Progress updates
March 2025 - Mercury as a web host, pruning the WinPMail settings tree

It took me rather longer than I thought it might, but Mercury can now
host static websites (sites that require no server-side scripting). I
actually believe there will be quite a few folk out there who might find
this capability quite useful as a way of making some basic "about us" and
contact information available without having to arrange external hosting.
Setting up a static site is done in a new MercuryB configuration page,
and is extremely easy. A single Mercury server can handle a nearly
unlimited number of static sites, and because there's no server-side
scripting, the security aspect is inherently quite a lot higher than it
would be with a fully-scripted server.


Just as a reminder - the reason I had to fast-track this capability was
because Amazon have effectively locked me out of my own web site: for
reasons I don't understand, I no longer have write access to the
pmail.com web site, even when I'm logged in as the owner. With 100% lack
of assistance available from Amazon, my only option has been to look to
hosting my web site out of my own domain.


The new capability has been tested by my team on the pmail.com website
data, and appears to work very well - I doubt most people will notice the
difference, except for slightly slower load times because I'm on the
other side of the world from most of you. I'm exploring uprating my fibre
connection to a higher speed to compensate for that.


It will take me a few days to switch everything over to Hera, my in-house
production Mercury server, mostly because of time taken to change DNS and
SSL certificate settings, but once it's done, I'll have control over my
own data again, with the added advantage that it will be much easier and
quicker to update it.


For WinPMail, my test team and I have begun discussing how to reform the
overgrown settings tree the program currently has: in the next couple of
days, I'll be starting a topic in the WinPMail discussion pages here so
you can have your say on what settings you might like to see moved,
removed or remodelled as part of this process.


Before I get onto working on the settings revamp, though, I'm going to
bring out a slightly updated version of the v4.81 public beta build
that's been out for over a year now - this time as a full release. The
main reason for doing this is that some people seem to be a little
hesitant about installing the current v4.81 build because it's billed as
a beta: in fact, it's probably the most stable version of the program
there's been in years, but I understand the reluctance, so bringing out a
formal release should help overcome that.


That's about all for February - next update at the end of March.


Cheers!


-- David --


It took me rather longer than I thought it might, but Mercury can now host static websites (sites that require no server-side scripting). I actually believe there will be quite a few folk out there who might find this capability quite useful as a way of making some basic "about us" and contact information available without having to arrange external hosting. Setting up a static site is done in a new MercuryB configuration page, and is extremely easy. A single Mercury server can handle a nearly unlimited number of static sites, and because there's no server-side scripting, the security aspect is inherently quite a lot higher than it would be with a fully-scripted server. Just as a reminder - the reason I had to fast-track this capability was because Amazon have effectively locked me out of my own web site: for reasons I don't understand, I no longer have write access to the pmail.com web site, even when I'm logged in as the owner. With 100% lack of assistance available from Amazon, my only option has been to look to hosting my web site out of my own domain. The new capability has been tested by my team on the pmail.com website data, and appears to work very well - I doubt most people will notice the difference, except for slightly slower load times because I'm on the other side of the world from most of you. I'm exploring uprating my fibre connection to a higher speed to compensate for that. It will take me a few days to switch everything over to Hera, my in-house production Mercury server, mostly because of time taken to change DNS and SSL certificate settings, but once it's done, I'll have control over my own data again, with the added advantage that it will be much easier and quicker to update it. For WinPMail, my test team and I have begun discussing how to reform the overgrown settings tree the program currently has: in the next couple of days, I'll be starting a topic in the WinPMail discussion pages here so you can have your say on what settings you might like to see moved, removed or remodelled as part of this process. Before I get onto working on the settings revamp, though, I'm going to bring out a slightly updated version of the v4.81 public beta build that's been out for over a year now - this time as a full release. The main reason for doing this is that some people seem to be a little hesitant about installing the current v4.81 build because it's billed as a beta: in fact, it's probably the most stable version of the program there's been in years, but I understand the reluctance, so bringing out a formal release should help overcome that. That's about all for February - next update at the end of March. Cheers! -- David --
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