A month ago I wrote a post about adding HTTPS and SSL to this blog. At the time, I had not yet figured out how to do that.
The option was on a page I hadn’t seen at that time. I found the page where I could activate it, slid the slider to “On” and now this blog has HTTPS in the header.
I forgot one of my own habits that has served me well in the past:
Each major change in technology brings about claims that it is a new day for civilization and mankind. “It is different this time.” Both you and I have seen those claims about smartphones and the internet today. The same things were said about the industrial revolution and about the rise in literacy after printing press became more common in Europe. I can probably find similar statements written about every single technological advancement in every single field and industry that exists.
All of those statements were wrong. Human nature did not change. Technology changed, and it changed some parts of the world. Technology did not change human nature.
We all have limited amounts of time, energy, and attention. We are all unable to trade those things with each other.
Technology is still created by humans who are very human.
I just finished reading the 2022 edition of LibreOffice Expert. In yesterday’s post I wrote that “Everything comes somewhere.“
This is definitely true of LibreOffice. It was designed as an alternative to Microsoft Office and it’s gone through multiple incarnations over the years: StarOffice, then OpenOffice, and now LibreOffice.
Because of that, it will in many ways resemble Microsoft Office, with occasional differences. In places the Microsoft Office had definite flaws, LibreOffice has been explicitly written to avoid those flaws. One of those flaws was the ability to apply multiple templates to MS Word documents, which often resulted in file corruption. To avoid that, LibreOffice Write does not allow the user to apply multiple templates to a file.
Overall, LibreOffice Expert is a very good magazine. I learned a lot about how to use LibreOffice. And I learned a lot about why LibreOffice is designed the way it is.
There’s theory and there’s practice. Many things are easier to know if theory and more difficult to put into practice.
Using HTTPS, SSL and TLS (HyperText Transport Protocol Secure, Secure Sockets Layer, and Transport Layer Security if you like your acronyms spelled out) seems fine in theory. Getting this website to use HTTPS by default is proving more difficult in practice than I expected in theory.
Humility is good for the soul. This is building character. This is really annoying me.
While I figure it out, here’s some external website links I found useful:
Someone non-technical explaining something to non-technical audience who “just wants it to work” will often have information and perspectives which a more technical writer won’t think to mention.
My previous post was titled Mindset Monday. Tuesdays I am reserving for actual technical information, usually something I’ve learned during the week. Maybe it will help you, the reader. Maybe it won’t.
I write what I’ve learned because it helps me organize my own thoughts. Additionally, it’s a a record of what I’ve learned for future reference. Which is better than trying to keep everything packed in my head. I don’t need to write down every button push or feature. That’s what the manual is for. I write down what works for me.
Today I’m writing about email lists and opt-in forms on a blog (like this one). I’ve gon through a few plug-ins and looked at various options. There are a lot of ways to create forms on a blog. Each of those ways seems to require setting up a separate account on a marketing site or email list site. Furthermore, I will say that user information is something which carries a responsibilities with it. The more information I gather, the more responsibility I’ll have. The more I spread that information around to other sites, the more responsibility I have to keep track of what information I’m gathering and who I’m sharing it with.
Every bit of stuff on the internet requires money at some point. Money pays for the server it’s hosted on. And money pays for the bandwidth to access the information on the server. Also, money pays for the people who maintain the servers, software, databases, and physical communications lines.
Every site and service I add on to whatever I’m using is paid for in some way. That’s true of this blog, my computer, my digital camera, and anything else. I either pay for it with money, or I pay for it with access to my information. (I do know about free open source software, FOSS, and I support people who do that. Even there, services are only free because someone else decided to pay with their own time and effort and money to create something free for the rest of us.) Until I better understand what various sites will be doing with the information I give them, I’ll leave out opt-in lists.
I know, if you’re looking for information about how to use technology you probably wanted a quick set-up guide. This blog isn’t for that. The quicker the set-up, the easier the sign-up, the more that’s offered for free, the higher the likelihood there will be a price in time or money or unexpected risk to be paid later. That’s how you wind up with your technology using you, instead of you using your technology.