Frequently Asked Questions

 Generally the domain transfer process is done electronically between your old registrar and our registration service. Still, with no problems in the process is takes at least 24 hours to transfer a domain over to us. With problems such as bounced e-mails and old information, it can take up to a week. Keep in mind we will "babysit" the process so it's minimized for you. You will also see updated status information in your support area.

Tip: The old registrar will send out several confirmation e-mails, responding to those quickly will move the process along faster. Some registrars will also require you to login and "accept/deny" the transfer from there. Without logging in and accepting the transfer, an additional 72 hours is added to the processing time.

We serve no ads on your web pages - your web pages are yours to keep ad-free or serve your own ads! 

 When you’re ready to choose a web hosting provider, many choices come up. One primary choice is whether or not to use a free web hosting provider.

A free web hosting provider will generally fit some people and their content. Want to host a blog? A free web provider can handle that with no problem. Want to have an online store? A free or even cheap hosting provider is not for you.

Free hosting plans generally come with some limit on bandwidth. Ever come across a link that comes up as: “This user has exceeded their bandwidth for the month. Please try again next month” These people are using free or cheap web hosting providers and hitting the limits. If you hit this bandwidth limit, for the rest of that month anyone going to your page will see that message. It wouldn’t matter if you posted an important update, no one could see it.

If your content consists of your blog that’s updated daily and your family and friends visit it for your updates, bandwidth is not going to be a problem. If you want to get past the basic web page and start setting up video clips, there’s the problem. Bandwidth on even a short video clip would equal thousands of regular text page views. One video clip to a few people can take up your entire bandwidth for the month.

Another problem encountered with free web hosting is advertising. A free web host has to make money somewhere. If that money’s not coming from you, they most likely sell advertising space. When you provide content to be published, they can link in to certain words to promote products, sell banner ad space on the sides, etc. They key here is that they are choosing what runs and what doesn’t. If you’re talking about the PETA movement and the abuse of animals - do you want a banner for a dog food company? The text of your article could provide keywords for things you’re speaking about, so it would be possible to get conflicting messages. What if you have something against a certain advertiser? With a free web host it wouldn’t be possible to refuse space for that advertiser, it’s free and you get what you pay for.

To decide on getting a free web host, take a look at what you want for your content. To publish an article or get a general blog going, a free provider can be a step in the direction you’d like to go. For more specific content or for a professional appearance, you’ll want to go to a reputable web hosting plan.

The following scripts can be autoinstalled using Fantastico De Luxe. Installation procedure takes seconds and can be performed by novices without the need of setting up MySQL databases, importing structure, chmoding files and without the need of other tasks usually associated with installations:

Blogs:

• b2evolution (2.4.5)
• Nucleus (3.32)
• WordPress (2.7.1)

Classifieds:

• Noah’s Classifieds (V8 (3.2.0))

Portals/CMS:

• Drupal (6.10)
• Geeklog (1.5.1)
• Joomla 1.5 (1.5.10)
• Joomla (1.0.15)
• Mambo Open Source (4.6.5)
• PHP-Nuke (7.9)
• phpWCMS (1.1-RC4 Rev. A)
• phpWebSite (0.10.2)
• Post-Nuke (0.764)
• Siteframe (3.2.3)
• Typo3 (4.2.1)
• Xoops (2.3.1)

Customer Support:

• Crafty Syntax Live Help (2.15.0)
• Help Center Live (2.1.7)
• osTicket (1.3.1)
• PerlDesk (4.012.2) (Commercial, needs license)
• PHP Support Tickets (1.9)
• Support Logic Helpdesk (1.2)
• Support Services Manager (1.0b)

Discussion Boards:

• phpBB (3.0.4)
• SMF (1.1.7)

E-Commerce:

• CubeCart (3.0.17)
• OS Commerce (2.2 Release Candidate 2a + buySAFE)
• Zen Cart (1.3.8a)

FAQ:

• FAQMasterFlex (1.51)

Hosting Billing:

• AccountLab Plus (2.8 r14) (Commercial, needs license)
• phpCOIN (1.4.4)

Image Galleries:

• 4images Gallery (1.7.6)
• Coppermine Photo Gallery (1.4.20)
• Gallery (2.3)

Mailing List:

• PHPlist (2.10.9)

Polls and Surveys:

• Advanced Poll (2.03)
• LimeSurvey (1.72)
• phpESP (1.8.2)

Project Management:

• PHProjekt (5.2.2)
• dotProject (2.1.2)

Site Builders:

• Soholaunch Pro Edition (4.9.3 r17) (Commercial, needs license)
• Templates Express

Wiki:

• PhpWiki (1.2.11)
• TikiWiki (2.4)

Other Scripts:

• Dew-NewPHPLinks (2.0.1.0b SEF w/Thumbshots)
• Moodle (1.9.4)
• Open-Realty (2.5.6)
• phpAdsNew (2.0.11-pr1)
• PHPauction (3.2)
• phpFormGenerator (2.09c)
• WebCalendar (1.2.0)

 

 We're often asked this question and what differences it makes to your final site. Linux and Windows are operating systems and both have fundamental differences, but also many similarities. The truth is it all depends on what you want. Easy right?

Let’s start with the web site idea. When you start to choose a web host provider you're moving past the "I want a web site" phase and starting to move into the "I want my web site to do this" phase. Don't try to choose a back-end right away, you’ll just confuse yourself and get bogged down.

Let's start by thinking of web sites having a back-end and a front-end. The front-end is what your customers and visitors see - this is the face of your business. That face can be professional, whimsical, informational - anything you design. The front-end is where you think about graphic design, visitor interface and content of the site. This is also the part you're designing things on paper and not worrying about how it works - just how it looks.

The back-end is getting into the technical portion and most likely where you'll need someone to work things through with you. This is the portion of the web site that no one will see except you and your technical consult. When you designed a form in the front-end, what do you want it to do? Sure it can collect an email address for you to call them back - that’s a basic function. Now think about the path that information has to take - do you want to store those email address, along with when they contacted you? Do you want to store that information just in your email client or do you want a database?

Now you have an idea of where you’ll be when you choose Linux or Windows for your hosting solution. The tools each provide will focus your decision further. In our example your form is collecting email addresses. If you just want your information mailed to you and you’ll call them and delete the email - it won’t matter what operating system you choose they both have basic features such as email. Do you want to store those emails in a database with other information? If so, do you already have a database to store those in?

Linux hosting will generally come with a MySQL database. MySQL is a major database, able to hold millions of lines of information and is supported by major companies and numerous web support sites. MySQL is also free to use, easy to set up (with the right help) and a web standard. It interfaces with major publishing systems like Drupal, Wordpress, PHP pages and general HTML. If you don’t have a database for yourself it generally won’t matter what is setup - pick the cheaper one in this case. In general if you don’t have a specific need - pick a Linux host, they’re generally cheaper.

Windows hosting is more specific to the tools you use to publish, maintain your site or internal tools you’re using. If you currently have an in-house SQL database, it’s a cleaner and easier solution to host that database on the web using a Windows-based hosting provider. If you have tools or programming done with Visual Studio, those tools can publish directly to your Windows-based website or directly convert into a web page hosted there.
Either choice in creating a website can be a technical challenge and it’s recommended to talk with a technical consultant. Even an hour of time from one can help you save hours of work on your part.

 Web hosting is a service that will take web pages or HTML you’ve created and display them to whomever requests it. Think of them as publishers for the book you’ve written. You can write the best story in the world, but keeping it on your desk won’t let others see it. That’s where a web host comes in.

A web hosting provider will have servers available to host your pages and provide space for them to reside. The web hosting provider has a very large, constant connection to the Internet. Whenever visitors want to read your content, it’s available and ready to go. You don’t need to be awake or even have your computer turned on - that’s basic idea behind web hosting.

For a web host to work it needs a few things, one of which is a name. Computers work on numbers called I.P. addresses - strings of specific combinations that each computer has. These addresses are stored in database system called DNS or Domain Name System. The DNS translates the many millions of computer addresses into human-readable names. An example: www.google.com translates to 74.125.67.100 among many others. Having a name like google.com allows humans to easily remember where to go when searching, but computers need the DNS to know what specific computer you’re referring to.

On your end you need to come up with a name. Some web hosting providers can give you a name based on your account name or something general, but is that what you need? If you’re building a store a general name looks unprofessional and just a bit cheesy. On the other hand, a general name for your personal blog probably wouldn’t matter. If you want to choose a name that’s unique to you and your content, your web hosting provider should be able to provide the tools you need for that. Generally, they have a special search interface that will let you know if the names already been chosen or not.

Web hosting providers specialize in taking names humans come up with and putting them to websites. You have www.internet.com as a name? If you build some web pages for your website and have a name for it, the next step would be to find a web hosting provider. In our book example you have the novel and a name for it - time to get a publisher!