Web Site Services
Feature Descriptions & Glossary
IP
Address
IP stands for Internet Protocol. The IP address
is the web server computer's numerical network address; and we
believe that every web site should have a unique IP address.
When someone's browser requests a page from your web site, with
your domain name, their dial-up or broadband ISP's
(internet service provider) computer looks up your domain name's
IP address on a "nameserver" computer or list, and
automatically (and invisibly to the visitor) makes the connection.
Domain names (and web sites) we host have a static, unique, and
unchanging IP address, so the domain can always be accessed as
http://000.000.000.000 where the zero's are here standing in
for, and would be replaced by, the unique IP address, which is
4 groups of 1 to 3 digits, separated by periods, and also sometimes
called "a dotted quad." In the near future,
the internet will use 6 groups, a protocol termed IPV6, in order
to have more addresses for things like appliances, vending machines,
miniature weather stations, and even more web sites. Some countries
are already beginning the transition.
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YourName.com
This is a domain using a name of your choice (such as yourname.com,
myservice.net, or myfoundation.org). If you want to register
or renew registration of a domain name (as long as it is still
available), we can help you to get a price as low as $8/year.
However a visitor types your domain name, they will find it. Either company.com or www.company.com; or MyGreatClub.com or www.mygreatclub.com or www.MYGREATCLUB.COM or myGREATclub.com; or other ways of capitalizing, it doesn't matter, with or without www, they will still get to your web site.
Like all web sites, once the "nameserver" address information has been set for the first time or changed, it is supposed to take anywhere from 48 to 72 hours for all of the nameservers around the world to be updated, and have people find the new version of the web site. Sometimes we have found that it only takes one day with some ISP's. This means that for existing web sites being transferred from another hosting company, there will be a period of time (up to 72 hours) where your visitors may end up at either the old or the new version. For new web sites, it may take that long before the web site can be accessed by the domain name.
Disk Storage Space - Megabytes of Hard Drive Space
For an average web site of each type, this is a large amount of space. With a typical mix of .html files, .pdf pages, and download-optimized (compressed files, such as JPEG or GIF) images, we estimate that you can fit 5000 files in each 100 MB that you use. You may be surprised to learn how little space some good-looking and fast-loading web sites use. 50-100 MB is common for many small business websites.
If you have a lot of large Real Audio/Video or Flash files or unedited, non-optimized pictures displayed on your web pages, fewer files will fill up the space. Also, please keep in mind that people that browse those pages with a dialup connection may experience slow page viewing. One of the services that we offer is picture optimization. An optimized picture will load faster, take up less space, and still look great. Ask us for a quote!
Top of page - or back to FeaturesMonthly Traffic Allowance
The traffic allowance provided per domain is approximately 30 times what a normal user would need. Please refer to our hosting policies for limitation on certain file protocols and types of resource-hogging web sites. GB stands for Gigabytes.
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Email Redirects / Forwarding
You will be able to redirect (forward) email addresses in a simple text file, or in our WebControl Panel, and have them each go to a location of your choice. For example, you could redirect sales@yoursite.com to sally007@aol.com, and redirect complaints@yoursite.com to bob@yoursite.com, webmaster@yoursite.com, and ceo@mycorporation.com.
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Email Aliases
Automatically captures any user name that may be sent to your domain name. This means as long as the "@yourdomain.com" is proper, even typos in the user name will still be captured and not refused. If you want, during a new hosting setup or by a later agreement, we can configure your email forwarding so all of these automatically get forwarded to a particular mailbox or email address. Sometimes, for long-term web sites, this can be a source of spam, so we can disable this feature if you start finding lots of bounced spam messages, as soon as you let us know.
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FTP access
We can tell clients where to find free software tools and instructions for using FTP access, if assistance is needed. Or, if you don't have the time, inclination, or understanding of web protocols, our one-time setup charge includes a specified amount of file upload transfers. After the initial setup, site design, redesign, or maintenance agreements can have us deal with all of the technical aspects of operating a web site or just one-time modifications. This could include all necessary upload and download file transfers, and any modifications or configuration needed.
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POP Email Mailboxes
These are private storage boxes for email. They would be accessed by a 3rd party email program like Eudora, Netscape, or Mozilla mail. You will also have password-protected access to your own outgoing email server, so your clients can receive emails and newsletters from a Sales@MyCompanyName.com address, or any "Name@" you want. And yes, email and sites addressed with various letters capitalized will work just fine. Please see the above entry for explanation of the word "POP."
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Secure Server and SSL Certificates
SSL (secure sockets layer protocol) - secure servers are used for encrypting files and information during transit between the server and the user's browser. It is best to have an experienced developer set up pages that use this type of access. It is good for things like keeping passwords, phone numbers, addresses, and bank balances private. We can also make further recommendations or set up gateways for accepting credit cards, create shopping carts, and set up Paypal payment systems. SSL Certificates can either be shared, using private directories, or purchased yearly for those wanting their own company name on the certificate.
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Customizable Missing Documents Page
By modifying a file in your main directory called missing.html, you will be able to give a customized page to any viewer that requests a file with their browser that does not exist on your domain, and have a link to your index page.
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Server Side Includes
SSI or Server side includes, allow the server to parse special page commands. As example, if you had a footer you wanted on all your pages that may change from time to time, you could create a text file with the desired footer and place it in your domain. On each page you put a simple include to read that file and place it at the bottom of the desired pages.
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Parked Domains
If you are worried about customers remembering your domain name, or how to spell it, or later come up with a better name for your web site, this feature allows you to have more than one domain name for your web site. You would need to register the name, and then pay us a one time setup fee per name for us to configure the name server. For example, with a mycompany.com web site, you could park mycompany.net, mycompany.us, mycompanies.com, mycompanyinc.com, etc., and they would all have the same home page and share the web site.
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MySQL Databases
MySQL is an open-source, multi-threaded, RDBMS, or relational database management system. It is freely licensed for all non-commercial use, and even some incidental commercial use. It is on the average 40% faster than other RDBMS's in its class, while still being more secure, and fully ANSI SQL '92 compliant, with ODBC interfaces available.
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