[Hidden-tech] Starting my own small Business Website
Peter S
psienk.ext at gmail.com
Tue Dec 21 19:26:06 UTC 2021
Hi Sam,
Thanks so much for your response!
I'm glad you've had good experience with DigitalOcean.. I'd heard good
things about it from a friend.
Based on yours and others suggestions, I'm now leaning a bit towards
trying to host my own solution on a raspberry pi or similar small
device. This approach is more expensive in time (having to set
everything up myself), which is why I'd originally discounted it. But
would probably be cheaper in the long run monetarily, and better fits my
current expectation of how much it will get used.
I'm going to definitely look into LetsEncrypt before purchasing a
certificate. I think I'd prefer this approach to a self-signed
approach, since I'm trying to "do this right" from a security perspective.
And I agree with you... I think at this point, i'd prefer to outsource
the email hosting rather than host my own. I've looked at Gmail so far,
which seems reasonable.
Thanks again!
~Peter
On 12/20/21 1:37 PM, Sam McClellan via Hidden-discuss wrote:
> Lots of interesting permutations in this. Rich has a great suggestion
> if you want to host on your own server/internet connection. As long as
> it's not bandwidth heavy and/or latency sensitive, that will suffice.
> You can also get a business Comcast (or whatever you're using) account
> with a fixed IP but it's true they don't change the IP very often. You
> could also use a VPN with a fixed IP.
>
> If you don't want to manage your own server(s) and you would need
> several nodes, DigitalOcean or one of it's brethren would be great.
> Their DNS is very good.
>
> Another issue would be using management software such as Webmin that
> includes Let's Encrypt, or set up Let's Encrypt yourself, or you'd
> need to purchase the secure certificates which if you have several
> nodes can get somewhat expensive. Or just use a private certificate as
> long as your users know to accept/bypass it.
>
> Hosting with a regular hosting company might cramp your style, as most
> have restrictions and software limitations that might affect you,
> depending.
>
> Email hosting - if you don't care what domain you're using, use one of
> the free email services such as Gmail, Yandex, Yahoo, etc. Running
> your own mail server can suck, getting blacklisted and such. If you do
> want your own domain, find some cheap web hosting that includes email
> and use that and then you'd also have one server that you could use.
>
> Hope that's helpful.
>
> Sam
>
>
>
> *Sam McClellan*
>
> **
>
> *Itabix, Inc*
>
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>
> *one place for all things **web***
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> On 12/20/2021 12:43 PM, Rich at tnr via Hidden-discuss wrote:
>>
>> you can also use a dynamic DNS to create a public web address that
>> points to your home server
>> It depends on how often your local IP changes - if you are using
>> Comcast/Xfinity, I can tell your
>> that your IP will rarely change -- I've used dyndns.com for years for
>> that effect.
>>
>> Just be careful how you define your local router/firewall to keep
>> yourserver separate from the rest of your local machines.
>>
>> Also, you mixed your business discussion with your tech questions -
>> there are local business startup groups just about the business part
>> - depending on your goals you might check out VVW -
>> https://valleyventurementors.org/
>>
>> If you decide to share your tech ideas, you might also consider
>> sharing your code base using GitHub -- there are a number of
>> businesses that grew out of a shared Github code base, as the idea grew
>>
>> Good Luck - Rich
>>
>> On 12/20/2021 10:40 AM, Mark D. Hamill via Hidden-discuss 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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