Hello, Internet!
Hello there! Welcome to my new home on the internet.
Previously located at antoniosantos.io, I've decided to start publishing content on otolock.net moving forward, and I'm still debating if I will be migrating my content to this new domain.
The main reason for the change is cost. .io domain renewals went up last year to $51.80, with reports that another 12% increase is expected for 2027. That is simply not sustainable especially when other TLDs like this .net I got only costs around $12.50 to renew.
otolock has been my internet moniker for as long as I can remember. I grew up watching and playing with Transformers, and I recall thinking about a username and going for a play on autobots and landed at otolock. I've used it everywhere since, so I don't know why it never occured to me to use it as my domain until now.
Development Plans
I love tinkering with my website. It's fun to try out new technologies, hosting providers, deployment methods, frameworks, etc. The last verison of antoniosantos.io was built with Django, which I enjoyed working with. If you ever want to spin up a blog and have a built-in admin dashboard, I couldn't recommend Django more. However, that comes with its own complications. If I want to add a new post type, like links or replies, I need to scaffold a new model and update the database. With static-site generators like Astro, that is easier to do.
For this first verison of otolock.net, I went with Eleventy 3.1.6. I've seen many people on the IndieWeb use it to build great sites, like Michael Harley's and I wanted to give it a try after having used NextJS and Astro in the past. I'll write a bit about my first impressions later, but so far, it's been a smooth ride.
Before I get into more details, I did give myself one constraint with this new site: limited AI-agent assistance. I believe AI is a great tool, but I also enjoy the act of writing code. Sometimes, just because I want something done fast, I'll delegate a coding task to Claude or ChatGPT Codex. But, as I've written before, the faster AI gets you to a working solution, the less you learn. Since I want to learn how Eleventy works, I'm going to take my time slowly rebuilding the different building blocks of the IndieWeb and adding them to this new site.
If you've been following my blog through RSS, please add this site's RSS feed to your list. I will be posting here moving forward.