A kingdom of ones own?

Alan ask:

Interviewing Your Domain

And suppies some questions, just like blogs way back when!

What is your domain name and what is the story, meaning behind your choice of that as a name?

johnjohnston.info ’cause .com and .co.uk and others were not available. I waited too long to get my name.

What was your understanding, experience with domains before you got one? Where were you publishing online before having one of your own?

This takes me down memory lane.

I started publishing on the web on aol. At http://members.aol.com/weefishes, (Internet archive from 1998), I was trying to share and sell some HyperCard stacks and applications. My business was called LittleFish. This lead to my first domain http://littlefishsw.co.uk I guess I wanted to have a more professional URL and more control over the content.

I took the same route with my school website, http://members.aol.com/sandaig (Archive 2001), then http://sandaigprimary.co.uk, (archive for 2003)

I started this blog on the Sandaig domain in 2005 (2007 snapshot on the Archive).

At that point I though of domains are more memorable URLs that would allow me a wee bit more freedom than AOL hosting.

I had or was involved in other domains, some of which still are in use. One of my favourite was opensourcecpd.org.uk which was a plan to follow open source principals for CPD. It never took off but I love the idea.

What was a compelling feature, reason, motivation for you to get and use a domain? When you started what did you think you would put there?

When I left Sandaig I wanted to move my blog away from the school site, so I sorted out a site and this domain. I migrated all the content for the old blog and eventually changed platforms to WordPress. I consider the blog, as continuous despite the domain and platform changes.

The blog sits at /blog I wanted the site to be more than a blog, it is full of different simple and messy web experiments and tests.

What kinds of sites have you set up one your domain since then? How are you using them? Please share URLs

I’ve no subdomain on this domain, but lots of folders. My favourites include my ds106 blog at /106, Flickr CC Stamper at /fcc and my /walks.

I do have another domain johnj.info which has a few sub domains that point to a far number of sites:

pi.johnj.info my raspberry pi web server

git.johnj.info points to github

gifmovie.johnj.info a test site foa a WordPress Plugin I was attempting to make.

known.johnj.info/ known a nice indieweb cms, I tested but drifted away.

plog.johnj.info/ Mobile Photos – From my phone via mail now replaced by posting photos here.

wiki.johnj.info/ a federated wiki test

clue.johnj.info Give me a clue. This is the sort of thing I usually stick in a folder…

glow.johnj.info redirects to John Johnston – Playing around with Glow Blogs

What helped you or would have helped you more when you started using your domain? What do you still struggle with?

My domains grew in a messy and organic way. Previous choices affect future ones. Of course I’d like everything neat and tidy but…

I don’t handle or control the dns for this site. Hence the johnj.info domain and sub domains. My host does this. I stick with him because he is great and has indulged me a lot. Some other sites I host elsewhere for price and cause I like Jim too.

What kind of future plans to you have for your domain?

I am exploring the indieweb more, hopefully I’ll keep that going.

What would you say to other educators about the value, reason why to have a domain of your own? What will it take them to get going with their own domain?

I like the idea of my own space more than a domain. I like futzing. It is important, to me, to have one place. Sites in silos, or aol, or tilde spaces are fine playgrounds.but services go away. The domain is just an address pointing to my messy kingdom where I can do what I want, if I can.

I find great value in having my blog go back for years. I search it often. If I’d trusted a silo my content might have vanished by now.

Ideally everyone would get a domain automatically. Obviously this would make for a lot of domains.

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