Our first transparency report

probably not a canary

We just posted the Tendenci government transparency report for January 1 to June 30, 2016 to our site. Nothing to report, but a new process put in place keeping with the values of the Tendenci community.

Why? Because all companies that store information, like electric companies, phone companies, email providers, search engines, etc, must respond to requests from the government. That includes us. The solution is transparency reporting because we think you have a right to know.

Tendenci Transparency ReportingWhy now? The (previous) absence of transparency reporting including a canary clause was brought up at a recent convention. We listened to you. We agree with you. So we fixed it. It’s pretty boring and let’s hope it stays that way.

Thank you to the client who asked about it! Tendenci is a community and we appreciate dialog that helps the community. Y’all rock!

You can find Tendenci’s transparency reports at https://www.tendenci.com/transparencyreporting/

What’s next? We would love to hear from you about your best practices for data retention. If you are willing to share, please post those in the Tendenci forums.

malicious stuff – it’s real

sguil_rocksOn our little company blog on our tiny corner of the Internet (relatively speaking I guess) this is the current reality. Mind you this is just our blog and not attacks on our site or on client sites.

Tendenci blog stats – blog.tendenci.com
132,055 Blocked malicious login attempts
282,058 Spam comments blocked by Akismet

#joy

Note that Tendenci is not a blog platform – it’s on Python and Django and open source https://github.com/tendenci – but our blog is on wordpress as my personal blog is. WordPress is doing an amazing job fighting hard against the constant php attacks.

The numbers above speak for themselves. I still think WordPress is the best blogging platform out there. But just WOW. I just don’t know that people understand what they are up against.

Yes I’ll share some of the data on attacks on our cloud infrastructure which aren’t that far off as a percentage. This is just me pointing out that the Internet isn’t a nice place. If you have a WordPress blog I HIGHLY recommend you install JetPack from WordPress (free) as well as Securi. It’s worth it.

Rolling out Docker Swarm for Clients Seeking Higher Availability

Tendenci is rolling out Docker Swarm in our cloud data centers for clients seeking higher availability. What is docker swarm? It looks like this:

Docker Swarm

For more on docker-swarm, I recommend this slideshare for an overview.

This is just part of our efforts at Tendenci to avoid downtime from the inevitable security updates. More on this to follow as we continue to review automatic security updates causing unintended consequences at times.

Docker Server outage Sunday May 8th 11:10pm – May 10th 2:15pm

An automatic security update installed on one (1) of the Tendenci Docker servers in our AWS US-East data center on Sunday May 8th at approximately 11:10pm CST.

The update included changes to the file system to increase security. The automatic conversion took significantly longer than prior updates resulting in some sites being offline during this time period.

Reference the release notes on Dockers 1.11.1 here for more technical detail: https://github.com/docker/docker/releases/tag/v1.11.1

Security can not and will not be compromised. Our focus instead is on redundancy (multiple copies of sites/automatic fail over).

Our response will be explained further when our after-action incident review is complete.

Get Important Info to Your Community Through the Storms – Emergency Announcements Module

I am proud to have called Houston home for the last three years for many reasons.

Houston is home to the Astros and the Texans. We are known for our great bbq, arts, and Beyonce. (Perhaps you have heard of her? “She is Texas forever like Bun B”.)

Houston is also sometimes home to lots and lots of rain.

Today, we have received over a foot of rain and many Houston businesses and organizations have delayed operations for the day due to flooding on the roads.

It can be challenging in a situation like this to get information out to the public and your staff, which is why we built the Emergency Announcements module into the Tendenci software.

Emergency Announcements is a feature that allows you to quickly post an update on the top of your site, so that you can get important information out to your community.

2016-04-18_1239

 

 

To access this feature, navigate to www.your_url.com/admin/announcements/emergencyannouncement/

emergencyannouncement

The standard content editor will allow you to format your content for your announcement.

Are you cancelling activities?

Who should someone call or email if they have questions?

Is everyone in your organization safe from the storms?

All of this information is important to get out to your community and the Emergency Announcements will allow you to place it front and center on your website.

If you need to get information out to your community today, the Emergency Announcements feature is a great tool to utilize.

Stay safe and dry Houston!

 

rolling outages today and tomorrow April 16 for additional security precautions

Dear clients – we will be doing some unscheduled maintenance to build out a more redundant infrastructure. Specifically this means the network team is making copies of entire servers to so they can be brought back up in the case of a security issue quickly and easily.

The decision to create the extra server images in addition to the normal site backups was made based on security information we received from official and unofficial sources. We recognize any outage is an inconvenience and will work to keep security as our top priority.

The ETA for outages is approximately 30 minutes per server. Most likely less as our cloud is fairly distributed.

I am typing this at 5:40 PM on Saturday April 16 CST 2016. I will keep updating this same blog post as we get better data on timelines.

5 Things to Know About The Upgraded Content Editor

We here at Tendenci are excited to announce that the content editor has a new look!

WYSIWYGeditor

Your content editor is one of the most frequently utilized features in your Tendenci website.

We’ll be rolling this new content editor out to sites in the next few weeks.

Here are a few things to know about your updated editor:

  1. Inserting videos into content is much easier

insert video

 

2. Utilize Anchors To Help Users Navigate Around Pages

An anchor is an attribute that links an element on your page to text or an image on the same page.

To use the anchor feature in your editor:

Highlight text and select “Anchor” from your Insert drop down.

Name your anchor in the window that appears.

anchor1

Highlight text on another area of the page and click on insert/edit link from your Insert drop down.

Anchor2

Select the name of your Anchor from the Anchors drop down menu.

3. Edit your content in HTML and upload docs from new locations

Want to play around in the HTML of your page?

You can now do so via the below icon.

sourcecode

 

Upload documents that are not images via the insert/edit link from your Insert drop down.

 

insertlink1

Click the file icon to upload documents.

insertlink

Upload your document and title your file.

file name

 

4. New formatting options

There are new formatting options available to you through the Formatting drop down.

formatting options1

You can also add background colors to format your text.

formatting2

5. See html styling elements while editing

The “Show Blocks” View option allows you to see what html attributes are being applied to the different areas of your content.

showblocks

 

Do you like the new editor or have questions?

Leave us a comment below or contact us at tendenci.com/contact

 

Let’s Encrypt Passes 1 Million SSL Certs (thanks Shelly Palmer!)

Encryption is a good thing. You should if you don’t already, encrypt your website with SSL.

Excuses? Nope. As usual, we always learn something from Shelly Palmer’s Strategic Advisor newsletter. And today is was some wonderful news! The EFF‘s efforts with Let’s Encrypt is producing some great results.

letsencryptLet’s Encrypt just passed 1M SSL certificates issued for FREE.

That means anyone can get a secure site, the ones with the lock in the URL on the top left like your bank, without paying for the certificate itself. Pretty cool accomplishment!

letsencrypt1millioncerts

And a definite tip of the hat to Shelly for pointing it out!

 

DBSA Houston goes Mobile and Responsive with Tendenci’s Tech

Note: If you have arrived at this page from a search result, this is about the launch of the new web site. Thus

If you are in need of IMMEDIATE crisis services, please call
the Harris Center 24-hr Hotline at (713) 970-7000. If you are
seeking ongoing support visit http://www.dbsahouston.org/

From the news release:

Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance Greater Houston Revamps Website for Better Accessibility

HOUSTON, February 12, 2016 –Tendenci (www.tendenci.com), the software development company spearheading the Tendenci Open Source platform for associations and other nonprofits (NPOs), is proud to release a dynamic new website for the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance Greater Houston. The website, http://www.dbsahouston.org, sponsors free and confidential support groups in the Greater Houston area for individuals suffering from depression and bipolar disorder and the family and friends that support them….

DBSA Houston
Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance Greater Houston Revamps Website for Better Accessibility

From the DBSA Houston website:

Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance Greater Houston provides free and confidential support groups for individuals living with, or family and friends affected by, depression and bipolar disorders. Our support groups are also offered to family members, caregivers and friends who are trying to understand these two difficult mental disorders as they try to assist loved ones.

If you, or someone you love, or friends with is in pain, please point them to resources like DBSA Houston for support (or google one in your area.)

The Reveille Club is Back on Tendenci. Thanks!

As an Aggie I am particularly appreciative of earning a client back. Especially it’s my Aggies! (Whoooop! Class of ’90 myself.) From the press release:

Reveille Club Returns to the Tendenci Platform for Membership and Event Management

HOUSTON, February 3, 2016 –Tendenci (www.tendenci.com), the software development company spearheading the Tendenci Open Source platform for associations and other nonprofits (NPOs), is proud to release a dynamic membership website for the Reveille Club of Houston.

hire-an-aggie-2016The website, http://www.reveille.org, promotes local networking events for Aggies and non-Aggies alike to build new business relationships in the Houston area.

Tendenci Open Source was released as an open source solution for associations and non-profits to give membership organizations greater freedom and control over their online presence.

The Reveille Club of Houston is focused on building a professional community

Source: https://www.tendenci.com/news/reveille-club-of-houston-launches-new-tendenci-website/

Note: This blog post is one of several of us playing a bit of catch-up on posting site releases to our blog as well. We are proud of the work our team and our partners do with Tendenci. Open Source is powerful stuff. It’s like Freedom – it’s a good thing.