[webarch-news] Your Webarchitects newsletter

[Jonathan]

Your latest newsletter from Webarchitects is attached as a PDF, and a 
full text version is below, if you prefer.

Apologies if you've seen it already.

We hope it's informative!

Best regards,
Jonathan Cook
Webarchitects


   - - - Newsletter text version - - -


Webarchitects Newsletter Autumn 2018

Webarchitects are ethical, green, free/libre/open-source software 
specialists. Honest advice, from real human beings! We offer online 
services, systems admin and hosting for all websites, with transparency. 
Check the status of our services at webarch.info.

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Online talk

Webarchitects members can now share discussion in a members’ forum at 
members.webarch.coop. It’s open for all to read posts, but only members 
of our co-op are allowed to post.

There is also a co-operatively-run Mastodon social platform 
https://joinmastodon.org/. This is similar to Twitter, with transparent 
and free software, run by Webarchitects member social.coop 
https://social.coop/about. They’re among a growing list of members 
joining to share and develop code on git.coop, Webarchitects members’ 
free code repository.


Co-operation in the clouds

The co-operative movement is offering alternatives to ‘Big Tech’, by 
investing in its own open-source software for shared online data 
storage. Webarchitects as a supplier of Nextcloud was mentioned in The 
Times: https://community.coops.tech/t/cotech-in-the-press-media/930/15. 
Webarchitects also gave a presentation, Building the Co-operative Cloud, 
during the Open:2018 conference on platform co-ops - 
https://2018.open.coop/. Video of the workshop is available online here: 
https://youtu.be/TOLmJezqxWs.


Nextcloud now lets you chat

There are two new options for clients with our managed Nextcloud 
servers. One is an anti-virus app which can be installed. The other is a 
Prosody chat server - https://prosody.im/ running XMPP 
(https://xmpp.org/ the secure, privacy-focused open standard for 
messaging). Please contact us if this is of interest, or join the 
discussion on XMPP here. There’s a help page for getting started with 
Nextcloud at https://docs.webarch.net/wiki/Nextcloud and we hope to add 
more help documentation to our wiki. We would welcome suggestions 
towards improving this useful facility.


Looking for work?

  From time to time we’re asked for services we don’t specialise in, 
such as front-end website design. We try to share the work around our 
co-op members, and through the CoTech network https://www.coops.tech/. 
If you work in tech, why not get in contact and let us know what skills 
you have?


Sales report

Webarchitects’ turnover rose last year by £15k, up to £66k thanks partly 
to networking through coops.tech’s 32 tech co-ops membership. Our work 
included migrating WordPress and Drupal sites for a college, and a major 
upgrade to their Moodle site. We also helped a national charity, setting 
them up with a Discourse online forum, 
(https://www.webarch.net/discourse) after a Bitcoin-mining trojan attack 
on their previous website.


Dot.coop changes at Webarchitects

For some clients Webarchitects act as an Internet domain name reseller 
for domains.coop. Following a change in their backend systems, our 
committee has decided to cease this in the future (only for technical 
reasons; we do still strongly support use of services of other co-ops, 
as discussed in our members Discourse forum at 
https://members.webarchitects.coop/t/impending-transfer-of-the-domains-ecohost-coop-reseller-account-at-domains-coop/49). 
Customers affected are being informed of the options available.

If you don’t fully understand the Internet Domain Name system, 
Webarchitects offers a complete DNS update service which doesn't involve 
you filling in any complex forms.

For those with a good technical understanding, who want total control of 
their DNS setup, we offer access to an account on git.coop allowing use 
of git to manage the raw Bind Zone files and integrating domain name 
management into other processes. More information at: 
https://community.coops.tech/t/git-hosting-for-co-operators-gitlab-at-git-coop/544/5 
   https://www.webarchitects.coop/domain-names  and 
https://docs.webarch.net/wiki/DNS


Email on the move

Migration of email accounts to the new webarch.email Mailcow server is 
ongoing. Email customers are being contacted individually with details. 
We now have a help page for configuring the Free K-9 Android email 
client: https://docs.webarch.net/wiki/K-9_Mail


Could you advertise Webarchitects?

It’s really appreciated when people recommend us to their friends and 
networks. Could you? We welcome new enquiries and talking things over. 
New customers make us ever more sustainable, and we’ve built many good 
long-term relationships from personal introductions. We have a range of 
flyers about our services, please ask if you could use some printed copies.

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Webarchitects

Webarch Co-operative Limited
Harland Works, 68a John Street, Sheffield S2 4QU

Registered co-operative no. 31305R

info at webarchitects.coop

Phone 	0114 2769709 (9:30am to 2:30pm weekdays)

Websites
	www.webarchitects.coop
	www.ecodissident.org
	www.ecohost.coop

   - - -

You have been sent this newsletter as a member/customer of 
Webarchitects. If you don't wish to receive any further news
from us please email jonathan at webarchitects.coop

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