Author: Jim (Page 2 of 2)

SSL the Hard Way

July 12, 2020 / Jim / 0 Comments

I’m continuing the journey of building this WordPress site in a bit of a hybrid fashion. It is not an “easy button” method like WordPress.com or even a hosting provider’s managed solution. But I also didn’t start with a raw cloud VM somewhere and built the LAMP stack.

This day the big accomplishment is that I FINALLY was able to figure out SSL, get my SSL certificate created and uploaded, and get the sought after “closed lock” when arriving at this site via HTTPS.

It s not like I’m taking credit cards or dealing with any PII (personally identifiable information). But even for casual browsing many browsers now require, or favor, the encrypted connection via HTTPS.

The effort was a challenge. I could have gone with the quick and free auto-configuration option of a Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate. This method is offered by my current platform provider. I wanted to generate a key, order a certificate, install it, configure it, and launch it. I learn by doing. And hopefully you are now seeing the result of that effort.

New High SASR Score

July 7, 2020 / Jim / 0 Comments

Tonight I hit a new SASR high score. Future posts will address my journey back to piano lessons. I struggle with sight reading and SASR is an assessment of a pianist’s sight reading ability. Tonight I scored a 310. Still in the “early beginner” skill level. But I’m pleased. (And, I needed to try loading an image into a Word Press post.) Here is the report showing history and most recent assessment.

SASR report showing 310 score — New high score tonight! 310!

Independence Day

July 6, 2020 / Jim / 0 Comments

It was a bizzare Independence day weekend. Since I tend to post sporadically and often infrequently here, it is worth noting that we are now in the fifth month of some form of COVID-19 shutdown. We’ve started to reopen but the news is that the infections are increasing at an alarming rate again.

So thanks to COVID-19 this Independence Day weekend was a bit bizarre. Usually I see a fireworks display somewhere. In the past I’ve been invited by friends to view the Lenox Square display in Atlanta from a condo high above Buckhead. Or just put lawn chairs at my sister’s house to view the display put on by the nearby country club. But this weekend was oddly quiet. Heidi didn’t mind – she’s mean as hell but scared of any noises. Hazel on the other hand is almost completely deaf, blind, and showing signs of dementia, so she just paced in circles and from room to room.

I did get a few Fourth favorites. Connie and Frank invited me and the dogs over to hang out. Tom and Pat dropped by and we all maintained appropriate social distance. We had hamburgers, hot dogs, pickled eggs, and other summer favorites. And we had my favorite dessert – “red cake.” Plus the dogs got to meet and hang out with Connie and Frank’s new puppy, SPARKY!! So I guess we did have fireworks! Thanks SPARKY!

Site Progress

July 5, 2020 / Jim / 0 Comments

WordPress is not a tool you can do a drive by with and easily figure it out. So here’s where I am with this site. JimMundy.com started out pure HTML and CSS living at 1and1 for hosting. Later I upgraded to 1and1 managed WordPress. I did a couple classes online to figure WordPress out. I was with 1and1 for a long time and other than cost I had no concerns. Then I got a call pretty much hard selling me to move to their hosting and CMS system. So it was time for a change.

Recently I purged a bunch of domain names to save some dollars and moved jimmundy.com domain over to namecheap.com. So being a total novice at WordPress I figured I’d get adventurous and created an AWS account and set up LightSail and WordPress on AWS. Might as well wing it with multiple platforms.

I did backup my site from 1and1; however, I realized I got the posts but none of the images. And that backup doesn’t save the theme. So I found my old theme, Hemingway, and loaded it up. And thats where I am today.

Next steps: tighten security, select plugins, figure out images, restore old posts.

BRB!

June 30, 2020 / Jim

JimMundy.com is changing hosting providers and will return soon. I’m moving my WordPress site to AWS. It is a learning experience!