2mx
internet database design

Tip Top mail deliverability

Recently I`ve started digging into mail server settings and the need for tighter security.
Some of the findings are startling ! I have found that not having the settings described below can cause issues with sending and receiving email.

As of February 2024 Google are going to make a major change to email deliverability.
Google Email sender guidelines .
This may impact your mail delivery if it is not tweaked to take account of SPF, DMARC and DKIM settings (fairly easy to update)
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Mysql Maria DB fields don’t have default value

When upgrading to MariaDB I found some queries were getting rejected due to field value not being NULL.

On mysql this was not a problem as I had intended if no data then I`m happy with the query.
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STRIPE Card Payments

We are currently working on Card payments using Stripe .

We have been very successfully taking Paypal payments for a number of years. In fact we have taken over 32,000 transactions in the last 15 months (at Dec 2021)
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Archive the Internet

The internet started in earnest around the mid 1990`s. About that time CompuServe and Aol provided email systems to help people communicate. In the early 1990`s bulletin boards were all the rage allowing easier communications across the globe.
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Verify your domain DNS settings

Your website and email are identified by a domain name. behind this is an IP address.

The IP identifies through the system where the domain is situated. I have some hints below that can be used to verify that your domain is setup correctly.

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Web site backup

We run regular backups of our website using a utility called `wget`

This replicates the website files and any files that have been uploaded (for example PHP, JPG, MP4 files)

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Web site security and hackers

Unfortunately this morning we had an attack on our myclub website. (August 2021)

A break in occurred on my username which allowed a user access to the system. This was quickly detected but caused us to change the system password.
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DNS server settings lost

We had an experience this evening with DNS server settings where our website DAFC.net mysteriously changed.

This had the effect of taking our domain offline and pointing to an unsafe server.
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Scottish Curling out with the Old

In with the New !
In 2008 the Royal Caledonian Curling Club provided their members with an online membership database. This was derived from a single user Microsoft Access database and ported to an online version which then allowed multi-user access.

New features were added over the intervening years to help with the unique membership requirements of teh RCCC. Recently we were again asked to revamp the system to modernise both the front-end and back-end database system. Scottish Curling`s brand new membership website was completely overhauled and released in July 2021.

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Web Site Security

I`ve been alerted to some attempted break ins to the web site through our own track and trace features. Seems someone is trying some very simple scripts to pop up an alert message into the system.

This in itself isn`t a major worry as the bulk of the website is protected by script injection. We will however, provide an update and do further checking to ensure that nobody breaks in.
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Test embed code

Just want to test some embed code to ensure it is blocked. Security needs to be taken seriously as we have found.

Last year we found an Israeli group purchasing a stream and onward streaming it to fake websites.
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Lets Encrypt SSL certificates

Lets Encrypt are making it possible for everyone to experience a secure and privacy-respecting Web.

They make it easy to get certificates for HTTPS, because ease of use is critical for adoption and that is one thing we have found, it IS easy to get an SSL certificate.
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Russian Hackers are they real ?

Many stories in the news just now about Russian Hackers impacting elections and trying to influence organisations.
Are Russian hackers any worse than anywhere else ?

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MyClubMembers import

The purpose of this tutorial is to show how to import users into your club. We take a list of emails, one per line, and drop into the input box and save.
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Vmix basic example

We use Vmix for our streaming software. This captures a camera and audio, feeds in and streams out to a Content delivery network.

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IPv6 Setup Issues

Due to a server upgrade we have become aware of some email issues. These have been tracked down to IPv6 problems.
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Commuter Train Check

"Commuter Train Check is a free Android application that lets you quickly and easily find out live train times in the UK. Launched in November 2019, it is already a robust and mature application. The plan is to introduce support for multi-leg journeys in January 2020.
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