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    <p><font face="Calibri">Sounds like a cool project. Make sure your
        firewalls and anti-hacking is at full alert. Hacking the
        Internet of Things is the new frontier.</font></p>
    <p><font face="Calibri">Remember, the only ship that still worked in
        the new Battlestar Galactica was all analog and couldn't be
        hacked.<br>
      </font></p>
    <p><font face="Calibri">Mik</font><br>
    </p>
    <pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">Mik Muller, president
Montague WebWorks
239-R Main Street, Greenfield, MA
413-320-5336
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://MontagueWebWorks.com">http://MontagueWebWorks.com</a>
Powered by ROCKETFUSION</pre>
    <div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 12/21/2021 8:23 AM, Peter S via
      Hidden-discuss wrote:<br>
    </div>
    <blockquote type="cite"
      cite="mid:10ce4d20-bb39-136b-368f-35b9eb21d1c9@gmail.com">
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      <p>Hello all,</p>
      <p>I want to thank everyone for your insights.  I'll try to follow
        up individually today.</p>
      <p>Thanks again!</p>
      <p>~Peter</p>
      <p><br>
      </p>
      <div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 12/20/21 3:26 PM, Don Lesser
        wrote:<br>
      </div>
      <blockquote type="cite"
        cite="mid:729AF11C-3C9C-46DA-A12B-146E870764D1@ptraining.com">
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          charset=UTF-8">
        This is a job for an expert. The SBA offers free business
        consulting for these types of questions. Chambers of Commerce
        should be able to get you to the schedule for an SBA advisor.
        You don’t have to be a chamber member. The MSBDC  in Springfield
        offers a lot of good info for free. I’d go to them as a start. <br>
        <br>
        <div dir="ltr">Sent from my iPhone</div>
        <div dir="ltr"><br>
          <blockquote type="cite">On Dec 20, 2021, at 2:20 PM, Shel
            Horowitz via Hidden-discuss <a
              class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
              href="mailto:hidden-discuss@lists.hidden-tech.net"
              moz-do-not-send="true"><hidden-discuss@lists.hidden-tech.net></a>
            wrote:<br>
            <br>
          </blockquote>
        </div>
        <blockquote type="cite">
          <div dir="ltr">
            <div dir="ltr">Hi, Peter,
              <div><br>
              </div>
              <div>On the tax side, you should consult with an expert.
                Buying a half-hour of time may be a really good
                investment. My understanding as a non-expert is that to
                qualify as a business and take the deductions, you need
                to show a profit three years out of five. I am not in
                that field and am not soliciting that business. (I'm a
                marketer, and would be happy to explore with you whether
                there might be commercial applications for your
                dashboard--I think there might be.</div>
              <div>)</div>
            </div>
            <div hspace="streak-pt-mark" style="max-height:1px"><img
                alt="" style="width:0px;max-height:0px;overflow:hidden"
src="https://mailfoogae.appspot.com/t?sender=ac2hlbGhvcm9AZ21haWwuY29t&type=zerocontent&guid=8a98a495-7f32-4b6c-81b8-b5ecd410b0a5"
                data-unique-identifier="" moz-do-not-send="true"><font
                size="1" color="#ffffff">ᐧ</font></div>
            <br>
            <div class="gmail_quote">
              <div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, Dec 20, 2021 at
                9:58 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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              </blockquote>
            </div>
            <br clear="all">
            <div><br>
            </div>
            -- <br>
            <div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature">
              <div dir="ltr">
                <div>
                  <div dir="ltr">
                    <div dir="ltr">
                      <div dir="ltr">
                        <div>Shel Horowitz - "The Transformpreneur"</div>
                        <div>________________________________________________</div>
                        <div>Contact me to bake in profitability while
                          addressing hunger, </div>
                        <div>poverty, war, and catastrophic climate
                          change</div>
                        <div>* First business ever to be Green America
                          Gold Certified</div>
                        <div>* Inducted into the National Environmental
                          Hall of Fame</div>
                        <div>* Certified speaker: International Platform
                          Association</div>
                        <div><a
                            href="http://goingbeyondsustainability.com"
                            target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"
                            class="moz-txt-link-freetext">http://goingbeyondsustainability.com</a> </div>
                        <div>mailto:<a
                            href="mailto:shel@greenandprofitable.com"
                            target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"
                            class="moz-txt-link-freetext">shel@greenandprofitable.com</a>
                          413-586-2388</div>
                        <div>Award-winning, best-selling author of 10
                          books. </div>
                        <div>Latest: Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the
                          World </div>
                        <div>(co-authored with Jay Conrad Levinson)</div>
                        <div><br>
                        </div>
                        <div>Watch my TEDx Talk,</div>
                        <div>"Impossible is a Dare: Business for a
                          Better World"</div>
                        <div><a
                            href="http://www.ted.com/tedx/events/11809"
                            target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"
                            class="moz-txt-link-freetext">http://www.ted.com/tedx/events/11809</a> </div>
                        <div>(move your mouse to "event videos")</div>
                        <div>_________________________________________________</div>
                        <div><br>
                        </div>
                      </div>
                    </div>
                  </div>
                </div>
              </div>
            </div>
            <span>_______________________________________________</span><br>
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          </div>
        </blockquote>
      </blockquote>
      <br>
      <fieldset class="moz-mime-attachment-header"></fieldset>
      <pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">_______________________________________________
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</pre>
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