My iPhone X screen was broken when the world was put in lockdown mode two month ago due to the Coronavirus outbreak. Fortunately I was able to make backup to my computer and restore to my old iPhone 6s Plus, so I can make phone call and receive messages, but I need an new phone.
Few days ago, I order my new phone from Apple, and delivered this morning. It is an 256GB space gray iPhone Pro, with (PRODUCT RED) case.
iPhone 11 Pro may not be a choice for many people, the screen size and battery life is smaller and less than iPhone 11 Pro Max, but price was much higher than iPhone 11 without OLED. People intend to choose large screen phone when budget is not an issue, and for people want cheaper phone without sacrifice performance iPhone 11 will be their choice.
I want an better screen phone, therefor iPhone 11 with only LCD was out of my list. The new camera system on Pro series is also a plus.
My wife is using iPhone 11 Max Pro, although the screen is great, it too big and too heave for me to hold with one hand. With 5.8 inch iPhone 11 Pro I can still touch top left cornet with only my right hand, but there is no way to complete operate an 6.5 inch Pro Max without help from another hand.
As iPhone with 5G support will be available this year, I probably switch to new iPhone 12 and make this iPhone as the shortest-lived phone on my hands.
More: Infrared flood illuminator was turned on and captured by my camera.
I moved this site to official WordPress hosting (WP.com) about one year ago. I was using WordPress as my blog system since 2005 by moving away from Movable Type. My first site was setup on a LAMP server, then move to Media Temple Grid hosting, and then move to Linode VPS. After few problem and incident I decide move my site to managed WP with a paid plan.
Some times I receive message of asking comparing VPS hosted WordPress and WP.com, which is not an easy question to answer. I list reason why I move to WP.com and what I lost.
Why I move to WP.com
Security and Updates
Site security is important. And it was the main reason I move to a managed solution. I don’t mean how good the security in WordPress.com, but generally speaking they do security better than most VPS owner.
I work for a major IT company, and have client in Top 500 list. I know there will be risk of put my web server direct to internet. So when I deploy WordPress on my Linode VM, I put my Apache and database in an internal network behind a Haproxy.
Example of Haproxy with Let’s Encrypt
The software and proxy run on different VPS connect to private network with Firewalld on. I can only SSH to non-root account with ssh-key, not using password. And also have script for install Linux security update every 2 weeks.
Every thing looks great, but one day in 2017 I see my site was marked with security warning by Google. After check and file scan, several script has been found injected into WordPress plugin and program. The root cause was not found, the best guess was cause by security vulnerabilities in old WordPress version.
I have to complete rebuild those VM, and restore data from backup. But even update WordPress is not a difficult task, I did have experience of failed upgrade, and take me time to fix the problem. This is why I am looking for am managed service, and WP.com is the first option.
HTTPs and Let’s Encrypt ACME
I also using Haproxy for HTTPs offloading, and using Let’s Encrypt as my HTTPs certificate provider. But certificate provided by Let’s Encrypt have short expire date, so I setup auto renewal with ACME for update certificate every few weeks.
However, sometimes the auto renewal failed and causing Haproxy stop working. On the other hand WP.com helps me renew certificate without any problem.
Price
I currently using Premium Plan from WP.com costs me 8.00 USD per month. Compare to VPS plan, cost me 5.00+20.00=25.00 USD per month， save my 204.00 USD each year.
I also using premium theme included in my plan, so I do not need to spend extra cost to buy theme, or safe time for develop by my self. And I don’t need to spend time to maintain those VMs.
Cons
There are some limitation of using WP.com. Some of the limitation due to my 8.00 USD Premium Plan, and can be resolved by upgrade to more expensive plan. But other limitation can not work around easily.
Feature and Plugins
My Premium Plan don’t include plugin service. As a SaaS service, there is no more control other than WordPress dashboard panel, any extra feature not include in WordPress must require install a plugin. The cheapest plan with plugin support cost 25.00 USD per month.
Without plugin support some advance feature such as CDN, some show-box, google analytics are also limited.
Certificate
DNS and Domain Name
WP.com can providing one year free domain name for customer, but the best practice is register your domain name with major domain provider such as godaddy or name.com. I didn’t use free domain name provide by WP.com so I do not know how much I have to pay for next year, and I am not sure WP.com offer private Whois.
By default, WP.com require using their DNS, and WP.com DNS do support most of the DNS record type
But for user have large record list, or do not want to transfer DNS from HE.net or NS1.com, you can create a A record to WP.com ingress IP addresses. I using following IP address provided by WP.com support:
192.0.78.24
192.0.78.25
They can be different from your site, ask support for conformation.
SANS in HTTPs Certificate
Certificate issued by WP.com under common name *.wordpress.com. My domain name list as one DNS record in SANs, with other WP.com user’s domain name. I can not have a http certificate with only my domain name in SANs list.
China Problem
I living in China, and WP.com sometimes blocked in China. Currently I using a workaround for this issue. This only cause problem for people visit my site from China.
Log and Visiter Metadata
On WP.com, I can only see visitor information from Jetpack. If you have plugin support, other traffic analytics service such as Google can be support. But unlike VPS, I can access raw log from Haproxy or Apache web server can and send to ELK on my data platform for archive or analysis.
Summary
The only problem for me now is raw access log and no plugin support. I use CDN solve the certificate and access problem. I don’t know is any SaaS provider will provide those access log, but before I see better stable WP managed service, I will stay in WP.com, and perhaps buy the Business Plan.
Need Not to Know 