and do away with table layout. But more on those things later.