[Hidden-tech] Starting my own small Business Website

[Robert Heller]

WARNING: *Most* ISPs have restrictions about public-facing servers, unless you 
pay extra for a dedicated (business) line.

There are some "free" options.  For example if you don't mind having your site 
on the wordpress.org domain, you can get a free WP site at 
yourhostname.wordpress.org -- of course it will be a WordPress site.  I'm 
guessing there might be other free options available.  *Some* ISPs offer 
websites for their customers (again it will be yourname.yourispsdomain).


At Mon, 20 Dec 2021 10:40:12 -0500 markdhamill at gmail.com wrote:

> 
> If this is strictly for use by friends and family and you expect low usage
> there may be a low cost alternative and host it yourself but make it
> publicly available. It's amazing what you can do with a static IP, a
> Raspberry Pi and a network firewall. This video talks about putting a
> website on the dark web hosted in your house but it would apply as well if
> you don't want it to be on the dark web. Food for thought:
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bllS9tkCkaM
> 
> 
> 
> On Mon, Dec 20, 2021 at 10:29 AM Peter S via Hidden-discuss <
> hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net> wrote:
> 
> > Hello Hidden Techers,
> >
> > I want to apologize up front for what is a serious 'newbie' question.. but
> > I was hoping to draw from your collective wisdom, if possible.
> >
> > I've built a small website that essentially aggregates all of my home
> > utility data (from the various utility websites) into one dashboard.  It's
> > been a personal project of mine for the past few years, written in Django,
> > that I've essentially developed/hosted on my home Linux server.  Its
> > written to be scalable, so that it works for any US State/City, assuming
> > the web crawlers were written for the utility web sites.  I see this as a
> > hobby venture (that could grow to be more).
> >
> > I'd like to go live with it, and make it available to some of my
> > friends/family, if they were interested in using it.
> >
> > While I've been buttoning up things from a security perspective, I've also
> > been researching the associated costs of actually running a website.
> >
> > Specifically:
> >
> >    1. Purchasing/Sustaining a domain name via Namecheap
> >    2. Web hosting (maybe multiple nodes... one for main Django app, one
> >    for Redis Queue workers, one for Splash Javascript rendering support) via
> >    Digital Ocean, Heroku, or AWS.
> >    3. Email Hosting..
> >    4. (Possibly) SSL Certificate purchase
> >    5. More?
> >
> > I haven't yet decided on which hosting services etc to use (multiple
> > topics for other conversations).  My assumption is that in the short (and
> > most likely long term) this won't turn a profit, and would just be a small
> > money hole.
> >
> > I thought it might make sense to at least capture these costs under some
> > sort of 'small business' umbrella.  My naive hope is that maybe it would
> > have positive tax implications.
> >
> > I've never started a business of any kind before.
> >
> > So.. what do I need to do?  I need to get an EIN from the IRS.  I've heard
> > an LLC may be more than I need.  What would be your suggested approach?
> >
> > Thanks in advance for your time and wisdom (and patience for my newbie
> > question),
> >
> > ~Peter
> >
> >
> >
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> >
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