{"id":294,"date":"2026-10-24T02:55:29","date_gmt":"2026-10-24T09:55:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.markjwicker.com\/?p=294"},"modified":"2026-10-24T03:02:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-24T10:02:13","slug":"i-actually-host-this-myself-do-things-yourself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markjwicker.com\/?p=294","title":{"rendered":"I actually host this site myself – Do things yourself!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This is not hosted on a Bluehost or Squarespace or WIX….or whatever…This is my own AWS linux instance. No preinstalled apps. Nothing. Just a regular, vanilla EC2 Linux instance in AWS US-West.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I downloaded, installed and configured the LAMP stack on it myself and installed WordPress on it myself. I also manually migrated my old WP Database and content into it myself. I configured Apache for SSL and installed letsencrypt for my automatically updated SSL certificate. I also manage my own DNS, manually, in a different place. This includes creating all of the DNS records that make my site and domain good and searchable by google and also email services. No AI, I did it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I was to give one piece of advice to people – I would say that the very definition of freedom is learning and doing things yourself and not relying on others to do it for you. Just like I repair my own cars, computers, HVAC, plumbing and electrical. I do it. I save money and I cannot be held captive by scam artists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also built my own, off grid solar backup power system. I didn’t buy some pre-packaged Ecoflow or other pre-built system. I researched, learned, sourced and built everything myself. Between the panels, inverters, solar charge controllers, batteries, wiring and grid chargers…I spec’d it all and did it all….myself. And I save money with it by running my garage fridge and chest freezer completely off grid on it most of the time. It pays for itself…and I have backup power available from it in an outage. Unlike an on-grid solar system that many people are on the hook for $50,000+ for on their roofs that will immediately shut off in the case of a grid power failure (and some may not even realize that). This is also not to mention the manual power transfer switch that I installed off of a sub panel in my garage that I can use to connect my home built solar system to a strategically chosen electrical circuit in my house during an outage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the HVAC subject – I get saddened every time I see one of my neighbors getting scammed by an HVAC company into spending $15,000-$20,000 to replace their entire HVAC system upon a simple part failure. More often than not, it is just something simple that failed. Such as a run\/start capacitor on a compressor or fan motor…or a contactor that went bad. These are $20-$40 parts on Amazon that you can buy and replace yourself if you just educate yourself and use logic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or it could be the main circuit board of the Forced Air Unit\/Furnace as recently happened to me. I ended up troubleshooting and figuring out that a small capacitor on the main control board (PCB) had shorted out. I was able to find, identify and replace the failed capacitor on that PCB, plus a burned trace leading to it for 0 dollars. Just some sweat, knowledge and elbow grease and I was able to sleep in nice, cool, conditioned air again….on a weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It failed on a Friday evening during 105 degree weather. If I didn’t know how to do things, I would have been at the mercy of an “emergency” dispatch by some HVAC guy that would charge me 3x normal just to do a service call the next day on Saturday. I would still be sleeping in the heat for a few more nights while he ordered up my new $15,000 system and installed it. I would get to suffer the heat for days and be out 15-20K for a $.01 part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This is not hosted on a Bluehost or Squarespace or WIX….or whatever…This is my own AWS linux instance. No preinstalled apps. Nothing. Just a regular, vanilla EC2 Linux instance in AWS US-West. I downloaded, installed and configured the LAMP stack on it myself and installed WordPress on it myself. I also manually migrated my old […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-personal-life","count-0","even alt","author-mwicker","last"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markjwicker.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markjwicker.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markjwicker.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markjwicker.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markjwicker.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=294"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.markjwicker.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":300,"href":"https:\/\/www.markjwicker.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294\/revisions\/300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markjwicker.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markjwicker.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markjwicker.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}