[Rhodes22-list] Does our website need SSL?

Wed Jul 22 10:32:56 EDT 2020

Mark,

Good advice.

I volunteer to administer websites for some nonprofits and a club.  These
sites range from averaging 5000 visits a month to less than 100.

Most sites I have taken on due to the previous admin leaving this world.
The absolutely worst nightmare is taking on a site that has been running on
a private server.  Next worst to transfer admin is a site on goDaddy, and
it is overpriced.

The easiest is Wordpress.com.  It is very inexpensive for nonprofits who
don't sell anything.  For content management, it only uses Wordpress which
is familiar to many.  So new talent is easy to find.  And support is
non-geeky and effective.

Regards,

Rick Lange

On Wed, Jul 22, 2020 at 9:57 AM Mark Whipple <mark at whipplefamily.com> wrote:

> As someone who worked in IT for years before becoming a technology teacher
> I have one caution. Whatever you do, do it with the future list members in
> mind. Someone else is going to have to maintain this site down the road so
> I'd suggest favoring basic, commonly-used technology over cool new stuff
> with bells and whistles. None of us will be list members forever and we
> don't have any guarantee that anyone who joins the list years from now will
> have the skills that some of you possess. Just something to think about.
>
> Mark
>
> On Wed, Jul 22, 2020 at 9:00 AM Hank <hnw555 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > That explains it.  DIdn't realize you were running mailman as well.
> >
> > Hank
> >
> > On Tue, Jul 21, 2020 at 8:49 PM Michael D. Weisner <mweisner at ebsmed.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > The EC2 was the lowest cost AWS Linux product that was able to provide
> > > hosting and MailMan services at the time. Things may have changed since
> > > then.
> > > Mikes/v Wind Lass ('91)
> > > -------- Original message --------From: Hank <hnw555 at gmail.com> Date:
> > > 7/21/20  7:18 PM  (GMT-05:00) To: The Rhodes 22 Email List <
> > > rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org> Subject: Re: [Rhodes22-list] Does our
> > website
> > > need SSL? Hey Mike,I'm curious why you are running the website on an
> EC2
> > > instance.  Isn't itpretty much static?  Have you considered just having
> > it
> > > in an S3 bucketwith cloudfront?  Then you wouldn't have to manage the
> OS
> > on
> > > the EC2 andit's probably cheaper as well.HankOn Fri, Jul 17, 2020 at
> 8:48
> > > PM Michael D. Weisner <mweisner at ebsmed.com>wrote:> I cannot tell you
> all
> > > how happy I am that so many of you have shown> interest in the website
> > > design. Thank you Peter for creating something new> to illustrate where
> > we
> > > can go. Thank you Luis for your efforts to work with> Nabble. I didn't
> > know
> > > that it was open source. Thank you all for your> interest in the effort
> > to
> > > bring our website up to date.>> For those who know significantly more
> > than
> > > I do about web services,> especially that we should secure the
> website, I
> > > am happy to report that we> are hosted currently on Amazon Web Services
> > > (AWS) as an EC2 server. It> appears that a free SSL certificate may be
> > > easily obtained directly through> AWS or LetsEncrypt and added to our
> > > instance with little or no additional> cost.>> The responsibility for
> the
> > > rhodes22.org website and email list manager> was transferred to me
> from
> > > John Lock in the spring of 2016 when he lost the> ability to provide
> > > hosting services. John had assumed the responsibility> from Michael
> > Meltzer
> > > who had hosted Rhodes22.org for several years. It> should be noted that
> > > Michael Meltzer still owns and pays for the domain> name.>> I chose AWS
> > > because felt that we needed to avoid using personal server> resources
> or
> > > services that might go out of business or change their rules>
> > (GeoCities).
> > > If Amazon failed, the loss of the list would be the least of> our
> > problems.
> > > Our AWS charges are about $15/month, a sum that I have been> happy to
> pay
> > > considering the activity on da list. For greater details as to> the
> > origins
> > > of Rhodes22.org, Blew Skies, etc., I defer to Mary Lou as the> list
> > > historian since I have only been on da list since 2005 or so.>> Since I
> > was
> > > not a webmaster, I made few changes to the website portion. I> was more
> > > concerned with survival of the email list and the archives. I> asked
> for
> > > volunteers and help in the past and my May 24th call was answered> by
> > many
> > > of you this year (nearly 30 posts!)>> Rhodes22.org has more content
> than
> > > any sailboat forum I have visited and a> very active membership. Now,
> we
> > > need to make it accessible to all who visit> and easy to search. I am
> > > confident that we have the technology and the> people to make it
> > happen.>>
> > > I want to move slowly so that our efforts are sustainable. There is so>
> > > much to talk about starting with creating a "wish list" of changes and>
> > > features followed by defining individual tasks and implementation>
> > > schedules. I would like to suggest a Zoom call to start an interactive>
> > > discussion about the possibilities, timeframes and costs (time and
> $$$).>
> > > Scheduling is very important as we are in the middle of sailing season
> > in>
> > > North America.>> Mike> s/v Wind Lass ('91)> Nissequogue River, NY> I’d
> > > rather be sailing :~)>> -----Original Message-----> From:
> Rhodes22-list <
> > > rhodes22-list-bounces at rhodes22.org> On Behalf Of> Frederick Lange>
> Sent:
> > > Friday, July 17, 2020 6:07 PM> To: The Rhodes 22 Email List <
> > > rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>> Subject: Re: [Rhodes22-list] Does our
> > > website need SSL?>> SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer, a global
> > standard
> > > security technology> that enables encrypted communication between a web
> > > browser and a web> server.  Even if there is nothing that needs to be
> > > secured, users will be> put off if a SSL certificate is not there.>>
> > *WWW*
> > > stands for World Wide Web.  It is no longer useful to identify a>
> domain
> > as
> > > using HTML and it is too often hijacked these days.> Regards,>> Rick
> > > Lange>>> On Fri, Jul 17, 2020 at 5:59 PM Peter Nyberg <
> > > peter at sunnybeeches.com>> wrote:>> > Rick,> >> > Could you clarify on
> > your
> > > last point?> >> > On the proposed new home page I’ve included a link
> to>
> > >
> > > www.facebook.com/ < http://www.facebook.com/>…  Should this be just> >
> > > facebook.com < http://facebook.com/>?  Or do you mean something else?>
> > >>
> > > > —Peter> >> > > On Jul 17, 2020, at 5:48 PM, Frederick Lange> > > <
> > > sloopblueheron at gmail.com>> > wrote:> > >> > > SSL is definitely
> needed.
> > > Most internet security software, like> > > Norton, either gives a
> warning
> > > or requires active verification if> > > there is no> > SSL.> > > Also,
> > stay
> > > away from the www prefix as that's a common redirect> > > target these
> > > days.> > >> > > Regards,> > >> > > Rick Lange> > >> > >> > > On Fri,
> Jul
> > > 17, 2020 at 5:24 PM Curtis Ruck via Rhodes22-list <> > >
> > > rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org> wrote:> > >> >> >>>
> >
>