Coming up

The downside of launching early: there are still things I want to add to this website that did not make it to this first version. I am glad I did go live, though; I’m afraid it otherwise would have taken several more weeks before this website was finally online.

So, what is coming up in the coming weeks?

More content

There are many projects that I have done that I did not yet put online. I am currently quite busy, so that is why I did not have the time to put them all online. Expect the list to be updated in the coming week.

There are also some topics I would like to blog about. There are programming solutions I would like to share and explain, there are books I would like to recommend, and also the occasional update. Furthermore, in a few weeks I will go to a conference in Prague (the MISTA) and maybe I will find some inspiration there to blog about.

Comments

Some people advise against enabling comments on your website, saying that it should be on Facebook. While this would increase the value of my Facebook page, I feel more comfortable increasing the value of this website. First of all, this website is under my own control, while Facebook is under control of Facebook. Secondly, this website is open for everyone, while a Facebook page requires that visitors are logged in. This deters search engines, people who do not have a Facebook account, and to some extent people who are not continuously logged in to their Facebook accounts.

I want my website to be open and free, without anyone having to risk privacy by visiting or forcing them to use Facebook. I am not sure how to balance privacy and anonymity on the one side and spam protection on the other hand, but I am sure I will find a solution. If only I already had comments to ask you!

Encryption

I want to make this whole website encrypted and available using HTTPS only, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I want to have some experience securing a website. This is not (yet?) important for me, but it might become important for some clients handling customer data. Secondly, after reading the article Why We Encrypt by Bruce Schneier, I believe that encrypted traffic is the way forward. To protect you, the visitors, from man-in-the-middle attacks (sometimes also done by ISP, injecting ads or tracking methods) and to protect the important data. To quote Bruce Schneier’s article I mentioned:

If we only use encryption when we’re working with important data, then encryption signals that data’s importance. If only dissidents use encryption in a country, that country’s authorities have an easy way of identifying them. But if everyone uses it all of the time, encryption ceases to be a signal. No one can distinguish simple chatting from deeply private conversation.

So now you know

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