October 21, 2024

The debacle between WordPress.org and WPEngine has shaken the FOSS (Free Open Source Software) world, with the potential to impact over 40% of the Internet’s websites. This ongoing crisis not only strains relationships between the companies but has also divided employees, clients, and community members. It is like burning oil—creating noxious fumes and stifling lawsuits that may permanently change the landscape of the software we all trust and use. To understand why this is happening, we’ll need to dive into some uniquely intimate insights about the players at hand, as well as reflect on how this affects FOSS and what could be done to salvage the fragile ecosystem.

December 3, 2023

The price of publishing certified, code signed software for Microsoft Windows quadrupled this year. Apple developers have remained at $99 a year as code signing is apart of their membership fees; whether or not one wishes to distribute privately or through the AppStore. Microsoft on the other hand has been slow to compete and while the price of Microsoft’s developer program is only $19 dollars a year it does not include code signing services for distribution (unless one qualifies and distributes solely through Microsoft’s Store). Instead, for Windows developers that wish to distribute code through their own store, website, or organization can obtain a certificate from a CA (certificate authority) and can expect to pay over $875 dollars a year for a trusted CA like Digicert1. That could easily exceed thousands of dollars over a product’s lifespan. The price hike may cause open source authors to rethink the costs associated …

January 19, 2023

Update: In addition to dev.cc, I’ve acquired dev.pw and also pointed it to localhost. I’d highly recommend users switch to using dev.pw for their localhost domain and development needs because it is way more cost effective for me, personally. Three-dot-two letter domains are very rare and very costly. Think of the ‘pw’ as standing for ‘Preview’ and consider making the switch. Currently, I’ll be keeping dev.cc pointing to localhost but the financial burdens may invoke me to ask for donations from the public to keep this true; or I may have to finagle other means to offset the registration and server costs. In any case, I’ll be sure to be as transparent as possible to keep the public aware of any changes should it become necessary. If you have any questions or comments, please drop me a message as I’m curious as to how and if anyone is even using …

September 3, 2022

This blog is turning into a funeral home. It certainly wasn’t my intension. If I get to have it my way, my next post wont’t be so dreary but exciting. Not about ServerPress or DesktopServer, but rather what I’ve been working on in the last 30 days after closing up shop.While I’d love to comment on the last year that brought about the eventual demise of ServerPress, the wound is still fresh. Cathartic are all the emails of thanks, “you helped put my kids through college”, and sorry to see you go messages. It’s a good thing I’m emotionally slow and take LOTS of time to process things; otherwise I’d might slip up and say too much. The truth is that DesktopServer was no Netscape browser. We helped launch countless thousands of websites; but we didn’t have millions of users. Would it benefit the community to open source it? I …

January 8, 2021

I don’t make it a habit of taking screenshots. That happens on occasion when I fumble with gripping the iPhone’s opposing power and volume buttons; but I do admit to capturing my mother smiling. Sadly, those unique opportunities have come to an end. Now I cannot feel bitter or alone. That would break my mother’s heart. I know that I’m not alone in this exceptionally tragic past year. 2020 brought the death of my father in April, my sister in July, and my mother at the turn of the new year. Her diagnosis as COVID positive on Christmas Eve came after a long list of updates and bulletins for the area; for California; for America; for the world. We knew she would not fair well with her preexisting condition; years of Parkinson’s disease had taken its toll. Mom was a fighter and survived some of the harshest circumstances of war; …

December 23, 2020

This is a new blog. It is the third time I’ve “cleaned the slate”, abandoning prior websites simply because they were dated and never in the foreground of my attention. This time I’m making this blog my default browser’s homepage. In my more productive days, my browser’s default used to be iGoogle. iGoogle users may remember the super customizable landing page with their wonderful themes. My favorite was little “Zen Fox” playing a mandolin next to a pagoda and lake. The skyline would change colors to represent the time of the day; ending with stargazing. It suited my needs until it shutdown in 2013 only to be replaced for a short stint with Google+. Then Google+ died. But along with the shutdowns was a loss of all my automatically updated, convenient and compelling, RSS page feeds. All the newest titles of all the things I was interested in; gone. Bummer.The late …