Exploring Blogs: My not-perfect-but-ok-for-now solution

Hosting with Hostinger

After I decided that Hugo wasn't exactly the one for me after all, I had a look around the Hostinger site. I saw that they offered what looked like solid templates I could use to get started. Truth be told I was getting fed up faffing my way around Terminal and just wanted to get a site I liked the look of and start building content.

First up, Wordpress. I figured this would be close to the WYSIWYG I used 25 years ago with Dreamweaver. Not so much. Hats off to the folks who design and build the sites we visit every day. I think with some practice I can find a Wordpress template I like and configure it the way I want, but as i said before I was eager to just get going.

Hostinger's AI site builder is what I settled on. That's what I'm putting this site together with and it has been so much easier than anything I tried before. It's intuitive for one. It's built up in sections. I don't have to ask chatgpt for help. It has its own AI helper called Kodee down in the right corner which has helped when needed. Everything just works. I'm now the not so proud owner of 3 domain names. I was considering using Porkbun to build another site and host the domain I purchased via Porkbun there, but the tools on Hostinger are so much more robust, so I'll likely move my Porkbun domain over here at some point, or maybe just leave it there if I can properly figure out how Wordpress works.

If you're considering Hostinger, I might recommend the Business Plan. I opted for the cheapest plan and there is nothing wrong with it, but the business plan gives access to things like AI image generation, AI writing tools, etc. Not totally necessary, but they would have been nice to have access to.

One pretty cool function on this website builder from Hostinger is the auto-fix for mobile layout. It does what it says, so I don't have to flap around trying to adjust formatting for mobile versions of the site. Hopefully it looks ok.

I do have some gripes. My original plan to post blogs directly from Obsidian had to go on the back burner. Currently I'm writing on Obsidian, and just copying and pasting over here. At the end of the day, I'd probably be editing and trying to make things look pretty on here anyway, so maybe this workflow isn't so bad after all.

So now I have a functioning website. Next up, hopefully some interesting content.