permaculture

[Keith Johnson <keithdj@mindspring.com>]

Sean Maley wrote:

> I like the idea of a guild for PC Web design.
>
> Haven't had the time to Paypal drill a hole in my head
> yet.  I prefer to set up software on my own host.  If
> the paypal solution is web link based, you could
> probably hijack it via PHP or Perl. 
Which languages I do not speak.

> Add separate line
> items for delivery based upon location.  I'll take a
> look when I get a chance.  I want to set up Paypal
> myself.
>
> Who hosts your site? 
An host in Michigan called adaptive.net which, for a merchant shopping 
cart that doesn't accept Paypal, charges a $49 setup fee, a 2.39% 
processing fee, a $0.59 transaction fee, and $45 a month in other fees.
WE CAN'T AFFORD THIS. The magazine barely pays for itself and Peter 
earns a third of his income selling books. Subscriptions are down but 
books sales are up.

> I wonder if you could get costs
> put together to propose a PC datacenter.  You could
> subsidize your connection costs by providing hosting
> services.  By providing your own merchant/hosting
> solutions, you could slide the scale based upon usage
> and revenue metrics.  
I would love to have a webhosting/merchant service, but this can't be 
done at Earthaven yet for the primary reason that we don't have enough 
electricity to run the necessary system. Maybe in another 5 years when 
we have a few more microhydro plants in the place. Secondly, we don't 
have a budget for a server and all the other tech that goes with it, 
much less the knowhow to operate it. Thirdly, despite a fiber optics 
phone line one mile from us, we have only copper from there and 24Kb/s 
transmission. Some very real limiting factors.

I agree that it would be wonderful if somebody could provide hosting, 
but its not us.

> That way, you get away from a
> dial up service, provide low cost alternatives for PC
> information projects like PIW & PFAF, plus a PC micro
> economy emerges rather than constantly giving an
> economic harvest away to the monoculture macro
> economy.
Yes, yes! Where, where? Who, who?

> Ideally, each bioregion would have their own hosting
> site with a global system of redundancy via the PCWD
> guild agreements. 
I wonder if the PCU folks would invest in a proposal of this nature. 
What would it cost? Someone care to help me write a business plan?

> My site is based upon creating
> bioregional PC marketplaces, so would be one of the
> many services provided globally. 
What's your website? I did a quick search for your name and got 191 hits 
including a racer, an actor, a banker, etc.

--
Keith Johnson
Permaculture Activist Magazine
PO Box 1209
Black Mountain, NC 28711
(828)669-6336

also Patterns for Abundance Design & Consulting
Culture's Edge at Earthaven Ecovillage
http://www.permacultureactivist.net
http://www.earthaven.org
http://www.bioregionalcongress.org


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