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<p>Hi Sam,</p>
<p>Thanks so much for your response!</p>
<p>I'm glad you've had good experience with DigitalOcean.. I'd heard
good things about it from a friend.</p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Thanks again!</p>
<p>~Peter<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 12/20/21 1:37 PM, Sam McClellan via
Hidden-discuss wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:5e29101b-5571-929d-4c70-870a32e2658d@itabix.com">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
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.<br>
<br>
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. <br>
<br>
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. <br>
<br>
Hosting with a regular hosting company might cramp your style, as
most have restrictions and software limitations that might affect
you, depending. <br>
<br>
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. <br>
<br>
Hope that's helpful.<br>
<br>
Sam<br>
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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 12/20/2021 12:43 PM, Rich@tnr via
Hidden-discuss wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:5179a768-33f8-0744-0fe9-72c09d0fd4ff@tnrglobal.com">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;
charset=UTF-8">
<p><font size="2" face="arial,sans-serif">you can also use a
dynamic DNS to create a public web address that points to
your home server<br>
It depends on how often your local IP changes - if you are
using Comcast/Xfinity, I can tell your<br>
that your IP will rarely change -- I've used dyndns.com for
years for that effect.<br>
<br>
Just be careful how you define your local router/firewall to
keep your<span style="color: rgb(77, 81, 86); font-size:
14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal;
font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400;
letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent:
0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal;
word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;
background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);
text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style:
initial; text-decoration-color: initial; display: inline
!important; float: none;"><span> server separate from the
rest of your local machines.</span></span></font></p>
<p><font size="5" face="arial,sans-serif"><span style="color:
rgb(77, 81, 86); font-size: 14px; font-style: normal;
font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align:
left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space:
normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;
background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);
text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style:
initial; text-decoration-color: initial; display: inline
!important; float: none;"><span>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 -
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://valleyventurementors.org/"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://valleyventurementors.org/</a><br>
<br>
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</span></span></font><font
size="2" face="arial,sans-serif"><span style="color: rgb(77,
81, 86); font-size: 14px; font-style: normal;
font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align:
left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space:
normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;
background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);
text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style:
initial; text-decoration-color: initial; display: inline
!important; float: none;"><span><br>
</span></span></font></p>
<p><span style="color: rgb(77, 81, 86); font-family: Roboto,
arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal;
font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2;
text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none;
white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;
-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255,
255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;
text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color:
initial; display: inline !important; float: none;"><span><font
size="2" face="arial,sans-serif">Good Luck - Rich</font></span></span></p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 12/20/2021 10:40 AM, Mark D.
Hamill via Hidden-discuss wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAB22ZO8SgF=poPybJm0vBpLs4UyKUNG8qcorXB_SX5GC8zYsyg@mail.gmail.com">
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;
charset=UTF-8">
<div dir="ltr">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:
<div><br>
</div>
<div><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bllS9tkCkaM"
moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bllS9tkCkaM</a><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, Dec 20, 2021 at
10:29 AM Peter S via Hidden-discuss <<a
href="mailto:hidden-discuss@lists.hidden-tech.net"
moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">hidden-discuss@lists.hidden-tech.net</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px
0.8ex;border-left:1px solid
rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div>
<p>Hello Hidden Techers,</p>
<p>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.<br>
</p>
<p>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).</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>While I've been buttoning up things from a security
perspective, I've also been researching the associated
costs of actually running a website. <br>
</p>
<p>Specifically:</p>
<ol>
<li>Purchasing/Sustaining a domain name via Namecheap</li>
<li>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.<br>
</li>
<li>Email Hosting..<br>
</li>
<li>(Possibly) SSL Certificate purchase</li>
<li>More?</li>
</ol>
<p>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.<br>
</p>
<p>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.<br>
</p>
<p>I've never started a business of any kind before. <br>
</p>
<p>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? <br>
</p>
<p>Thanks in advance for your time and wisdom (and
patience for my newbie question),</p>
<p>~Peter</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
</div>
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<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Rich Roth
CEO TnR Global
Bio and personal blog: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://rizbang.com" moz-do-not-send="true">http://rizbang.com</a>
Building the really big sites: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.tnrglobal.com" moz-do-not-send="true">http://www.tnrglobal.com</a>
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And for Arts and relaxation:
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Helping move the world: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.earththrives.com" moz-do-not-send="true">http://www.earththrives.com</a></pre>
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