About This Web Site: Monetarily, Environmentally, Technically

 

Why This Page

Building this website has been an exercise in total financial and on-going environmental cost control minimization (upfront and on-going), a learning experience, not to mention fun!  We wanted to share.

The Technology

  1. •MacMini Early 2006 1.66 Ghz Intel Core Duo 2Gb RAM with SuperDrive (Gently used via eBay) (Located in our DMZ)

  2. •OS X Server 10.5 (Leopard) (End of life purchase from dealer)

  3. •Linksys WRTSL54GS running DD-WRT v24-sp2 (01/01/09) mega SVN (For both sides of the Firewall)

  4. •easyDNS is the excellent DNS and email Service Provider.

  5. •The now defunct but still better than anything else we’ve found for the price / ability Apple’s iWeb.  (We suspect philosophically Apple don’t want “the rest of us” publishing on the web any more).

The Costs (Monetary and Environmental)

  1. •Hardware and software <$500.

  2. •Annual operating costs - monthly ISP fee (25Mbps up / 10 Mbps down) and annual DNS fees <$800 includes ~$50 Electricity ~525KW/hr @ ~$0.10¢ (90Kg CO2 eq / year)   

  3. •Now powered by BullFrog Power (100% renewable electricity)   

Planned Improvements

  1. •Appropriately dispose of hardware at end of life (hopefully a good few years yet)

  2. •When purchasing new hardware look for total lowest cost of ownership (environmentally, socially, economically)

Other Thoughts

  1. •Could a “green” ISP and hosting provider improve on this very much?