I'm too excited not to share this already: http://3.253.2.121/AxonASP-CMS

This is a pure Classic ASP/VBScript CMS generated by Claude.ai. Crappy spaghetti code. But ... on Linux! An Amazon Linux 2023 t2.small EC2 instance.

AxonASP is slowly getting there. The developer Lucas is very responsive to issues. It's a matter of a few more weeks and we'll have a very robust Classic ASP/VBScript compiler for Linux/Windows/Mac that will serve almost each and every legacy ASP-software ever built. On top of that, AxonASP will include an additional 60+ functions and components mostly inspired by PHP. 

The developer is currently looking into supporting QuickerSite. A dream comes true!

All you need is this line (only use on a freshly installed Amazon Linux 2023):

This script fetches another script that installs Apache, MariaDB, PHP and it creates the WP installation form on the servers public IP. I only tested this on an empty Amazon Linux 2023 EC2 instance (as well as on a Amazon Lightsail VPS). I'm sure it can easily be ported to any other Linux VPS in the cloud. Thank you Claude.ai.

Run a datacenter at home?

That question popped into my head recently while I was playing around with DuckDNS.org - and I haven’t been able to shake it since.

DuckDNS is a free dynamic DNS service that maps a stable, easy-to-remember subdomain (like yourname.duckdns.org) to your home network’s public IP address. In plain English: even if your ISP keeps changing your IP address, you can still reliably access your home server from anywhere in the world.

I decided to give it a spin. Within minutes, I had a website running on a 10-year-old laptop that I power on every now and then. No fancy hardware. No cloud dashboard. Just a dusty old machine doing its thing.

The real surprise came when I tested the site from a remote desktop session on a server in Ireland. The page loaded fast. Really fast. From my home near Brussels to Dublin, latency barely touched 50 ms. Practically instant.

Even more impressive: my home internet connection is miles ahead of what it was a decade ago. With roughly 3 MB/s upstream and 10 MB/s downstream, the numbers are no longer laughable - they’re actually usable.

And that’s when the thought hit me.

Do We Still Need the Cloud… for Everything?

Thinking this through, it would be ridiculously easy to run some kind of server from home. Install Xampp, spin up Apache, MySQL, PHP, and suddenly you’re hosting dozens of WordPress sites from your basement.

Power outages? Hardly an issue. Around here, electricity goes down maybe once a year, for half an hour at most.

Hosting from home actually has some compelling advantages:

• It’s basically free (apart from the electricity a regular computer consumes).
• It’s scalable in the most literal way - need more storage? Plug in a 2 TB network drive.
• You own your data. No vague promises, no “trust us” cloud providers, no digital landlord.

Of course, it’s not perfect.

The biggest bottleneck is the upstream speed. That 3 MB/s means you have to be careful with uploads - especially images and media-heavy content. But even that problem has solutions. Automated image resizing and compression can go a long way.

The Full Stack… in One Installer

XAMPP is particularly interesting here. It doesn’t just give you a web server. You also get:

• a database server (MySQL),
• mail server functionality,
• and even FTP.

That’s pretty much everything you need to run an entire small business - locally.

And this is where nostalgia kicks in.

Back to the Future

Between 1998 and 2003, this was completely normal. Most of my customers ran their own servers. Websites lived under desks, in spare rooms, or in noisy back offices. And you know what? It worked. Most of the time.

The cloud didn’t really invent anything new. What it did bring was total dependence - and a hefty recurring cost.

Today, I’m paying around $3,000 per year for a fairly basic cloud server. And I'm paying some more for cloud storage (Apple Cloud and Google Workspace).

Which makes me wonder…

Maybe it’s time to stop renting someone else’s computer.
Maybe it’s time to reclaim a bit of that old-school independence.

I might not build a real datacenter in my basement - but honestly?
I’m starting to think I could get pretty close. 😄

AI is everywhere. That much is obvious.

But recently I realized something more uncomfortable: as an individual professional web designer, web developer, or web hoster, it has become nearly impossible to turn a passion for the web into a sustainable financial success story.

The End of the “Good Old Days”

If you’re thinking about starting a hosting business, building a career as a developer, or launching a web design or marketing consultancy agency, I honestly think you should pause and think twice. The golden era is over. Not fading - gone.

Look around:

• Need a server?
  For less than €10 per month, you can deploy powerful VPS solutions across the globe.
• Have an idea for an app or web application?
  AI can now generate working code faster than a 200-person development team could 15 years ago.
• Need a web designer?
  WordPress alone ships with thousands of themes. In reality, you only need one solid Gutenberg-based theme to build almost any layout or design — often in minutes.

What used to require specialized knowledge, experience, and time has been productized, automated, and commoditized.

This Isn’t Theory — It’s My Reality

Just a few hours ago, I lived this firsthand.

• I spun up a Linux VPS and let Gemini guide me through the entire setup.
• I created complex automation scripts to resize and optimize images used on over 300 websites.
• I extended CKEditor templates with custom blocks for use in QuickerSite.

All of it was done in minutes - not hours.

These are tasks that once defined “expertise.” Tasks people used to bill for. Tasks that justified entire careers.

Now they’re table stakes.

So… Is the Web Dead?

Not quite.

The old web is dead:
the web where technical ability alone was enough, where knowing how to do something was the value.

But a new web is very much alive.

A web where:

• Execution is cheap
• Knowledge is abundant
• Tools are insanely powerful
• And differentiation no longer comes from building, but from thinking

Long Live the WWWeb

The web isn’t disappearing — it’s mutating.

The winners won’t be the ones who know how to spin up servers, write CRUD apps, or design yet another landing page. Those skills are becoming commodities.

The winners will be the ones who:

• Ask better questions
• Understand users deeply
• Combine creativity, strategy, and judgment
• Use AI as leverage, not competition

The WWWeb is dead.

Long live the WWWeb.

This website is nothing special. It looks like a fresh install of aspLite, my developer framework for Classic ASP/VBScript.

However, this is a WordPress. aspLite is not loaded via an iFrame or so. No, the aspLite demo is loaded in a block Custom HTML in WordPress. That block includes all JavaScript and CSS dependecies.

The most interesting part of this site therefore is: its web.config! I attach it to this post. This web.config serves both PHP (8.3), .NET (2.0 and 4.0) and Classic ASP/VBScript. I'm sure I could add support for Node.js and Ruby On Rails as well. But who needs all this?

IIS is - all in all - a very flexible and powerful web server.