Internet Services Frequently Asked Questions
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Commercial Web Hosting

Why do I need a Commercial Web site?
If you have a business, you should have a Web site. A Web site can be used to provide information on your products and services, answers to frequently asked questions, and it can even be set up to sell your products on-line to anyone in the world. In short, Web hosting is an inexpensive way to provide product and customer service information, as well as a great way to expand your sales territory.

How do I design my site?
There are programs available like Netscape Composer, Microsoft FrontPage and others that can be used to design Web sites. Many companies have someone on staff who is handy with software programs that can design a site using one of these programs, and other companies contract the work out to a Web designer.

I am not sure what questions to ask. Where do I begin?
It is a good idea to think first about what you want to accomplish with your Web site, which will help you determine the best plan to fit your needs. For example, do you only want to display company and product information, or do you also want to sell your products on-line (ecommerce)? Do you expect to store a lot of data on the site, or only a few pages? Do you expect to have a lot of visitors, or just a few?

Which type of site should I get?
We have three levels of Unix Hosting available called Value_Pro, Enhanced_Pro, and Premium_Pro. Our Value_Pro Web site has the least amount of disk space, data transfer and mailboxes, and does not include ecommerce capability. The Enhanced_Pro and Premium_Pro site has more disk space, data transfer and email accounts, and can be enabled for ecommerce. The Premium_Pro site includes the most amount of space, data transfer and email accounts, and also includes a Shopping Cart program. The higher-level plans also have some other advanced features. If you are not sure, the Enhanced_Pro is a good place to start. It is reasonably priced, and it has more available features than the Value_Pro site. However, a Value_Pro hosting may be fine as long as you have a simple site that is not expected to exceed the allowable disk space or data transfer. Similarly, if you find that you will need a great deal of disk space and/or data transfer, or that you require features not available on the Enhanced_Pro (such as a shopping cart), then you should get the Premium_Pro plan. All three plans generally include more than enough disk space and data transfer to handle most Web sites, so the number of emails or additional features available in each plan may be the driving factor. See our comparison chart for a list of features on the Unix Pro sites.

Can you host my site on an NT server?
Usually, NT is not required. If your site truly does require an NT environment, we can host the site on an NT server, but you will not have all of the features available with our Unix hosted sites, including the Web Control Panel. Call our sales office for more information on NT hosting.

Why is it required that some sites be hosted on NT?
It is usually based on the development environment the Web designer is using. Some development packages or features require that the site be hosted on NT. For example, if the designer is developing the site using Active Server Pages (ASP), then the site must be hosted on NT. However, it is important to note that NT is not required if you are simply using Microsoft FrontPage to develop your site, since FrontPage is supported on the Unix platform.

What is disk space, and how much do I need?
The disk space included with a Web plan determines how much information can be stored on the site. This information can be in the form of Web pages and other files, as well as email, since the email sent to a your domain is usually stored on the Web server (the exception being if you plan on directing your email to another mail server). How much space you need depends on the amount and type of content you place on the site and the amount of email stored and not yet deleted. You will have the ability to assign an independent storage quota for each email account through the Control Panel. This way you will know the total amount of disk space that might be used for email.

How many Web pages can I store in a particular amount of space?
It really depends on the type of content. Generally, an average Web page will be under 100 KBs in size (it takes 1,024 KBs to equal 1 MB). A page of text is only around 2 KBs, and most smaller pictures will be well under 100K. Therefore, you could estimate that the average size of a Web page is a tenth of a megabyte or less. If that is the case, then you could multiply the number of MBs in a plan by ten to get an estimate of the number of pages that can be stored on the server. For example, a plan that allows 250 MBs could hold 2,500 pages using this formula. Of course, this is only an estimate, since we do not know how big your actual pages will be, or what other content you will have on your site. If you have a lot of large picture files, video clips, sound files, or a software package available for download, you will be using more than the average amount of space. Remember, also, that some disk space may be used for incoming email storage.

What is Data Transfer, and how much do will I need?
Data transfer is related to the number of page downloads that a web site receives. Every time someone visits your Web site, the data is transferred from our server out to the Internet. Each Web hosting plan includes a specific amount of data transfer in the base price. Any number of visitors can go to the site, but if the amount of data transfer included in the plan is exceeded, there will be extra charges. Just as we were able to estimate the number of pages that could be stored in a given amount of space, we can estimate the number of "page views" that a Web plan might support. If, as we estimated above, the average Web page is a tenth of a megabyte or less, then we can multiply the amount of data transfer by ten to get an estimate of the number of page views. For example, if a plan includes 10 Gigabytes of data transfer per month (which is 10,000 MBs), it might then allow up to 100,000 page views in a month. However, like the amount of pages a site can hold, this is only a estimate. If the site contains larger image files, audio, video, etc., then each time one of those files is downloaded, it will count towards data transfer. For example, if there is a 2 MB video file on the site, each time that file is downloaded there will be 2 MBs of data transfer. One other point to realize is that a page view is defined as the download of a single page, and does not equate to the number of visitors to a Web site. It is harder to estimate the number of visitors a Web site can support, since we cannot know how many pages an average visitor might download. The number of pages someone might download will depend on factors such as ease of navigation, the type of content, and how interesting your site is.

One reason to look at an Enhanced_Pro hosting over the Value_Pro is because it includes twice the amount of data transfer. Unlike disk space, you have much less control over the amount of data transfer that you will have in a month. Factors that determine how much data transfer a site experiences include how well the site is publicized, and the type and amount of content available. The more popular their Web site, the more visitors you will get, and thus the more data transfer you will have. In addition, if other Web sites link to your site, that will drive additional traffic. However, in general, most small to medium business sites do not receive a large amount data transfer unless the site is entertainment oriented.

Can I use Microsoft FrontPage to develop my site?
Yes. We support FrontPage on either the Unix or NT platforms. On the NT platform, FrontPage extensions is turned on by default. On the Unix Pro platform, you have the ability to turn on or reset FrontPage extensions through the control panel. It is recommended that your site be placed on the Unix platform if your only special requirement is FrontPage, since you will have more features, and full use of the Web Control Panel

Do you support ASP and PHP?
Yes. ASP, which stands for Active Server Pages, is only available on the NT platform. PHP is available on our Unix servers and provides similar functionality to ASP. In addition, our Unix_Pro sites include PHP Nuke, a popular development environment for creating PHP content. Both PHP and ASP allow for dynamic content to be displayed on a Web site. If you need ASP installed for an NT site, you must request that at the time you order.

What type of Databases do you support?
If you need a database with your Web site, MYSQL is available for all plans on the Unix_Pro platform, and you will have the ability to set up and enable MYSQL through the Control Panel. If your require Microsoft Access, the site must be hosted on an NT server. We can also enable NT sites with Open Database Connectivity (ODBC), which will allow the site to work with databases that are ODBC compliant. In order to set up database access on NT, we will require the following information to complete the installation:

+ Database file name
+ The Data Source Name
+ Path to the file

Is FTP enabled on all Web sites?
FTP is enabled on all Web sites hosted on Unix, and the control panel includes a handy FTP Manager. On the NT server, if you need FTP enabled instead of FrontPage extensions (or in addition to FrontPage extensions), then you will need to request that in the order.

What about E-commerce capability?
If you will be selling products on your Web site, the first thing you need is a way to take orders on-line. The most common way to do this is through a Shopping Cart program. The Premium_Pro site includes a shopping cart in the package that can be set up and managed through the Control Panel. For this reason, the Premium_Pro site is the best choice for an Ecommerce site. If you want to use another shopping cart program, you can also load your own program in the allotted Web space.

Secondly, if your are conducting Ecommerce transactions over their Web site, you should seriously consider enabling Secure Server (also known as SSL for Secure Socket Layer). Secure Server is included with the Enhanced_Pro and Premium_Pro web sites, and can be enabled through the Control Panel. SSL ensures that any data transferred to and from secure areas of the Web site is encrypted, which will help protect information like credit card numbers and other sensitive data. For this reason, customers are more likely to purchase products and services from sites that have SSL enabled. For Secure Server to work properly, you will need to purchase a digital certificate for the site, which is a verification service provided by a third-party company. The purpose of the certificate is to validate that the connection between the client and the remote server is valid and secure, and that the company selling the services has provided some level of proof that they are a valid business entity. Two companies that provide digital certificates are Thawte (www.thawte.com) and Verisign (verisign.com).

In addition to Secure Server and a Shopping Cart, you may want to incorporate an on-line payment service, which allows for automatic authorization and processing of credit card transactions while the shopper is still on the Web site. Payment system services will have extra charges that usually include a set-up fee and a per transaction fee. One vendor that provides these services is Merchant Partners (merchantpartners.com). Lastly, you must get a merchant account with a bank that will accept payments over the Internet if you do not already have one.

What is Anonymous FTP?
Anonymous FTP provides the ability for you to allow others to download files from your site using the FTP protocol. Visitors to the FTP site can download files from a public directory using a login of "anonymous" and their email address as the password. This would be useful if you want to allow others to download large files via FTP anonymously, rather than doing a download via HTTP over the Web. This is sometimes seen as a better way to provide downloads of larger files. For example, you might want to provide demo copies of a software application that you sell to anyone that is interested in trying it. Anonymous FTP is available on the Enhanced_Pro and Premium_Pro sites, and can be enabled through the control panel.

What if I have a Web site with another ISP and want to transfer it to your service?
You will let us know that the domain needs to be transferred, and we will take care of that. You should have a login and password to manage your domain at their current registrar, which you can provide to us. This is usually required to initiate a domain transfer. You should also verify that the administrative contact on your domain is correct. If not, this should be modified before the domain transfer is requested, since a confirmation email will be sent to the administrative contact, and that must be acknowledged before the transfer is approved.

Will there be any downtime on my site when it transfers to your service?
There does not need to be any downtime if handled properly. First, you should upload a copy of your Web files to our server before the domain transfer is confirmed, so that when the transfer does take place, the site will be accessible from our server. Also, because of the way Domain Name Service (DNS) works, you should leave a copy of your site up with the old provider for at least three days after the transfer is complete. While the domain transfer is propagating on the Internet, it may be a few hours to a few days where the site may be reached on either server when someone types your domain name. The bottom line is that you should have your new site up and ready on our server, including setting up any email accounts, before you approve the domain transfer.

Frequently Asked Questions regarding e-mail

Additional questions will be posted as soon as possible to better assist you.  Until then, please contact us with any questions or concerns.