How to install and configure your server for free SSL certificate from let’s encrypt if your hosting provider is not supported. To go the installation steps, click here.
1- What is a SSL certificate and why you need it?
I won’t go into too many details here, but SSL means Secure Sockets Layer. This is a security protocol that helps you validate the identity of the website you are visiting, making sure that nobody is eavesdropping your conversation or tampering with. If you want more details, I recommend you to go to the SSL page on Wikipedia. If you provide a member section with authentication or an e-commerce site, you definitively need a valid SSL certificate. But even if you don’t, it is still recommended having one to increase the traffic to your website and reassure your visitors.
2- How much does it cost?
There are several SSL authorities selling certificates and most likely your hosting company proposes some solution integrated with their hosting offer. They may even offer you the certificate for free for the first year. However, there is a free solution provided by the non-profit organization let’s encrypt to help increase the security of the web. Their certificates will be trusted and are secured enough. However, it may be a bit more difficult to install and manage your certificates, and this is why I wrote this post.
3- How to configure your server to use HTTPS?
This will depend of your hosting company and website type. If your hosting company supports let’s encrypt (see list of supported providers here), then just follow their documentation and you will be sorted. I won’t treat this case here. I’m using Namecheap and since they sell their SSL certificates they are not at this time supporting let’s encrypt for automatic installation. We will therefore need SSH access to the server to install the tools needed.If you need help accessing your hosting account using SSH, check with your provider support. once connected to your SSH account, just copy and paste the commands below without the quotes. If you face any issue, post your question in the comments, i’ll help you.
You now have a valid certificate on your website that will renew automatically before expiration (the scheduler will check every day the status of the certificates and renew them as needed).
I hope you were able to follow the steps above, if you faced any issue or would like more details on any points above, please leave a message and i’ll get back to you. If you want me to write about another topic regarding your website, let me know below.
I haven’t been very active here lately. However I’ve kept reading great books and will get back to post about them soon. I have adopted been working on another blog where I will publish simple steps to help save the world, you can see everything thing there.
Please go have a look and comment/question what you read there.
in this post (it will built upon time), i will put some of my preferred quotes about self development (and please don’t hesitate to add yours in the comments).
“Your life is a reflection of your consistent thoughts: what you think is what you become.”
“Desire is the beginning of all riches.” Napoleon Hill
“The only requirement for success is desire.”
“Success is a skill you can learn.”
“Winners are made, not born.”
“Winners do not Quit, Quitters do not Win.”
“Don’t reinvent the wheel.”
“If you help enough people get what they want, then you’ll eventually get what you want.”
“Everything we do is out of our need to avoid pain, and out of our desire to gain pleasure.”
“The constant pursuit of enlightenment causes us to forget what we have now.”
“Life is a journey, not a destination.”
“Those who succeed in enjoying an extraordinary life think long term.”
“It’s not what do once in a while that makes you successful, it is what you do consistently.”
“The foundation of all success is discipline. For every disciplined effort there are multiple rewards. There is either the pain of discipline, or the pain of regret – the pain of discipline is weighed in ounces while the pain of regret is weighed in tons.”
“growth depends on how much discomfort one can comfortably handle in his life.’
“Motivation gets you started, but habits keep you going”
“Failures in life lack discipline and winners are willing to do what the failures won’t”
“If you have a big enough reason to do something, you will do it, because the meaning changes from pain to pleasure”
“We fail to use our full potential because of our limiting beliefs”
“Whatever the mind can conceive and believe it can achieve” Napoleon Hill
“If you think you can, or can’t, either way you’re right” Henry Ford
“The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we created them” ~Albert Einstein
“When you decide you will never quit, there can be no more failure for you, only feedback”
“An extraordinary life is all about daily, continuous improvements in the areas that matter most.” ~Robin Sharma
“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.” ~Bruce Lee
“The world we have created is a product of our thinking; it cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” ~Albert Einstein
“Practice the philosophy of continuous improvement. Get a little bit better every single day.” ~Brian Tracy
I went to 2 seminars by Michael bolduc this year and got interesting knowledge. i actually got his book and i’m now in the process of implementing ‘The Ultimate Success Formula’ from Michael Bolduc, one of the top success coach in the world.
First comment is that he’s advocating the same principles than other successful coaches (Tony Robbins, Brian Tracy, Jack Canfield…) so they must be producing results. The difference between Michael’s book and Jack Canfield’s success principles is that this book is more of a formula you can replicate. The main principles behind the formula are:
– people always try to avoid pain and get more pleasure
– ask the right questions: when you ask yourself a question, you control on what you focus and whatever you focus on you move towards.
– failure is not an option: once you are 100% committed to achieve your goals, you cannot fail unless you quit and stop moving towards your goal.
Basically, this is a short version of the formula:
1 – define your outcome clearly: you cannot hit a target you cannot see. so you will first need to define clearly what success mean to you, what goals are you trying to achieve. You will need to focus on why you need to achieve these goals in order to find the motivation to do what it takes to reach your goal. Imagine you have reached your goal and answer the question: How does it feel achieving this goal? Build vivid images carrying emotions and feelings (think you are realizing a blockbuster movie). Once you can see these images clearly, prepare a vision board and then review it everyday (twice a day even better, first thing in the morning and last thing before going to bed) to motivate you moving on with the next steps.
2 – believe you can achieve it: the human brain is a very powerful tool and whatever you can imagine you can achieve, you can turn every dream you desire into reality. To be able to do that, you need to get your subconscious mind (the emotions that control your behaviors) to focus on your goals. Unfortunately many limiting beliefs (i’m not intelligent enough, I did not go to school, i don’t know how to do this…) will be your main obstacles. You will need to identify them and replace them with empowering beliefs, new maps that will show you how to attain your goals. remember feeling good is always a choice, use your conscious mind to focus on what you want and get the resources you need to succeed.
3 – plan: you know where you want to go, you believe you can get there, so how do you do it? most people get stuck there because they don’t know how to achieve their goal. so you know need to find the answer to the question “what do I need to do to achieve…?”. Success is a skill you can learn, so you will need to model successful people and learn from the best. Identify the skills you need and learn them. For that you will need a detailed plan, try to focus on the next 3 months, then do a weekly and a daily plan. (plan the day the night before and the week before it starts, for most people week-end will work best but you need to find what works for you). Make sure your daily and weekly plans are aligned with your long terms goal. And remember it’s not only the destination that is important, but make sure you enjoy the journey.
4 – take action/build habits: It is now what you do once in a while that makes you successful, it is what you do consistently. In order to achieve your goals, you will need to take massive actions. The only way you will manage to do this is if you build massive pleasure to taking the actions on your plan and massive pain to not taking actions. Make sure you measure your progress consistently.
5 – interpret your results and use feedback: once you take actions, there will be 2 possible outcomes: 1 – you get the results expected, congratulations for this success, you can now do the same with your next important goals. This success will help you to build confidence for the next goal. 2 – failure. but what is failure? actually if you commit to do whatever it takes to achieve your goal, then failure is not an option, until you quit. There is no failure, only feedback, so when you get the feedback, see what is not working, why it is not working and adjust your strategy and your plan until you get the results you committed to get.
This formula can be used to achieve any goals, you can become very rich, very healthy, loose this weight you always wanted to loose so bad… anything is possible once you have learn all the steps and is committed to follow them until you reach your target. if you have questions or want to comment on this, don’t hesitate to post and i’ll be sure to get back to you.
In case you like criminal or private investigators stories, here is a book available in kindle: chase hunt investigations
this is the story of 2 private investigors, each chapter is about one specific case they handled. It is easy to read, with good suspense and quite funny. hope to see more books of Patch Palmer soon.
hi,
My name is Yannick Thevenot. I’m french, born in 1975 and i’ve been living in Bangkok, Thailand since 2002.
I like to practice sports such as running (road race or trails), biking (mountain bike more than road), adv
enture races, horse riding long ago and i’ve started doing triathlons few years ago.
If you are going to be successful in creating the life of your dreams, you have to believe in yourself, that you are capable of making it happen. Whatever you call it, self-esteem, self-confidence, or self-assurance, you need to have a deep belief that you can achieve what you want.
Believing in yourself is an attitude, which means it your choice. this is a habit you can build over time. you must choose to believe you can do anything you set your mind to do, and this is confirmed by latest scientific research. With positive self-talk, positive visualization and the proper efforts, you can learn to do almost anything. If you really believe it is possible and act as if, then you will do that is necessary to bring the results. The other thing needed is you need to know why you’re doing it.
The choice of what to believe is up to you as the story of Victor Serebriakoff shows, he used to believe his school teachers and thought he was dumb, dropped out of school and move from manual work to manual work until he enrolled in the army and took an IQ test who revealed he was a genius, he then decided to believe these results and became a very successful author, business man and later became international president of mensa (a society for people with very high IQ). He was always intelligent but didn’t believe it until he got the results of the IQ test…
You have to give up I can’t
As Henri Ford said: “I am looking for a lot of men who have an infinite capacity to not know what can’t be done.”
The words “I can’t” (and similar ones: I wish I were able to…) are weakening you. Whereas your brain is designed to solve any problem you give it, the worlds you think and say actually affect your body and therefore your capacity to do what is needed. Take responsibility and remove ‘I can’t’ from your vocabulary, and the sooner the better.
Don’t waste years believing you can’t, take the story of Catherine Lanigan for example, she believed for years a teacher who told her she writes very badly and should quit for 14 years, until finally she gave it a try and wrote about 30 best-sellers.
It’s never too late, stop making excuses, it’s never too late to start, as the ancient Chinese proverb says: “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. the second best time is now.” there are plenty of stories to illustrate that, check Grandma Moses for example, she started painting when she was 78 years old, though some of her paintings have sold for more than 1 Million USD years later.
Also you’re never too young to start, don’t worry about not having enough experience or being too young, you will learn by doing. There are many stories of people being successful at a very young age (as artists, businessman, philanthropist…)
Don’t assume you need a college degree, 20% of America’s millionaires never set foot in College, just think about Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle, Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates.
What others think about you is none of your business, forget about what the others want to you to do or achieve, do what you need to attain your goals. As Dr. Daniel Amen’s put it in his 18/40/60 rule, when you’re 18, you worry about what everybody is thinking of you, when you’re 40, you don’t give a darn what anybody thinks of you, when you’re 60, you realize nobody’s thinking about you at all. So keep focusing on what you want, believe in yourself and take actions now.
As Napoleon Hill said ” whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” The human mind is so powerful, that it can deliver you literally anything you want, but first you have to believe it is possible!
you get what you expect our minds have been conditioned to deliver on what we are expecting, so hold positive expectations, change what you are expecting and your mind will get to work on delivering what you expect, as long as you believe it is possible.
believe in yourself and go for it Richard Bach said “sooner or later, those who win are those who think they can”. Most people fail not because they lack the skills or aptitude to reach their goal, but because they simply don’t believe they can reach it. Don’t worry about how you’re gonna get there or how you will meet the requirements, but believe you can get it.
Sometimes it’s not what you don’t know that holds you back, it’s what you do know that isn’t true, it is wise to question all of your assumptions about how things are done and be open to new possibilities. As an example, you can read the story of Cliff Young who won one of the toughest ultra trail run because he didn’t know it could not be done and that he would have to sleep several hours each night to complete the race.
So remember believe it is possible, but also don’t forget that you cannot hire someone to do your pushups for you.
“The indispensable first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want” – Ben Stein
It may be obvious but it’s worth noting that one of the main reasons people are not getting what they want is because they haven’t decided what they want or haven’t defined it clearly and in details. Remember when you were growing up and other people kept telling you don’t do that, you can’t have that, you can’t have everything you want just because you want it… well that probably led you to finally loose touch with the needs of your body or the desires of your heart, and left you like many people today not knowing what you want.
So, how do you change that? Stop settling for less than you want. This is a habit, so to get rid of it the best way is to replace it by the opposing habit, start making choices again, stop saying ‘whatever’ or ‘I don’t know’, when you are confronting with a choice, act as if you have a preference. Remember you deserve to have everything in your life exactly the way you want it.
Here are few ways you can reconnect with what you truly want:
make a list of 30 things you want to do, 30 things you want to have and 30 things you want to be before you die.
ask a friend to help you make an ‘I want’ list: have your friend ask you ‘what do you want’ for 10-15 minutes and right down all the answers. By the end of the exercise, your wants will be more true expressions of your core values.
People often don’t think they can make a living out of what they love, however most of the time you can. Let’s make a list of 20 things you love to do, and the following principles will show you how to make money at it.
if you check back the complete title of Jack Canfield’s book, you’ll see that it includes ‘how to get from where you are to where you want to be‘. Well in order to achieve that you’ll need to know 2 things: where you are and where you want to be. Therefore you need to clarify your vision of your ideal life, ie: describe what your destination looks like and feels like in the following seven areas: work and career, finances, recreation and free time, health and fitness, relationships, personal goals, and contribution to the larger community. Don’t worry about how you’re gonna get there, just figure out where ‘there’ is.
Once your vision is clear, you just need to lock it in with goal-setting, affirmations and visualizations, then your inner GPS will keep you on track and get you there.
Don’t limit your vision in any way, let it be as big as it is, as Michelangelo said: “The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it”. Or as General Wesley Clark put it “it doesn’t take any more energy to create a big dream than it does to create a little one”. One of the few differences between the superachievers and the rest of the world is that the superachievers simply dream bigger.
Robert Fritz (author of “The Path of Least Resistance”) said “if you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is a compromise.” Don’t let anyone talk you out of your vision, many will tell you that you’re crazy, that it’s not possible… don’t listen to them and follow your inner GPS.
Here is an exercise to help you clarify your vision:
Sit quietly with relaxing music in a quiet environment where you won’t be disturbed, close your eyes and ask your subconscious mind to imagine (clearly and with pictures as vivid as possible) what your ideal life would look like in the following areas (it is important not to limit yourself in that exercise, don’t worry whether it is possible to get these or how you’re gonna get it):
financial: what is your annual income and monthly cashflow? how much savings do you have? what is your net worth? what does your home look like? where is it located? how many rooms it has? what landscape is it sitting in? is there a pool? how is it decorated? What kind of car are you driving? what other important possessions do you have?
career: visualize your ideal job, where are you working? what are you doing? what kind of customers do you have? what does your compensation look like?
free time: what hobbies do you have? what are you doing with your family and friends in your free time? what kind of vacations do you take? what do you do for fun?
health and fitness: what does your physical body look like? are you free of disease? are you pain free? how long do you live? are you open and relaxed? are you full of energy? how much do you weigh? how much do you exercise? do you eat good food and drink a lot of water?
relationships: what is your relationship with your spouse, family, closed friends look like? are those relaltionships supportive, loving, empowering? what kind of things do you do together?
personal development: do you see yourself learning new things frequently, attending seminars, reading books? do you want to learn how to play an instrument? do you want to travel to other countries?
community: what does your community look like? what kinds of common activities take place? what charitable, philanthropic or volunteer work takes place? what do you do to help others and make a difference?
Write down your answers as you go or write them down after you finish the whole exercise. Review the results every day to keep your conscious and subconscious minds focused on your vision. For maximum impact, share your vision with a person you know will be supportive and positive. this will help you clarify your vision even more, and make it feel more attainable. Every time you share it, you strengthen your own subconscious belief that you can achieve it.
Finally I took the time to write a report on the Great Wall of China Marathon, you can also see my first video here, but at least i’ll post some pictures here.
Beijing
First, at our arrival to Beijing, I was agreeably surprised by the city. I was not expecting it to be so clean, so green and so easy to go around. There are trees or parks everywhere, but still less than bikes available for rental (download your app, scan the barcode on the bike and here you have a bike you can use and drop anywhere). of course the first few days, there was a bit of pollution but still ok (end of the winter means also no more coal burning in the city and also the pollution fight by the government is clearly giving results in Beijing). I was also surprised by the nice big roads, with big (huge) bike lanes, completely separated from the car lanes. Finally, another nice touch is all the electric motorcycles, no noise pollution is very nice (coming from Bangkok, this is a big change). However, they still clearly have to make progress on English… as even in international hotels (ok budget international hotels) staff spoke almost no English and relies on translation apps on their mobile phone to exchange with customers.
race registration
After few days visiting, meeting with the friends (5 of us are participating in the race), it was time to go to pickup our bibs for the Great Wall of China Marathon at the official race hotel. Small race means small organization, the bib pickup happened into the room booked by the organization. At least the organizer speaks English! A small hiccup with the bibs, my friends have bibs for half-marathon despite having signed and paid for the full marathon, the organizer takes care of it and tell them marathon bibs will be given to them before the start of the race tomorrow. We also take the opportunity to book the travel for supporters (package includes the same as the runners but not the entry to the race for half the price… no more details). The bib package includes a race T-shirt (not so many sizes available), the wording is nice but T-shirt is a very basic cotton shirt. Our registration completed, it’s time to head back to our hotel for dinner all together and an early night so we can wake at 4 for the departure by bus to the race location.
The Great Wall of China Marathon
Almost there, all getting excited, we arrive at the meeting point where about 10 buses are waiting (most of them already filled up with runners), we get installed and wait for departure, while the organizers provide drinking water to all buses for the runners. We depart a bit late, but after an eventless ride, we end up at the race start point (beautiful mountains, and we can see the wall waiting for us… definitively not flat…).
The morning is quite chilly (15 degrees is for people living in Bangkok at least…), but weather looks nice and we’re getting ready for the race. There is a bag dropoff organized (again, a small bedroom rented by the organization at the starting place), a bit of a lengthy process, but we get our bags stored safely in the room and can head up for the start point.
We’re all still smiling (though still a bit cold), some were more prepared than others with arm sleeves… but here we are ready and eager to get going. And we won’t get disappointed, in short, the race was really nice, though really hard as well ;). It took me a bit more than 10 hours to cover the 40 km, 15000 steps and 2400 m up (and down of course, since we finished at the same point…). The winner of the full marathon finished the race just below 6 hours. A nice touch from the organization was the printed certificate given on the finish line:
So, if you go racing there, what to expect? first, we were quite lucky with the weather, it started at 16-17 degrees and was nice temperatures most of the day. We had a little bit of rain near the end, which renders the wall very slippery (I don’t see how people would be able to race on the wall if it was really raining) and can be quite dangerous (even with my Salomon trails…). Second, I strongly recommend to have your camelbag with water and food with you, don’t expect any water or food while on the wall (despite the course map and organization indicating so…). Water stations outside of the wall were providing water, sport drinks, and food (bananas were not ripe… and oranges were wrapped individually in plastic), though I relied on my own food for the whole race.
There were no marking for the course, but most of it, you cannot get lost (just follow the wall…) and marshals were mostly posted at the places where you could have gone wrong. (there was some issue for the fastest runners where the marshals arrived late and therefore some runners did more KM than planned…). The course map also indicates toilets on the wall, I guess they mean the stairs getting out the wall and taking you to the forest where you can feel free to take care of your business… I did use some toilets after we got off the wall but Chinese public toilets (cabins with no doors and just a hole on the floor, no water…)
As mentioned before and as you can see in the pictures below, the wall is not flat (almost never) and slopes can be very steep to a point where it is very hard to run even while going down… Some of them have stairs but they can be small or high, and not always very wide… I definitively recommend to run with poles (make sure you use plasticprotection at the bottom) or if you didn’t, use the ramps when there are some or the wall itself when none are available. The part that is not on the wall is mostly paved road, though not flat either…
The cutoff was supposed to be 10 hours for the finish line and 8 hours for the last turning point, however it was not enforced and the last runner finished the race in 11h30m. The race was on the 1st of may which is very high touristic season, however the part of the wall where the race is happening is not touristic at all and the few people there did not make bother us at all, and actually it was nice to have some people cheering us.
going back to Beijing
If you don’t want to wait for the buses to get full to go back to Beijing then you can discuss with the organization (in advance) to have a taxi organized for you. (If I was to go there again, I would probably have a car or van if a group taking us to the start and bringing us back to Beijing). There was a bit of traffic while getting back to Beijing (it was the end of a long week-end) but we ended there in about 1h30 which was ok. Almost straight back to bed, before one last day in Beijing. Surprise on the last day, a very nice blue sky greets us, I wouldn’t have thought that possible in Beijing: