Weekly Update, 4/16/17

I’ve been meaning to start posting updates about all the things happening here at Indivisible.blue for some time, and haven’t managed to get it going. But here goes! I’m going to try to post at least a quick blurb every week, just to be on a regular schedule.

One big step for the network took place in early March: I doubled our (admittedly small) server capacity. Increased usage was causing occasional database crashes due to lack of memory, so we went from a server with 512MB RAM and 20GB disk (costing $5/month), to another with 1GB RAM and 30GB disk (costing $10/month). That change only took one button click and a server restart, which is one of the reasons I chose Digital Ocean for server hosting in the first place. The new capacity has been working well since then.

That increased usage is due to continued growth in the number of groups setting up their sites on Indivisible.blue. The total number is now up to 21, and includes groups from:

  • Oklahoma
  • Bryan-College Station, Texas
  • Harford County, Maryland
  • Texas District 20
  • San Diego, California
  • Cranbury, New Jersey
  • Illinois District 6
  • Arizona
  • Sausalito, California

Besides adding these sites and helping them to get going, I’ve also updated kept WordPress up-to-date, updating plugins six times, and themes twice. One new theme has been added (Bento), as well as a new plugin (Page Builder).

The last big news this time is that I added the first new HTTPS security certificate for a group’s custom domain, using the free Let’s Encrypt service. I plan to add those for remaining sites, but haven’t gotten to that yet. If you’re eager to get that set up for your group’s site sooner rather than later, let me know (by email or the contact form).

That’s it for now. As mentioned, I hope to make these updates more regular. I may also write on a few other topics, to maybe help get some conversations going about the issues groups face running their websites effectively.