Dear friends,

I’d love to share with you what I’ve been up to this month.

First up:

✏️ Writing: A newbie's guide to self-hosting with YunoHost

I published part 4 in my “newbie’s guide to self-hosting with YunoHost” that discusses backups:

A newbie’s guide to self-hosting with YunoHost. Part 4: backups
The fourth article in my series about “self-hosting for newbies” explaining how I take care of backups for my YunoHost server.
Elena RossiniElena Rossini

If you missed the other chapters in the guide, a good place to start is the first post, which covers my motivations and the technical requirements to get started:

A newbie’s guide to self-hosting with YunoHost. Part 1: reasons + requirements
The first post in a four part miniseries about self-hosting for newbies via YunoHost
Elena RossiniElena Rossini

An excerpt:

Fully owning your data and being able to use it in an independent, autonomous way is a very powerful thing. In this day and age the term “digital sovereignty” is being evoked more and more by governments, public institutions and activists… they are warning about the dangers of having their data locked-in by Big Tech platforms.

In December 2024 I started self-hosting essential digital services with the help of YunoHost, a system that can be easily installed on a server or old computer and that allows you to add hundreds of free, open source apps that replace anything by Big Tech platforms. I am now self-hosting my own social media accounts (connected to the Fediverse) and online collaboration tools that replace Google Docs, Google Drive, WeTransfer and Dropbox.

It’s been a really empowering journey and after a year I thought that the best way of giving back would be to create a guide for fellow newbies that would demystify the process and make it more accessible:

A newbie’s guide to self-hosting with YunoHost
Here is a 4-part guide about how to get started self-hosting essential internet services with the YunoHost system
Elena RossiniElena Rossini

Two months and four articles in, I am often receiving messages from people who followed along and started self-hosting their own online tools.

I look forward to sharing more articles on the topic. Next one: maintenance (not exactly glamorous but necessary). Down the line I will also write an installation guide for the federated microblogging software GoToSocial.

🇧🇪 Conferences: FOSDEM

Earlier this month I attended my second FOSDEM (Free and Open Source Software Developers’ European Meeting) in Brussels, Belgium. It was really powerful to see a full day of presentations in the Social Web devroom about the state of the Open Social Web, with many people presenting who have become real life friends.

I took my camera with me and alongside my friend Chris, we took photos of presenters.

I shared a thread of my photos on my Mastodon account:

a screenshot of my toot that reads: "Some say other protocols have bigger budgets and are better at marketing. I say: the Fediverse - by the people, for the people - has passionate advocates who use their talents to promote it, often without any financial incentives. It comes from the heart. Before FOSDEM I asked my friend @sturmsucht - a super talented photographer - if he'd consider bringing his professional camera to take photos of speakers in the Social Web devroom. He did... and so did I. A mini (pictorial) thread" with photo of Maho Pacheco presenting on stage

đź”—: https://mastodon.social/@_elena/116029558326190345

Chris’s superb photos and blog post about the event can be read on his site:

My first FOSDEM
A conference about digital independence and the new social web. Meeting the inspiring humans behind the Fediverse and other open & free platforms.
Sturmsucht's Blog & CommunityChris | Sturmsucht

Cherry on top: I got to meet the legendary Daniel Stenberg, the founder and lead developer of cURL (fun fact: I use cURL every time I install YunoHost on a new machine or VPS).

a screenshot of my toot that reads: "FOSDEM achievement = unlocked: yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting @bagder in person and grab some cool #curl stickers, yay! 🥳 I was really sad to miss his keynote (early train, sigh), but I'm planning to watch it online. It was amazing to meet so many wonderful people at #FOSDEM... I've already started a countdown on my phone for the next edition. I can't wait. And now: reviewing hundreds of photos I took with my phone and my Canon DSLR. The nostalgia is real" with a picture of me with Daniel Stanberg

đź”—: https://mastodon.social/@_elena/116001298707850451

👩‍💻 Website Changes

I’ve made a few changes to this website in an attempt to make it easier to navigate. Now my blog posts are organized by topic on this page:

Blog
a page grouping my blog posts by topic: a NOW page inspired by Derek Sivers’ NOW Page Movement, articles about the Fediverse and a chronicle of my self-hosting adventures
Elena RossiniElena Rossini

In addition to a NOW page, I also write about the Fediverse (social media by the people for the people), about my self-hosting adventures under the tag “my so-called sudo life” and I have the aforementioned self-hosting guide for newbies.

I also added a new page - Advocacy – that lists all the public speaking I did and my podcast appearances advocating for the Fediverse and FOSS. Most presentations have a video replay if you want to check them out:

Advocacy
A page listing the speaking opportunities and podcast interviews I had since becoming an advocate for the Fediverse and FOSS (in reverse chronological order).
Elena RossiniElena Rossini

Please let me know what you think about this and if you have suggestions for improvements.

Thanks for being here,

Elena

a scan of my handwriting that reads "written by a human" followed by a hand-drawn heart

P.S.: you may have noticed a handwritten message "written by a human" at the bottom of my new posts. In case you're wondering what this is: it's a scan of my handwriting, an act of defiance and rebellion against AI and LLMs. There are a lot of people - more than you would think! - that resist the use of ChatGPT and the like, especially when it comes to human creativity. I am one of them: all my blog posts are written and proof-read by me. All the writing is 100% human made.

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đź‘« Follow me on Mastodon. All my other links are available here: elena.social
đź’Ś If you'd like to say hi, my contact information is here
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Tagged in:

NOW, 2026-update, FOSDEM, conferences, update

Last Update: February 27, 2026