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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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                    <br>
                    <b>Sam McClellan</b></span></span></p>
              <b> </b>
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                    style="mso-bookmark:_MailAutoSig"><span
                      style="font-size: 10pt; color: rgb(47, 84, 150);">Main
                      - 413.587.4600</span></span></b></p>
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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>
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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>
Small/Soho business in the PV:        <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.hidden-tech.net" moz-do-not-send="true">http://www.hidden-tech.net</a>
Places to meet for business:        <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.meetmewhere.com" moz-do-not-send="true">http://www.meetmewhere.com</a>
And for Arts and relaxation:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://TarotMuertos.com" moz-do-not-send="true">http://TarotMuertos.com</a> - Artistic Tarot Deck
   <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.welovemuseums.com" moz-do-not-send="true">http://www.welovemuseums.com</a>
   <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.artonmytv.com/" moz-do-not-send="true">http://www.artonmytv.com/</a>
Shakers: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.shakerpedia.com/" moz-do-not-send="true">http://www.shakerpedia.com/</a>
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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