The New URL

Today, I finally took the plunge and gave this beast it’s own URL, http://reitred-moocher-dave.org. Those of you having davehamby.wordpress.com book-marked will find that you are forwarded to retired-moocher-dave.org. Please update your book-marks as Automattic makes no promises about how long the mapping will be maintained.

I registered the domain indirectly via Automattic, the fine folks who make WordPress and operate wordpress.com. Automattic still hosts the blog for me. For a simple, no-frills site like this one, it made sense to do it all with Word Press rather than registering separately with EasyDNS at retail. That route would have been a bit more complex and expensive. Word Press with a custom URL is $26/year. There will still be an advert at the bottom and I’m still restricted with respect to theme choice and plug-in choice but the stock 2014 theme and plug-ins meet my needs.

Like E-mail With That?

Automattic provides MX record support for external mail services as described here. This is something I may do down the road as I expect a retired-moocher-dave.org E-mail address will have some prestige. This should be very much of interest to friends like

• smallpotatoesengineering.com — Civil engineering services for home and business construction
• willowrunn.com — Breeders of companion, hunting, and show Vizela Hounds
• virginiagreyhounds.com — Tidewater’s greyhound rescue group

who should benefit from a richer web site and professional E-mal under an owned domain.

Google Apps for small business provides G-mail E-mail for $5/account-month or $50 per year pre-paid. Most small businesses only need an account or two making Google Apps very affordable for tradesmen, hobby businesses, and professionals. Automattic, at wordpress.com, provides web hosting linked to a custom domain for $30 per year. This combination restricts you to “standard” themes and will run the occasional advert if you become popular. I find this combination attractive because it is robust from security and availability standpoints. The best in the business are administering WordPress and Google clouds. I don’t have to be worried with server and daemon configuration and maintenance or with backup and disaster recovery. Highly recommended. And, being a retired moocher, I’m willing to assist friends with personal or small business web sites.