u b i q u i t o u s w e l c o m e m e s s a g e

Welcome to my litle server! This server serves a few of purposes - some technical, some personal.

As a technical thing it runs my website, which is the very small, mostly (completely) unheard of https://ahearn.studio. This is a portfolio site for my art, a place I can point people to whenever they ask or whenever I have to let a gallery know how to find my art. Since I'm not on any social media platforms, this is really the only digital place to see my art (if that's the sort of thing you're interested in). Well, the art is also on the Gemini capcsule, but I'll get into that.

This server also hosts my Gemini capsule, which you obviously alredy know. While nearly all of what's on the HTTPS site is also published here - they're actually in the same folder on the server so they /could/ be considered the same site - it's my intention to make this capsule different in some key ways. For instance, where the HTTPS site is really about the visuals, this capsule will have more writing on it - hopefully. We'll see if I can actually get into the habit of writing more.

=> You can see the website here | You can access the Gemini capsule here

As a personal thing, this server is a hobby. During the day, I'm a mild-mannered systems engineer; your garden variety "tech" as it were. I work with various operating systems, database platforms, and web platforms, and have a deep interest in technology and enough knowledge to break and (usually) fix stuff. I'm also old enough that the sound of a 1400 baud modem can induce nostalgia. I remember burrowing through the early Internet using Gopher, and meeting BBS friends on Friday nights at the bowling alley. In those early days I was wasn't "into" computers or technology - I was taking art classes and learning how to live on my own. Computers where just there, more or less in the background, things I used to get things done but didn't really have much interest in. When I got older, and the "art thing" didn't seem like it would pay the bills, I went back to them as a possible career path. TL;DR - that worked out.

a l i t t l e a b o u t t h i s s e r v e r

The system itself is one that I build during the pandemic. I had some time and needed (well, wanted) a desktop that had some power to it. Not awe inspiring "gaming" computer power, but enough to comfortably run some *NIX variant well into the future. Someone who is really interested in the newest computer processors and video cards would give this computer to their kid, or neice/nephew, or maye even some random person who needed to check their email .. but for me it's more than enough.

Until recently, the system was running gmid on FreeBSD. At the moment, we're running Molly-Brown on Debian 12. I'm not sure what I'll be running 2-3 months from now - sometime I get a "wild hair" and just rebuild everything. There are other things running here too, like the HTPS site, but most of it is either boring or none-ya.