What Do You Do With a Personal Domain?

bmerr71 writes "I bought my own domain name to use as a self-promotion tool. I use a subdomain, 'profile.mydomain.com', which I selectively put on my email signatures to link to my linkedin profile. I also loaded up Google Apps to use for email. But when you go directly to my domain name, there is nothing there. I didn't want GoDaddy getting ad revenue off my name (and it doesn't look very professional), so I killed the ad page, but it seems like I should be able to put something up on my main page. But, I am not interesting in blogging, I do not want too much personal information up there, and I do not want to spend a lot of money (none, if possible). Are there any free apps that I can load up on my domain to fill the blank space? What do non-bloggers do with their personal domains?"

Comments

Stay With Me Here

[eldavojohn]

But, I am not interesting in blogging, I do not want too much personal information up there, and I do not want to spend a lot of money (none, if possible).

I think you should go with a really well thought out image that speaks to your audience with no words needed. Ok, stay with me on this one, ok? Picture this: your head ... superimposed on Chuck Norris' body ... punching Clippy ... into the fires of Mount Doom.

WHAT? How can you not like that?

What do non-bloggers do with their personal domains?

Something really interesting and original ... which kind of puts the ball back in your court. If you have any work you can showcase, do it ... otherwise I would suggest you actually take sometime to make it personal. Otherwise just make a portal to sites you like or profiles on social networking sites with a theme that you enjoy (you could do this easily with nvu, blufish, etc or any WISYWIG open source editor out there).

Re:Stay With Me Here

[0100010001010011]

Well this is what I do.

First off I have Dreamhost which allows unlimited domains, space & bandwidth. It's not 6-nines, but it works for me. Full SSH, SFTP, etc access.

1) My 'domain' is blank. It points to nothing.

2) Every picture I've ever taken is at pictures.X.org. Password Protected. If I want to show someone something I'll open a folder for them using htaccess. It's also my off-site backup for my pictures.

2) SVN. Dreamhost lets you easily setup SVN. I honestly just discovered version control in the last month (More or less took the time to learn it) and absolutely love it. So all my pet projects have an svn.X.org page.

3) Sub domains for where I post the most. Since I post quite a few photoshops/images to Fark. I have a fark.X.org that is nothing but pictures. I have a vw.X.org for posting pictures of my Dubs to VWVortex and TDICLub. I try not to move the directory around at all. I hate digging up a 6 month old "how to" and find all the images are broken.

4) Unlimited e-mail. I have catch-all turned on. slashdot@X.org, fark@x.org, facebook@X.org, I know exactly when and where spam comes from. (Damn you USA Rugby*).

5) Subdomains to my computers. Both my linux desktop and mac laptop have scripts to update mac/linux.X.org with the current IP.

6) gallery.X.org for people in my family to upload stuff. (With Gallery2).

7) A few friends have websites at name.X.org. I create a new FTP or SFTP user for them

8) If you have SSH access, I route everything through at work. Dynamic proxy and I don't go through the work proxy servers.

Half of those blur the line between domain/host but you get the idea.

* Why the hell are you giving out my e-mail address?
[Sir, we're not]
Then why is it I'm getting spam at usarugby@X.org?
[Well you must have given that e-mail address out somewhere else]
No, why would I do that?
[Um, it's not our fault]

Re:Stay With Me Here

[Jurily]

You might have missed the part where he said he wanted something professional

Oooh, I know! Some worthless text in yellow, with pink background, in Comic Sans, with lots of blink tags!

And don't forget to include "Best viewed with [your exact hardware]" at the bottom.

Re:Stay With Me Here

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

Professional.... Hmmmmmm, Why not porn? At least you could make a few bucks. :)

Re:Stay With Me Here

[samcan]

And don't forget the animated GIFs of flaming torches and spinning globes!

And a cheezy-looking GIF of a spider, or a web. (For being on the "Web." :p)

Re:Stay With Me Here

[OakDragon]

And an "Under Construction" graphic with a little guy shoveling.

Re:Stay With Me Here

[CyberDong]

So... JWSmythe, what kind of porn was it that had the customers harassing you so...

(from jwsmythe.com)

I came to this decision a long time ago, after coworkers were harassed by customers outside of work. What's it like to have a customer who is dissatisfied with the company you work for, calling you at home; showing up at your house; sending threatening letters; making threatening phone calls? These were all because that company didn't live up to that particular customer's expectations. That wasn't a gray-market company. The product and services were clearly outlined, and provided in accordance to that.

Re:Stay With Me Here

[Homburg]

The standard edition of Google Apps is free whether or not you buy your domain through Google. You could also use make use of the fact that using a plus sign, like username+somethingelse@myappdomain.com gets delivered to username@myappdomain.com, rather than explicitly setting up aliases for different sites, although perhaps at some point spammers will get wise to this and start extracting people's "real" email addresses from addresses of this form.

Resume?

[jfinke]

Why don't you post a copy of your resume and redirect all hits to your domain to that page?

Re:Resume?

[rubycodez]

indeed, that's what has kept me employed for the last seven years. not any job site, not any recruiting firm, but contractor and now full time work from someone at the hiring company using a search engine that returned my resume.

and certainly not sites like linkedin, useless and lame

Seinfeld

[Ukab the Great]

Be master of your domain.

Perhaps you don't need web page

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have nothing to say, perhaps it's foolish.

Speaking for myself...

[laron]

I use my personal domain for my "good" email address and also to host personal stuff like photo albums, avatars, bookmarks and such.
Call me old fashioned, but I like to keep my private stuff away from corporations, so I try to avoid photobucket, flickr etc.

"Self-promotional tool"

[NotBornYesterday]

What exactly are you trying to promote about yourself? What do you do? Do you want visitors to learn something about you, or are you just filling your corner of the internet with random web apps?

We can't help you if we don't know what you're trying to accomplish.

Re:pictures of family and friends

[Chabo]

I say he should have a web interface for his MythTV machine, so the public can choose what he watches each night. :)

MyDomain.com

[neoform]

I use a subdomain, 'profile.mydomain.com',

BAD BAD BAD.

mydomain.com is a privately owned domain. When demonstrating a domain, you use profile.example.com!

Re:MyDomain.com

[Nefarious Wheel]

I had no idea example.com was reserved. +e insightful.

You're being irrational.

Re:MyDomain.com

[schmiddy]

use profile.example.com!

BAD BAD BAD I did a little digging into this supposedly-upstanding domain to be used for examples. Well guess what, mister -- I don't trust the "IANA Whois Service" one bit. Did you know that "IANA" is not even a part of the Better Business Bureau? And they don't have contact information on their page, so there's no one you can complain to?? They seem like a shady company to me, getting all this traffic from example code. They don't even have a privacy policy on their website!! Who knows what they could be doing with the IP Addresses they collect?!? Probably sending them to the RIAA, NSA, FBI, and various advertising agencies.

Do yourselves a favor -- stop using example.com in example code and network diagrams, RFC 2606 be damned. From now on, I propose that everyone use the domain "doubleclick.net" in example code, comments, diagrams, URLs, etc. You're welcome.

Re:MyDomain.com

[EnvyRAM]

Yea, this is actually specified by RFC 2606. example.com/.net/.org are all reserved as well as the TLDs .test, .example, .invalid, and .localhost. When I'm reading tech books with people not following this RFC it always jumps out at me as unprofessional.

Re:Not "personal" in the same way, but

[legirons]

I registered fuckthenavy.net because .com and .org were taken.

You think the navy might be interested?

My domain

[JWSmythe]

    What do you with your domain? Anything you damned well please.

    Check out http://jwsmythe.com

    I have an redacted copy of my resume, some tools I use on a regular basis, my portfolio of some of the more unique and complex work I've done (and some lame stuff to fill space).

    Under my site, if you know the directory names, you'll find work I did for particular customers that I wanted to make available, some personal projects, and other crap. My full resume is also hidden under an unlinked subdirectory, so I can give out the specific link to the full resume with my full name, address, companies I've worked for, etc. Sometimes I just need to move a file from point A to point B, where I can't FTP or SCP to either one, so it's a good transit point for me. Copy it over, and scp it down.

    My site takes up 30Gb, even though the visible part is maybe (just maybe) a few Mb.

    So, what do I do with my site? Anything I want. I don't have a blog on there yet, but I'm writing one from scratch. I've picked up a few new paying customers since I was laid off from my full time job, the paying customers take priority over anything I want to do for myself. Since I advertise myself as a sysadmin/programmer/network engineer/security engineer/DBA/etc, it would be silly to put a pre-packaged blog software on there. :) It also has my rate sheet, so if someone asks me, "Can you do this for me?", I can point them directly to it, so they can reference it any time they want.

    My other domains, I put whatever is appropriate on them. You'll find my news site linked from my personal site. That makes a little money. You'll also find my cryptography site. It doesn't make any money, but it gets a lot of traffic from various places including universities and government/military facilities. I have to assume some have integrated my open source software into their own applications. It would be nice if they told me, but no one ever does.

    I have a couple dozen other domains. Some are almost completely dormant (with Google or Amazon ads). Some got a good Google PR, so I keep them around to help raise my rank on other projects. :)

Re:Personality - you need one.

[KefabiMe]

Personality - you need one. Get a personality and what to put on your web page comes naturally.

Why do you gotta be a dick? Have you never asked someone for advice? What's your advice to people who ask technical questions? "A brain - you need one."?

For others of us, while we may know some HTML, and perhaps can even do some php and database programming, we just don't have the time to build a web presence from scratch. The guy even stated he's looking for a free app to help him out. He is experiencing a TIME issue, not a PERSONALITY issue. If you ask me, refactored (260886) is the one with a personality problem.

What do you do with a canvas?

[mypalmike]

"I bought my own canvas to use as a self-promotion tool. I removed the plastic wrapper. I also nailed some tacks into the sides to strengthen it. But when you go to look at it, there is nothing there. I didn't want Joe's Art Supplies getting ad revenue off my name (and it doesn't look very professional), so I sanded off the logo, but it seems like I should be able to put something on the canvas itself. But, I am not interesting in painting, I do not want too much personal information on it, and I do not want to spend a lot of money on paints, charcoals, or pastels(none, if possible). Are there any things that I can put on my canvas to fill the blank space? What do non-painters do with their personal canvases?"