1. I just removed 270 bad emails by clicking one button. That takes us from over 900 to a little less than 700. Impressive size, but we still have the problem that only about 200 of them are opened. CC has a very cool graph page that shows all kinds of statistics on what happens to our emails once they’re sent.
2. Our database now resides on the CC servers, and I’ve added a box on the right hand side of the web site to facilitate joining our email list.
3. I have changed the Register link on the web site to point to the CC invitation, instead of going to the old registration process on our web site. We can now see who’s registered, whether they’ve paid, and how they paid, in one place.
4. I added a link for the SAS User Group.

Of course, I’m partial to the CC process, since I pushed us to go that direction, and the more I use it, the more I like it. I think I’m pretty much done with it, and I hope everyone else agrees that it was a good move.

The total cost is $45/month, but once I get the email list down below 500, we’ll save $15/month. There’s no point in having 700 emails sitting around if only 200 are ever opened. CC has a tool for asking people to “opt in” to our email list. Once I implement that though, we may lose some of the 200 that do open their emails. But, that’s the only way I see to get the list pared down to those who really want the emails.

The hacker used a simple trick that I wasn’t aware of, but Cherian figured it out immediately. The hacker used the comments section of the registration page to insert some ASP code (actually Visual Basic) in stream, as if it were part of some normal text. Once I realized this, I changed my code to intercept the use of certain characters in a comment, like an apostrophe, less-than symbol, etc. I tested it, and it seemed to work fine. And wouldn’t you know it, we got hit again about a week later. It didn’t work this time, though because of my code changes.

So, our web site is now a little more secure, and I gained a little knowledge about how to protect a site from hackers.

• It has a search facility—doesn’t work right now, because of the contention with our current site, but it will once we go live.
• RSS capability—people can get updates via an RSS feed page, like Google Reader.
• Older articles get automatically archived, so we always have old info built into the web site.
• Comments can be added by any of our readers, so we will get feedback on articles and events.
• Administration functionality is built in, so we can assign privileges by email id.
• Anti-hacking protection is built in.
• I’ve integrated the Members and Officers Only pages from our current web site into the new site so we still have the functionality of our database and email list.