No Effort, Right Now

I found myself out of work and figured that it had been too long since I had a portfolio. But I needed something fast. I wanted something live, within 24 hours. So, that didn't give me time to compare hosts or stacks. Forget about learning a new front-end framework. My Reactjs skills are out of date. So, I came up with a plan to use what was available to me with the least amount of effort but the best return on features.

The Site

MykeKENNY

This is the site I created with this method. The next series of this blog will be the migration to a new platform. I'll let you know as I decide.

Prerequisites:

Decide On a Name

Picking a name should be straightforward but it's not as easy as it seems. There's so many different TLD's now and you have to decide how 'edgy' you want to look. Check out the table below for some examples.

Ultimately it's up to you. I went with something simple: FirstNameLastName and I chose the TLD .cv

Get A PorkBun Account (or Other Registrar)

NOTE: If you are on a strict budget, consider PorkBun. Now we need to check if our desired domain name is available and register it. There are alot of different options here. GoDaddy and CloudFlare for example are great options. One way or another, go register a domain name and come back.

Get A Google Account

If you haven't already, create a google account specifically for this purpose. Let's say it's a freelancer account. Make this for that purpose only. Separate the concerns via account. Make this account your name. Example: FirstJimmy Neutron TLD: .tech = Jimmy.Neutron.

Get A CloudFlare Account With Your Google Account

Using your Google Account, open a CloudFlare Account. After doing this, go to the DNS Settings. We will be going there often so get used to it now. Get your domain set up and set the NS on either PorkBun or whatever Registrar you chose. Don't make any other settings yet. Just get the NS set.

![](https://cdn.hashnode.com/uploads/covers/69bc3429b238fd45a320671b/4273d5d9-d2c4-4e58-bd1b-611ccb7e53c9.png align="middle")

Get A HashNode Account With Your Google Account

Same thing for your blog account. We want everything connected for simplicity. Don't configure anything else yet. We're doing this piece by piece. This just simplifies it for us so no one waits around creating accounts.

![](https://cdn.hashnode.com/uploads/covers/69bc3429b238fd45a320671b/b5fa35e2-1bc8-4ef5-8745-46e59e981b2c.png align="middle")

DNS Final Design

To give you an overview and idea of what we're going to do, here is the final product dns config.

![](https://cdn.hashnode.com/uploads/covers/69bc3429b238fd45a320671b/ccc2b03c-f8dc-4725-a050-e5b8ef975801.png align="middle")

Hi, I'm Myke Kenny, and this is my blog.

I’m a Software Engineer who dabbles in just about every corner of tech. My path hasn't been linear; I’m a high school and college dropout, largely self-taught, with a boost from a coding bootcamp that helped bridge the gap. Today, I’m an engineer, a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, and a husband to a brilliant woman. We have seven children who are the "why" behind everything I build.

In a previous life, I was a large-scale garment screen printer, churning out thousands of designs for global brands. While the medium has changed, I still draw on those manufacturing principles and graphic design roots in my engineering work today.

Professional Experience

Professionally, I’ve become a bit of a "Swiss Army Knife." I’ve operated across the stack—Front-End, Back-End, DevOps, SRE, Infrastructure, and Cybersecurity. Often, I’ve held these roles simultaneously and as a team of one. If there’s a technical challenge I haven't met yet, I’m confident I can figure it out.

The Large-Family Lab

In my free time, my technical projects often stem from necessity. Most standard consumer services aren't built for a family of my size. For example, typical parental controls fail when you’re managing the volume of devices a family of eight requires. To solve this, I’ve had to implement an open-source Mobile Device Management (MDM) platform usually reserved for enterprise environments.

Adapting enterprise-grade solutions for home use is where I do some of my best "fun" engineering.

Anyway, I think that’s enough for a start. If you have questions about my projects or my journey, please reach out!