We need a way to chat with each other, to ask questions and share info.
Chat Systems
Slack and Discord are good options and have voice support.
Matrix is an open source chat system that can be customized extensively. I wanted to use this, but it may be too complicated to get up and running quickly.
Rocket Chat is open source and can be installed on your own server.
Digital Ocean
I set up a Digital Ocean droplet for $6/mo to run Rocket Chat: https://docs.rocket.chat/installing-and-updating/paas-deployments/digit…
To set up the DNS, I created an A record in my webserver for chat.andrewsclasses.com and directed it to the IP of the droplet. Then I used rocketchatctl to set up the domain and https.
SendGrid
Registration and password reset emails were not being delivered. I believe my host, providing the email account, was blocking external smtp calls. I was able to sign up for a free SendGrid account and configure Rocket Chat to use it.