Jekyll2026-02-22T11:23:44+01:00https://www.nomagic.uk/feed.xmlTake part in decentralising the Internet!2026-02-22T10:23:07+01:002026-02-22T11:23:35+01:00https://www.nomagic.uk/2026/02/22/bimonthly_update<h1 id="rocket-our-goals-for-2026">:rocket: Our Goals for 2026</h1> <p><img width="14%" alt="Official Seafile Logo" src="/assets/img/icons/seafile.svg" style="float: right;" /></p> <p>Happy 2026! Better late than never — the thought is there :heart:.</p> <h2 id="file_folder-end-of-seafile">:file_folder: End of Seafile</h2> <p>As announced <a href="/nextcloud_presentation">in the previous post</a>, <strong>Seafile</strong> has been replaced by <strong>Nextcloud</strong>.</p> <p>:warning: <strong>Seafile service and all associated data will be discontinued early June.</strong></p> <p class="note warning">If you are still using <a href="https://seafile.nomagic.uk">Seafile</a>, it’s high time to download/synchronize your data locally so you can upload it to your <a href="https://cloud.nomagic.uk">Nextcloud</a> Cloud space.</p> <h2 id="sparkles-sso-portal">:sparkles: SSO Portal</h2> <p>This year, the long-awaited SSO portal should finally see the light of day.</p> <ul class="note info"> <li><strong>SSO</strong> — what’s that? <br /> An SSO portal (Single Sign-On) is an authentication solution that allows a user to access multiple applications or IT services by entering their login credentials only once.</li> </ul> <p>Once authenticated, the portal will let you access various (compatible) Nomagic-hosted applications through a button in the web interface.</p> <p>Nomagic-compatible applications will be added gradually.</p> <h2 id="update-to-debian-13">Update to Debian 13</h2> <p>Containers will be progressively updated to Debian 13, which has been in stable release for over six months now. As usual, this will happen gradually, with updates announced in the <a href="https://chat.nomagic.uk/#/room/#issues:matrix.nomagic.uk">maintenance / issues</a> room on Nomagic’s Matrix server.</p> <p>Those are our modest and achievable goals for this year :wink:.</p>hostmaster

:rocket: Our Goals for 2026

2025-11-14T16:18:07+01:002025-11-14T18:57:07+01:00https://www.nomagic.uk/nextcloud<h1 id="so-long-seafile">So long, Seafile</h1> <p><img width="14%" alt="Seafile official logo" src="/assets/img/icons/seafile.svg" style="float: right;" /></p> <p>2025 is bringing another big change! After <a href="/joplin_presentation/">Turtl last month</a>, we are now moving away from <strong>Seafile</strong> to <strong>Nextcloud</strong> as Nomagic’s choice of online file storage. The decision on Seafile side to only support Docker for community server lead us to move away from it. The move happened even more rapidly as we changed our backup solution and Seafile was the only container <strong>we cannot backup anymore</strong>.</p> <p class="note info">:wrench: The explanation for this is that we moved to a better, more reliable and more native backup solution called <strong>Proxmox Backup</strong>. Yet we could not backup Seafile container because it accumulates history changes in many small files (we have more that 300 000), which takes forever to be handled by Proxmox backup, and eventually fails.</p> <p>If you were already using Seafile client to synchronise your data, we recommend running a last sync, then uninstalling the Seafile desktop client, and install the Nextcloud client instead. When setting it up during the first execution, tell Nextcloud to point to the local folder you were using for Seafile. That way, you’ll sync up all your files with your Nextcloud storage.</p> <p>:bulb: You can see a quick documentation for this <a href="https://wiki.nomagic.uk/doku.php?id=en:nomagic:appliweb:nextcloud#migrating_from_seafile_to_nextcloud">on our wiki</a>.</p> <p class="note danger">:warning: :alarm_clock: <strong>Seafile</strong> will be decommissioned in Spring 2026. Please do not wait to migrate your data from Seafile to Nextcloud. <strong>Remember we do not back up Seafile anymore!</strong></p> <h1 id="nextcloud">Nextcloud</h1> <p><img width="20%" alt="Joplin official logo" src="/assets/img/icons/nextcloud.svg" style="float: right;" /></p> <p>There was no need to look around much: <strong>Nextcloud</strong> is the most well-known FOSS cloud storage that is around. It is mature, well-supported on all platforms, and works well with the note taking app <strong>Joplin</strong> which we now recommend instead of Turl.</p> <ul class="note success"> <li><strong>Joplin</strong> synchronisation with Nomagic <strong>Nextcloud</strong> instance is available on the <a href="https://wiki.nomagic.uk/doku.php?id=en:nomagic:appliweb:joplin">Wiki</a>.</li> <li>Our new storage setup allows us for more data, and thus Nextcloud comes with 30 GB of usable storage space.</li> </ul> <p class="note warning">:warning: :alarm_clock: Reminder: <strong>Turtl</strong> will be decommissioned in December 2025. Please make sure to download/export your notes before the end of the year if you have a Turtl account with Nomagic.</p> <p>As of this post, Nextcloud core features are fully functionnal. We haven’t enabled much extensions so far aside from CODE (Collabora Online Develeopment Edition, for in-browser Office Suite support (like we had setup for Seafile).</p> <p>Contacts and Calendar are already supported by Sogo, our Webmail / Groupware solution. However should you wish to use Nextcloud’s extra (well supported) extensions, just let us know on the #atrium room on our Matrix instance.</p>hostmaster

So long, Seafile

2025-10-02T16:18:07+02:002025-10-02T17:23:30+02:00https://www.nomagic.uk/joplin<p class="note danger"><img width="20%" alt="Turtl official logo" src="/assets/img/icons/turtl.svg" style="float: right;" /> After many years of loyal service, the note‑taking app <strong>Turtl will soon be shutting down</strong>. It’s been a truly helpful tool, but unfortunately its development has been almost completely inactive for quite a while.<br /> Because of this, we’ve been looking around for alternatives — and that’s how we discovered <strong>Joplin</strong>. It checks all the boxes: it’s reliable, actively maintained, and best of all, you get complete offline access since your notes are downloaded and synced across all your devices! :tada:</p> <p>:warning: :alarm_clock: Turtl will be decommissioned in December 2025. Please make sure to download your notes before the end of the year if you have a Turtl account with Nomagic.</p> <h1 id="joplin">Joplin</h1> <p><img width="20%" alt="Joplin official logo" src="/assets/img/icons/joplin.svg" style="float: right;" /> Why switch to Joplin?</p> <ul> <li>You can create and edit your notes even when you’re offline.</li> <li>Your data stays under your control, while still syncing across devices through Nomagic (similar to how Sogo works for contacts and calendars).</li> <li>The app gets regular updates with new features.</li> <li>It’s easy to learn, yet powerful enough to adapt to whatever you need.</li> </ul> <p class="note info">While we are at it: Joplin is developed mainly by Laurent Cozic, together with a large and active community — no less than 677 contributors on the official GitHub repo! <br /> It so happens that <a href="https://joplinapp.org/donate/">Laurent accepts donations and sponsorships</a>, if you’d like to show support.</p> <p>:bulb: For anyone used to <strong>Turtl</strong>, you’ll feel at home with <strong>Joplin</strong> pretty quickly. It’s a bit more flexible in how notes are displayed, and it also comes with full‑text search.</p> <p>But rather than taking our word for it, why don’t you <a href="https://joplinapp.org/help/install/">give Joplin a spin</a>?</p> <p>We’re confident that Joplin will soon become part of your daily routine, giving you a safe, dependable space for all your projects, lists, and inspirations.</p> <p class="note success">Nomagic also recommends Joplin as your perfect travel companion. Keep your notes handy on your phone, jot down new ideas or details as you go, and let everything sync seamlessly once you’re back online!</p> <h2 id="how-to-set-up-centralized-synchronisation-with-nomagic">How to set up centralized synchronisation with Nomagic?</h2> <p>Already a member? Just reach out (by email or on our Matrix chat — for example in the #atrium room). We’ll create a dedicated sync space for your notes, and you’ll only need to follow the instructions on our Wiki to set it up.</p> <p>Interested in joining Nomagic? <a href="/souscriptions/">Join us here!</a></p>hostmaster

After many years of loyal service, the note‑taking app Turtl will soon be shutting down. It’s been a truly helpful tool, but unfortunately its development has been almost completely inactive for quite a while. Because of this, we’ve been looking around for alternatives — and that’s how we discovered Joplin. It checks all the boxes: it’s reliable, actively maintained, and best of all, you get complete offline access since your notes are downloaded and synced across all your devices! :tada: :warning: :alarm_clock: Turtl will be decommissioned in December 2025. Please make sure to download your notes before the end of the year if you have a Turtl account with Nomagic.

2025-03-22T21:22:31+01:002025-03-23T18:54:52+01:00https://www.nomagic.uk/2025/03/22/bimonthly_update<p><em>Steady as she goes</em></p> <h2 id="our-objectives-for-2025">Our objectives for 2025</h2> <p>This year Nomagic is getting some reinforcement on the system administration side. This is still a work in progress, but if it all works out our members will beneficiate from more regular application updates, while the infrastructe gets special attention as several key components will require migrating this year.</p> <p>Another exciting upcoming new feature this year will be the introduction of a Single Sign-On (SSO) portal for our members, with the objective to then progressively move most of our services’ authentication on that SSO.</p> <p class="note success">SSO will typically let you authenticate <strong>once</strong> and further grant you access to all applications connected to it transparently (without having to re-authenticate). We will go into more details when it gets released.</p> <h3 id="applications-upgrades">Applications upgrades</h3> <p>The following applications have been upgraded to their latest stable versions:</p> <ul> <li><a href="https://vault.nomagic.uk">Vaultwarden</a> (password manager)</li> <li><a href="https://peertube.nomagic.uk">Peertube</a> (video streaming)</li> <li><a href="https://chat.nomagic.uk">Matrix</a> (instant messaging)</li> <li><a href="https://gitlab.nomagic.uk">Gitlab</a> (code repository)</li> <li><a href="https://social.nomagic.uk">Pleroma</a> (social network)</li> <li>Collobora Online (Office Document editor)</li> <li><a href="https://rss-bridge.nomagic.uk">RSS Bridge</a> (news feed generator)</li> <li><a href="https://paste.nomagic.uk">PrivateBin</a> (pastebin)</li> <li><a href="https://matomo.nomagic.uk">Matomo</a> (web analytics - for WordPress blogs)</li> </ul> <p class="note info">For more details on each service, see <a href="/services/">our online catalog</a>.</p> <p>We also started the migrations to Debian 12 (<em>Bookworm</em>). We are current at about 25 % of containers migrated.</p> <h2 id="bugs-and-issues">Bugs and issues</h2> <p>We have been having another round of tough times with Synapse Matrix infamously known <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">state_groups_state</code> table accumulating more that a 100 GB of metadata. Space has been cleared and we have attempted to adjust our own homeserver settings to prevent joining huge rooms that create that kind of trouble.</p> <p>This also stopped from backups from running as it got full. Additional cleaning brought the situation back to normal, although additional improvement are also planned this year regarding the control of the backups.</p> <h2 id="coming-up">Coming up</h2> <p><img width="20%" alt="web feeds" src="/assets/img/icons/flaticon_navigation/004-destination.svg" style="float: left;" /></p> <p>Our road map now includes:</p> <h4 id="short-term-objective">Short-term objective</h4> <ul> <li>Review and fix various points regarding our backups.</li> <li>Migrate all containers to Debian 12 \o/. The objective is to have had all containers migrated by the end of the year.</li> <li>Start working on Nomagic SSO.</li> </ul> <h4 id="mid-term-objevtives">Mid-term objevtives</h4> <ul> <li>Set up a new monitoring solution for Nomagic, based on <strong>Zabbix</strong> :wrench: and <strong>Grafana</strong> :sparkles:</li> </ul> <div style="clear: both;"></div> <hr /> <p><small>Road icons made by <a href="https://www.flaticon.com/authors/mavadee" title="mavadee">mavadee</a> from <a href="https://www.flaticon.com/" title="Flaticon">www.flaticon.com</a> is licensed by <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/" title="Creative Commons BY 3.0" target="_blank">CC 3.0 BY</a>.</small></p>hostmaster

Steady as she goes

2024-12-15T11:18:07+01:002024-12-15T11:55:47+01:00https://www.nomagic.uk/paheko<h1 id="manage-your-association-at-nomagic">Manage your Association at Nomagic</h1> <p>Deployed for some time, Nomagic officially announces its association management service, using Paheko free and open source software!</p> <p><img width="35%" alt="Paheko official logo" src="/assets/img/icons/paheko_logo.png" style="float: right;" /> Paheko is a solution developed by the association <em>La Rustine</em> in Dijon. Designed to meet the needs of small to medium-sized structures, some of the main supported features displayed on the <a href="https://paheko.cloud">official website</a> include:</p> <ul> <li>Management of members &amp; contributions</li> <li>Computerised cash register</li> <li>Reservation of slots and events</li> <li>Monitoring and valuing volunteer time</li> </ul> <p class="note success">It should be noted that the official <a href="https://paheko.cloud/a-propos/offre/">Paheko.cloud</a> website also offers the hosting of Paheko instances, at a very accessible price.</p> <h2 id="how-do-i-get-one">How do I get one?</h2> <p>A web application instance is made available on request for any Nomagic member association, accessible under the URL <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">&lt;mon_association&gt;.asso.nomagic.uk</code>.</p> <p><br /><br /></p> <hr /> <p><small>The Paheko logo is the property of its authors. Usage is <a href="https://paheko.cloud/marque-paheko">subject to conditions</a>. </small></p>hostmaster

Manage your Association at Nomagic

2024-06-11T04:28:09+02:002024-06-11T23:51:01+02:00https://www.nomagic.uk/2024/06/11/bimonthly_update<p><em>Between two milestones</em></p> <h2 id="happy-new-year">Happy New Year</h2> <p>Better late than never! While the Nomagic website hasn’t moved much, and no new was posted for a long time, a fair bit has actually been done in the background infrastructure of Nomagic.</p> <p class="note info">Reminder for Nomagic members: follow our <em>Maintenance / issues</em> room on <a href="https://chat.nomagic.uk">Nomagic’s Matrix server</a> (<code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">#issues@matrix.nomagic.uk</code>) to be alerted on ongoing maintenances, issues and resolutions.</p> <h3 id="applications-upgrades">Applications upgrades</h3> <p>The following applications have been upgraded to their latest stable versions:</p> <ul> <li><a href="https://webmail.nomagic.uk">Sogo</a> (Nomagic’s webmail)</li> <li><a href="https://vault.nomagic.uk">Vaultwarden</a> (password manager)</li> <li><a href="https://peertube.nomagic.uk">Peertube</a> (video streaming)</li> <li><a href="https://chat.nomagic.uk">Matrix</a> (instant messaging)</li> <li><a href="https://gitlab.nomagic.uk">Gitlab</a> (code repository)</li> <li><a href="https://seafile.nomagic.uk">Seafile</a> (file storage)</li> </ul> <p class="note info">For more details on each service, see <a href="/services/">our online catalog</a>.</p> <p>We also <strong>finally finished upgrading all our virtual servers</strong> to Debian 11 (<em>Bullseye</em>). We are now starting to upgrade to Debian 12 💪, with a first major upgrade that took place for Seafile a few days ago.</p> <p><strong>note: it is now required to use your main Nomagic email address to authenticate on Seafile.</strong></p> <h2 id="bugs-and-issues">Bugs and issues</h2> <p>There was a problem with the Android app <strong><a href="https://f-droid.org/packages/audio.funkwhale.ffa/">Funkwhale for Android</a></strong> on Android 14 devices.</p> <p>It would fail to connect and use our music streaming service <a href="https://music.nomagic.uk">Funkwhale</a>. The problem had already been reported by users to Funkwhale, and as of now it appears that the issues has been fixed in subsequent updates.</p> <h2 id="coming-up">Coming up</h2> <p><img width="20%" alt="web feeds" src="/assets/img/icons/flaticon_navigation/004-destination.svg" style="float: left;" /></p> <p>Our road map now includes:</p> <h4 id="short-term-objective">Short-term objective</h4> <ul> <li>Get a working backup for our Postgresql database server (yes, we are very late on that topic)</li> <li>FIx random backup issues that affect us</li> <li>Set up a new monitoring solution for Nomagic, based on <strong>Zabbix</strong> :wrench: and <strong>Grafana</strong> :sparkles:</li> </ul> <h4 id="mid-term-objevtives">Mid-term objevtives</h4> <ul> <li>Migrate all containers to Debian 12 \o/. We will focus on this towards the end of the year.</li> </ul> <div style="clear: both;"></div> <hr /> <p><small>Debian logo is released under a <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/">CC-BY-SA 3.0</a>. <br />Road icons made by <a href="https://www.flaticon.com/authors/mavadee" title="mavadee">mavadee</a> from <a href="https://www.flaticon.com/" title="Flaticon">www.flaticon.com</a> is licensed by <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/" title="Creative Commons BY 3.0" target="_blank">CC 3.0 BY</a>.</small></p>hostmaster

Between two milestones

2023-12-24T14:02:09+01:002023-12-25T11:43:27+01:00https://www.nomagic.uk/2023/12/24/yearly_update<p><em>Merry Xmas &amp; Best wishes</em></p> <h2 id="keeping-the-ship-afloat">Keeping the ship afloat</h2> <p>We hope that everyone is able to celebrate this end of the year’s festivities with family and friends.</p> <p>Nomagic is going steady with about 20 faithful members :blue_heart:.</p> <p>The last months have not seen any major overhaul, but several issues have been addressed (backup &amp; automatic updates). We are still hopeful to finish upgrading the remaining containers before new year.</p> <h3 id="applications-upgrades">Applications upgrades</h3> <p>The following applications have been upgraded to their latest stable versions:</p> <ul> <li><a href="https://webmail.nomagic.uk">Sogo</a> (Nomagic’s webmail)</li> <li><a href="https://vault.nomagic.uk">Vaultwarden</a> (password manager)</li> <li><a href="https://music.nomagic.uk">Funkwhale</a> (audio streaming)</li> <li><a href="https://peertube.nomagic.uk">Peertube</a> (video streaming)</li> <li><a href="https://gitlab.nomagic.uk">Gitlab</a> (code repository)</li> <li><a href="https://rendezvous.nomagic.uk">Mobilizon</a> (find, create and organise events)</li> <li><a href="https://rss-bridge.nomagic.uk">RSS Bridge</a> (news feed generator)</li> </ul> <p class="note info">For more details on each service, see <a href="/services/">our online catalog</a>.</p> <h2 id="bugs-and-issues">Bugs and issues</h2> <ul> <li>Framasoft officially announced their <em>last</em> release of Mobilizon some time ago. We have upgraded our container and tested the dual Nomagic / external users authentication again: Nope!</li> </ul> <p>So, considering the amount of spam accounts and regular cleaning Mobilizon requires, and since of course we cannot have both public and Nomagic user bases, <strong>we are closing off Mobilizon as a publicly available service</strong>.</p> <h2 id="coming-up">Coming up</h2> <p><img width="20%" alt="web feeds" src="/assets/img/icons/flaticon_navigation/004-destination.svg" style="float: left;" /></p> <p>Our road map now includes:</p> <h4 id="short-term-objective">Short-term objective</h4> <ul> <li>Migrate all our remaining servers to Debian 11 (<em>Bullseye</em>) &amp; Debian 12 (<em>Bookworm</em>).</li> </ul> <h5 id="first-trimester-2024">First trimester 2024</h5> <ul> <li>Get a working backup for our Postgresql database server</li> <li>Set up a new monitoring solution for Nomagic, based on <strong>Zabbix</strong> :wrench: and <strong>Grafana</strong> :sparkles:</li> </ul> <div style="clear: both;"></div> <hr /> <p><small>Debian logo is released under a <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/">CC-BY-SA 3.0</a>. <br />Road icons made by <a href="https://www.flaticon.com/authors/mavadee" title="mavadee">mavadee</a> from <a href="https://www.flaticon.com/" title="Flaticon">www.flaticon.com</a> is licensed by <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/" title="Creative Commons BY 3.0" target="_blank">CC 3.0 BY</a>.</small></p>hostmaster

Merry Xmas &amp; Best wishes

2023-08-02T02:18:09+02:002023-08-02T21:09:48+02:00https://www.nomagic.uk/2023/08/02/bimonthly_update<p><em>A hot-maintenance summer</em></p> <h2 id="busy-summer">Busy summer</h2> <p>If you have been following our <em>Maintenance / issues</em> room on <a href="https://chat.nomagic.uk">Nomagic’s Matrix server</a> (<code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">#issues@matrix.nomagic.uk</code>), you know that despite the lack of news, we haven’t been idle!</p> <p><img width="20%" alt="Debian GNU/Linux distribution logo" src="/assets/img/icons/Debian-OpenLogo.svg" style="float: right;" /></p> <p>There was a fair bit of application updates as well as OS upgrades. At Nomagic we basically use <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian"><em>Debian</em> GNU/LINUX distribution</a> for everything. New releases come every two years, and are named after characters of the <em>Toy Story</em> franchise (yes, this is very serious).</p> <p>It just so happens that Debian 12, also known as <strong>Bookworm</strong>, has <a href="https://www.debian.org/News/2023/20230610">just been released</a>. While we will take our time to get there, we still need to finish upgrading about a third of our infrastructure to Debian 11 / <strong>Bullseye</strong>.</p> <p>Most app servers have already been upgraded, and the core servers/containers (light virtual servers running on big physical servers) must now be addressed.</p> <p>So, that’s the plan for August!</p> <h3 id="applications-upgrades">Applications upgrades</h3> <p>The following applications have been upgraded to their latest stable versions:</p> <ul> <li><a href="https://webmail.nomagic.uk">Sogo</a> (Nomagic’s webmail)</li> <li><a href="https://vault.nomagic.uk">Vaultwarden</a> (password manager)</li> <li><a href="https://music.nomagic.uk">Funkwhale</a> (audio streaming)</li> <li><a href="https://peertube.nomagic.uk">Peertube</a> (video streaming)</li> <li><a href="https://chat.nomagic.uk">Matrix</a> (instant messaging)</li> <li><a href="https://gitlab.nomagic.uk">Gitlab</a> (code repository)</li> <li><a href="https://matomo.nomagic.uk">Matomo</a> (analytics, integrates easily with Wordpress)</li> <li><a href="https://task.nomagic.uk">Kanboard</a> (Kanban tasks manager)</li> <li><a href="https://hedgedoc.nomagic.uk">Hedgedoc</a> (collaborative – or not – markdown notepad)</li> </ul> <p class="note info">For more details on each service, see <a href="/services/">our online catalog</a>.</p> <h2 id="bugs-and-issues">Bugs and issues</h2> <ul> <li>Nothing new on Mobilizon’s issue, it is still impossible to have both non-Nomagic and Nomagic accounts to be able to authenticate. The <a href="https://framagit.org/framasoft/mobilizon/-/issues/1130">issue on Framagit</a> has been closed for a while now, and considering the amount of spam accounts, I am pondering whether to make it Nomagic-users only.</li> </ul> <p>Something that could be further discussed in our next General Assembly…</p> <h2 id="coming-up">Coming up</h2> <p><img width="20%" alt="web feeds" src="/assets/img/icons/flaticon_navigation/004-destination.svg" style="float: left;" /></p> <p>Our road map now includes:</p> <h4 id="short-term-objective">Short-term objective</h4> <ul> <li>Migrate all our servers to Debian 11 (<em>Bullseye</em>). We are at about 70%, with most infrastructure servers not migrated yet. We will focus on this in August.</li> </ul> <h5 id="in-september">In September</h5> <ul> <li>Get a working backup for our Postgresql database server</li> <li>Set up a new monitoring solution for Nomagic, based on <strong>Zabbix</strong> :wrench: and <strong>Grafana</strong> :sparkles:</li> </ul> <div style="clear: both;"></div> <hr /> <p><small>Debian logo is released under a <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/">CC-BY-SA 3.0</a>. <br />Road icons made by <a href="https://www.flaticon.com/authors/mavadee" title="mavadee">mavadee</a> from <a href="https://www.flaticon.com/" title="Flaticon">www.flaticon.com</a> is licensed by <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/" title="Creative Commons BY 3.0" target="_blank">CC 3.0 BY</a>.</small></p>hostmaster

A hot-maintenance summer

2023-04-11T04:28:19+02:002023-04-11T22:37:35+02:00https://www.nomagic.uk/2023/04/11/bimonthly_update<p><em>A new service for not-for-profit, available on demand</em></p> <h2 id="sorry-we-missed-you">Sorry we missed you</h2> <p>It has been awhile since we posted some news on Nomagic. We are doing fine though, just got busy with various things. However as you can see below, there was still a fair bit of time put into Nomagic maintenance routine.</p> <p>@nomagic users: please follow our <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">#issues</code> room on <a href="https://chat.nomagic.uk">Matrix</a> to keep track of our various maintenances and bug fix.</p> <h2 id="achievements">Achievements</h2> <p><img width="20%" alt="destination" src="/assets/img/icons/flaticon_navigation/008-destination.svg" style="float: right;" /></p> <p><strong>Paheko</strong> (formerly <em>Garradin</em>) is now available on Nomagic. Paheko is a popular FOSS solution to manage membership and accounting for small to medium organisations. It comes a few months after <strong><a href="/flarum_presentation/">Flarum</a></strong>, and allows Nomagic to now provide a full-fledged package of service for any small organisation wishing to join, with:</p> <ul> <li>website (WordPress)</li> <li>cloud storage (Seafile)</li> <li>forum (Flarum)</li> <li>mailing list</li> <li>membership management and accounting (Paheko)</li> <li>online surveys and forms (Limesurvey)</li> </ul> <h3 id="applications-upgrades">Applications upgrades</h3> <p>The Operating System upgrades continue, albeit we need to really focus on that part in the short term.</p> <p>The following applications have been upgraded to their latest stable versions:</p> <ul> <li><a href="https://rendezvous.nomagic.uk">Mobilizon</a> (organizing events for communities)</li> <li><a href="https://survey.nomagic.uk">Limesurvey</a> (surveys and questionnaires)</li> <li><a href="https://meet.nomagic.uk">JitsiMeet</a> (videoconference)</li> <li><a href="https://vault.nomagic.uk">Vaultwarden</a> (password manager)</li> <li><a href="https://webmail.nomagic.uk">Sogo</a> (Nomagic’s webmail)</li> <li><a href="https://peertube.nomagic.uk">Peertube</a> (video streaming)</li> <li><a href="https://gitlab.nomagic.uk">Gitlab</a> (code repository)</li> </ul> <h2 id="bugs-and-issues">Bugs and issues</h2> <ul> <li>Another database replication issue lead us to rebuild once again.</li> <li>Mobilizon last update fixed authenticating against our users’ directory, but it’s currently either that <strong>or</strong> external users. Hopefully we can get back to what it was before. Feel free to track the <a href="https://framagit.org/framasoft/mobilizon/-/issues/1130">dedicated issue</a> about this.</li> <li>There was an issue with the automatic updates of the WordPress blogs. It has been fixed.</li> </ul> <h2 id="coming-up">Coming up</h2> <p><img width="20%" alt="web feeds" src="/assets/img/icons/flaticon_navigation/004-destination.svg" style="float: left;" /></p> <p>Our road map now includes:</p> <h4 id="short-term-objective">Short-term objective</h4> <ul> <li>Migrate all our servers to Debian 11 (<em>Bullseye</em>). We are at about 50%, with most infrastructure servers not migrated yet. We will focus on this for the months to come.</li> <li>Get a working backup for our Postgresql database server</li> <li>Set up a new monitoring solution for Nomagic</li> </ul> <div style="clear: both;"></div> <hr /> <p><small><a href="https://www.svgrepo.com/svg/350260/bullhorn">Bullhorn icon</a> is released under a <a href="https://www.svgrepo.com/page/licensing"></a>public domain license&lt;/a&gt;. <br />Road icons made by <a href="https://www.flaticon.com/authors/mavadee" title="mavadee">mavadee</a> from <a href="https://www.flaticon.com/" title="Flaticon">www.flaticon.com</a> is licensed by <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/" title="Creative Commons BY 3.0" target="_blank">CC 3.0 BY</a></small></p>hostmaster

A new service for not-for-profit, available on demand

2022-11-13T10:18:07+01:002022-11-13T10:24:45+01:00https://www.nomagic.uk/flarum<h1 id="forum-for-your-association">Forum for your association!</h1> <p><img width="35%" alt="Flarum official logo" src="/assets/img/icons/Flarum_logo.svg" style="float: right;" /> Nomagic is officially launching Forum-as-a-service! Forum is available on simple request for any not-for-profit organisation member.</p> <p>We have selected the FOSS web application <strong>Flarum</strong>, a shiny and sleek Forum solution which has been developed actively for years. Many websites have been implementing it throughout the years. Though it was labelled <em>beta</em> for a long time (ie there could be breaking changes with the first stable release), it was already very stable.</p> <p>In the world of Open Source forum solutions, Flarum represents an excellent alternative to <strong>Discourse</strong>. It also has the advantage that it is not solely distributed as a <em>docker</em> container (which we do not use on Nomagic).</p> <p>Flarum community finally released the first <em>stable</em> version in May 2021, <a href="https://discuss.flarum.org/d/27394-flarum-100-released">eleven years after the first stone was set</a>.</p> <h2 id="keeping-the-people-you-share-a-passion-with-you-close">Keeping the people you share a passion with you close…</h2> <p>Forums have been around the Web almost since the beginning. By bringing quick and direct interaction between people, forums boosted the adoption of the web for general users. Users created threads covering all kinds of topics, that various and relevant content would be indexed, crawled and found via a simple web search.</p> <p>Forums could be found on all kind of topics. They could be public or private, used to share achievements or seek advice, for support, for complaints, to buy or sell all kind of things ,etc.</p> <h2 id="while-keeping-facebook-at-bay">…while keeping Facebook at bay</h2> <p>Then Facebook came along, and once they got momentum, they looked for a way to keep people longer on their platform. Getting to know ever so more about their <em>users</em> (also known as <em>people farming</em>). Behold the <em>Facebook groups</em>:</p> <blockquote> <p>Groups are a place to communicate about shared interests with certain people. You can create a group for anything – your family reunion, your after-work sports team or your book club.</p> </blockquote> <p>Basically: Forums on Facebook, for Facebook users only. The advantage is the obvious reach and potential audience. The cost: contributing to a centralised, mortiferous Internet.</p> <p>Ever heard of Anil Dash presentation on <a href="https://peertube.nomagic.uk/w/piU9PZiCLrVnGSWcK3WY7o">the web we lost</a> :cinema:?</p> <iframe title="Anil Dash on The Web We Lost" src="https://peertube.nomagic.uk/videos/embed/bcc1f923-ce5a-4506-b345-a343f6a36b82" allowfullscreen="" sandbox="allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-popups" width="100%" height="315" frameborder="0"></iframe> <p>Now, considering that search engines are <strong>still</strong> working and relevant, there is no reason not to offer a healthy place online to people sharing your passions and interests, is there?</p> <h2 id="what-does-it-look-like">What does it look like?</h2> <p>Flarum is a very sleek piece of software. Fully responsive, it allows logo and color customisations to hoist your forum to your colors!</p> <p><img width="95%" class="center" alt="Flarum screenshots" src="/assets/img/pictures/screens_forum_flarum.png" /></p> <p>Flarum is extremely modular. It comes with a simple core of features, which can be further completed by a wide range of <a href="https://extiverse.com/">plugins</a>. It may be part of a strategy to attract developers/small companies, offering a variety of FOSS or proprietary modules in the future (like WordPres or Dolibarr).</p> <p>Nomagic will deploy new forums with a bunch of pre-installed modules, but if you need additional modules you just need to ask.</p> <h2 id="how-do-i-get-one">How do I get one?</h2> <p>Forums are for not-for-profits mainly, as they are typically the kind of entity that could make good use of a forum. However if, as a Nomagic member, you want to have a safe place to invite a bunch of people to share a passion with, feel free to contact us via Matrix or email to request your own forum. Hopefully we will be happy to oblige!</p> <p><br /><br /></p> <hr /> <p><small><em>The various project accounts pictures shown here are the property of their owners, please refer to the official applications’ websites to get more details on their licensing.</em> </small></p>hostmaster

Forum for your association!