CozyNet Blog

CozyNet is a personal blog site created and ran by Garry that was established in 2022. It’s primarily written in static HTML and PHP with a custom templating system on an Apache server running Debian for the OS. My experience in web hosting technology is primarily traditional self hosting and exclusively server side focused, hence my allergic avoidance of fashionable “As-A-Service” platforms and any framework, engine, or content management system. If you can build it, then why settle for less?

Just like the front page of the blog says, this is where I write on life, home & antique restoration, and many other things. CozyNet was originally a blog site that I grew into a small internet hobby community out of sheer boredom over the course of nearly three years complete with a forum, chat room, voice chat, and other services. During the short time span of running the site as a “web community,” I found a church after a lot of seeking and no longer had the time to continue maintaining it. Running a web community on the side gradually began to weigh on my conscience too as I was living two different lives – one for God and one for the web.

Today, CozyNet is just a simple blog with a hope that it’ll perhaps inspire some trapped on the internet to move on to greener pastures in life. I know from personal experience there are people out there perpetually stuck on the internet looking for a way off the ride despite it being a graveyard that paints the outside world in broad strokes of despair to keep anyone from escaping.

I honestly have to ask myself if what I’m doing is any different than what you might find on any social media focused site with its promotion of inane consumption and materiality. There are no like buttons and algorithms here and neither will there be pictures of me flashing cash while sailing a yacht or racing exotic cars. I might show you some cool tools and the projects I’m working on, but it’s not intended to sell you a product.

I’m not doing this for profit, attention, or even out of some fanatical religious obligation. I do it because I care.