June is almost over, so I want to tell what happened at Magic Pages and with Ghost in general in the last month.
🧑💻 New Infrastructure (yes, this will be quite technical)
Back when I started Magic Pages, the infrastructure was pretty simple: one huge and strong server (I got a lifetime deal on that myself) – plus a smaller one for side tasks.
A few months ago, I started adding more (smaller) servers to create a so-called "highly available" environment. Basically, instead of relying on a single server, all services should be replicated on two more, so that there is always a set of three machines running the same code.
Sounds simple enough in theory – but caused some major headache in practice.
Technology is always evolving – and some technologies have steeper learning curves than others. So far, I tried to avoid the technologies with steep learning curves to move as quickly as possible.
In June, however, I took the plunge and spent most of my time learning. I learned more advanced networking, a technology stack referred to as Kubernetes, and spent around US$ 200 on (test) servers along the way.
The goal with all of this: run all Magic Pages websites on a flexible multi-server network to support growth, increase speed, and further improve reliability. In short: become the best value for money for anyone looking for a Ghost hosting solutions.
So, where am I now in this journey? I have successfully built the software layer that's necessary – huge inspiration came from this project by a fellow Ghost developer. I have also automated the hardware provisioning – mostly by using this amazing open source project. Magic Pages is now also sponsoring the latter, since it will become an essential part of the infrastructure.
What's still missing? Basically two things: managing existing Ghost sites (the current implementation is tailored to the old hardware/software), and a migration tool, which will help me migrate all existing customer sites from the old hardware to the new one.
👻 What has happened on Ghost's side?
Ghost has released quite a few cool things in the last month – all of them are available on Magic Pages already and can be used without any issues:
Subtitles in newsletters
You can now add subtitles to your newsletters to match the posts you publish on your blog. To make this as logical as possible, Ghost has moved the excerpt field from the sidebar right underneath the post title.
Team Ghost
Additional payment methods
Now, this will be pretty cool for European Ghost users, who are running paid subscriptions. So far, Ghost only supported subscriptions via Stripe with credit cards, Apple Pay, or Google Pay. Now, local payment methods supported by Stripe are also available. Hello iDEAL, Wechat, Revolut, AmazonPay, Direct Debit, and more!
Team Ghost
Internal linking
Honestly, this one is my favourite new thing. And it has been requested loads of times in the Ghost forum. Internal linking is here! Instead of copying URLs between browser tabs, you can now simply link to your existing posts by typing "@" in your editor. I am using this to link to the May 2024 Update on Magic Pages right here. Cool!
Team Ghost
That's it for now!
Speak to you soon – and if you have any questions or feedback, just hit the reply button on this email or – if you're reading this on the blog – start a chat using the widget in the bottom right corner of your screen.
–Jannis