Back on the net again, thanks to free hosting at x10hosting.com. Looking back at previous posts, I realized I remained inactive on this blog for all of 2014 and 2015. In 2015, I retired from dedicated server support and backed up all my blogs for storage. The backups lingered on in cloud and offline storage while I toyed with the notion of self-hosting my own server (which I came close to settling on via Webmin/Virtualmin).
Unfortunately, I moved to a semi-rural ‘burb of Denton where the ISP options were DSL and a ‘roided version of DSL that AT&T claims to be fiber (the much hyped Uverse Internet, except it’s underwhelmingly slow). How I miss the days of fiber-to-the-curb with Verizon FIOS. I’ll save my Uverse rant for another post when the service goes offline again.
I was not too scarce when it came to my internet presence. Along with Yelp and fitness tracking apps, I launched into the Instagram and Tumblr spaces (sorry, no Facebook or Twitter for me). I also managed to hack a Google+ profile of sorts using my YouTube identity, wrangled a Flickr account into usefulness, and rarely added to my network on LinkedIn.
Okay, maybe I confess I (re)started up Tumblr, G+ and Flickr only very recently after puzzling out how to rope together all my social identities into a cohesive narrative.
The secret is in the nascent field of integrative and automation apps bursting onto the scene. Some call it ETL, some refer to it as IaaS or PaaS. For my personal use, I wanted to yoke all my personal data streams under ideally one dashboard, push or repost my data without having to touch multiple platforms.
Web services such as IFTTT and Buffer offer free push/pull automation useful in the personal space. Obviously the potential for business is greater and more profitable, such that services like Zapier, bip.io, itDuzzit and CloudWork are in big demand. The possibilities of what these integrative services can do are limitless. StackStorm for example is an open-source project to watch. For more reading, check out this post.
One particular arena in which integration and automation is rapidly evolving is the fitness and health app industry, where many hardware and software data are connected via multiple APIs, collected and digested onto just as many platforms. The notion of fleshing out your online identity with data pumped from these sources is staggering! GPS enabled devices made it possible to track your physical whereabouts; health/fitness data aggregates and publicizes your current vitals. Again, the future is an open book with regards to the direction these services and applications can take us.
WordPress itself has grown into a mature platform that I haven’t fully explored all its recent capabilities. I plan on addressing this when I determinethe new look and direction of this blog/personal portal.