Introduction

I’ve decided to keep a journal documenting my journey as a non-technical user in developing IT solutions with the help of AI. My approach has a few key points:

• Understanding the technology: It’s not enough for it to just work; I need to understand exactly why and how a solution is necessary;
• Simplifying: Solutions should be simple, understandable, and free of unnecessary complications that don’t add value;
• Total control: I’m a bit of a maniac on this point. I want the technologies I use to allow me to switch from one solution to another with minimal effort, even if they cost more. I want the flexibility to always use the best solution on the market, without compromise or lock ins;
• Open Source or EU-Based Software.

Purchasing a Domain

This point is already giving me trouble. As of this writing, the solution generally considered the best for this purpose is porkbun which, however, is U.S.-based. I haven’t been able to find such an affordable solution based in Europe. The EU-based alternative that offers the same no-frills functionality I’ve identified is INWX.

Which Infrastructure to use

The hosting services market is extremely crowded, with a myriad of services offering countless different features. You can choose from managed and unmanaged servers, instances, virtual machines, VPS, and many other alternatives: it can sometimes be hard to navigate. My advice is to use an LLM to help you navigate the various options. The key is to find the right balance between the flexibility offered by your chosen architecture and the hassle that flexibility entails: an unmanaged server lets you do almost anything, but at the cost of having to handle every aspect yourself, such as updates and so on. I chose to use Hetzner, partly because my preferred option (https://www.vultr.com/) is US based (I told you I am a bit maniac). The downside is that if you want to use OpenBSD, you have to go through a few extra steps.

Why OpenBSD

In short: because it’s more minimal. So it’s simpler and more secure (smaller attack surface). It's also the choice of the blog I am following along and also has a script for installing whatever is needed to start.

My take

Derek has made everything so much easy, I wish more people knew about these tools and how easy it is to just get started. The next steps are probably about my Bluesky's Personal Data Server that can be moved to Eurosky and start using the related ecosystem. Stay tuned!

Credits

• Derek Siver's blogpost on technology indipendence.