What
type of web servers do you use? We operate custom-built, industrial
grade web servers designed to run in a 24/7 web serving environment.
We use Apache web server software operating on a UNIX platform
- one of the most stable, cost-effective and secure web server
systems currently available.
All servers are protected by 2 firewalls
- one at the web server level, and a 2nd at the circuit level.
Each server is rack mounted, fully interchangeable, and equipped
with dual redundant 450-watt power supplies, hot swap Fujitsu
drives and force-filtered cooling systems.
In addition, our Network
Operations Center (NOC) is equipped with raised flooring,
standby machines, industry-leading Liebert uninterruptible
power supplies (UPSs), Halon fire protection system, and resides
in a temperature-controlled environment, all located within
a secure, monitored facility.
When you receive our confirmation email,
log into your new web site with your new domain's IP address,
user name and password, which we will send you by email
or issue over the phone after you sign up.
Configure your new domain with new
email POP accounts, add MS FrontPage extensions (only if
you will be using Microsoft FrontPage), etc.
Copy your site's contents over to
the new site using your favorite web publishing software
package, or with any FTP program such as WS-FTP.
Next, test your website to ensure all
links are correct and whatever scripts you moved are in
proper working order.
Contact your domain registration service
and file a "make changes" notice with them, redirecting
your website to our name servers: ns.webtwister.com and
ns2.webtwister.com.
Once you have filed your make changes
request and confirmed it with your domain registrar, your
domain name will be redirected to the new site. Because many
web users access the Internet via proxy servers, we
suggest you leave your existing site in place at least 14
days before taking it down. This is recommended so that users
can continue to reach your site. If you are getting a new
domain name and was previously hosted as a subsite on someone
else's domain, you may want to publish a "we've moved
to..." page on your former site, which would point to
the new site.
Can I publish
a web site using an Apple Macintosh, Linux-based PC or other
non-"Wintel" class PCs? Yes. In an broader sense, you can publish
web sites using any computer capable of connecting
to the Internet. And in most cases, it doesn't matter what
sort of computer you are using to publish your site with,
although it is important to be equipped with the right software
to design and publish your web site.
If you use a non-"Wintel"
based computer, you can find plenty of web publishing utilities
and software for almost any type of computer - either for
free or at a nominal cost - at TuCows.Com.
How do I
access my POP3 email accounts? Your email can be accessed from anywhere
in the world using common POP3 email client packages such
as MS Outlook, Claris or Eudora. You can also set up webmail
agents like Pine, SQWebmail, etc. if you wish, although most
email users will prefer to simply access their email using
client based software.
You will need the following information
in order to set up your email client software to grab your
email:
Your incoming email server would
be your www domain name (as in www.yourdomain.com), and
it is designated as a POP3 server.
Your outgoing email server
would be the official SMTP mail server name set up for you
by your ISP (Internet service provider). It could be named
anything, but most ISPs like to style their SMTP server
names like smtp.yourisp.com, etc.
Your POP3 email box username
or account name will be whatever name you give it
in the Mail Manager portion of your domain's Control Panel.
For example, to get email from the webmaster POP3 email
account (webmaster@yourdomain.com), the account name would
be simply "webmaster", unless the software asks
for the entire email address.
Your email account password,
which you also set up in the Mail Manager portion of your
domain's Control Panel.
You should also read the instructions
of your specific email client software package for more details
on how the client software handles your email.
Do you
support password protected directories? Yes, you can set up password protection
for any directory you wish with .htaccess. This can be done
through your domain's Control Panel.
NOTE: If you will
be publishing with Microsoft FrontPage, do NOT attempt to
use standard password protection! You will damage your FrontPage
extensions and possibly disrupt access to your web site. If
you are using FrontPage, use its own site security features
instead.
What
online databases do you use or support? We support MySQL (pronounced "My
EssQueEll, not "My-Sequel"), which is an open source
database system that is included with all our hosting packages.
It's extremely flexible, robust and best of all it's free!
If you need to get hold of some documentation
about MySQL, click
here to go to the MySQL
web site.
You can also use any other database
package for your site that runs on UNIX based platforms if
you wish, but we do not provide technical support for them.
Do you offer
CGI scripting? Yes! We offer access to Common Gateway
Interface (more often called CGI for short) as
a standard part of all our hosting packages.
Whether you know it or not, if you
have ever filled out any forms or purchased anything over
the Internet, you probably used a CGI script to do it. CGI
is a standard way for a Web server to pass a Web user's request
to an application program and to receive data back to forward
to the user.
For example, when you access a CGI
script through a web page or link and that script handles
forms processing, the Web server will pass the form information
to a small application program which in turn processes the
data, and then typically send back some form of validation
or confirmation page. This method or convention for passing
data back and forth between the server and the application
is called the common gateway interface (CGI), and is a standard
part of the HTTP protocol.
CGI scripts can be installed in a sub-directory
on your web site called "cgi-bin", and invoked from
a link on one of your web pages or directly from a web browser.
CGI scripts - especially those written Perl, the most
commonly used scripting language on the web, although you
can also use Shell or Bourne scripting - will almost always
run well on the UNIX platform, which we use.
You can set up scripts for all kinds
of things. Examples include: flat file and SQL databasing,
banner ad management, page access counters, online calendars,
bulletin boards, online surveys and quizzes, customizable
forms processing, guest books, "What's New" page
managers, image display aids, Yahoo! style link directory
managers - even games.
You can write your own CGI scripts
if you like, or pay someone else to write it for you - or
use one of the scripts we supply free with our hosting services.
But why "reinvent the wheel"? There are literally
thousands of scripts available on the web, most of them for
free or at low cost! Almost all of them can be installed in
a few minutes if you know how to follow the directions properly.
NOTE: We do not provide
technical support or "debug" CGI scripts not supplied
directly by us. However, technical support for individual
scripts is typically provided by the script's author. It is
important to verify that such technical support is available
from the author or vendor before using it.
What type
of SSL technology do you use? Secure Sockets Layer
(or SSL) is a program layer originally created by Netscape,
to manage the security of message transmissions across the
web. The "sockets" part of the phrase refers to the sockets
method of passing data back and forth between a client and
a server program on a network, the web or between program
layers within the same computer.
We currently use Apache secure
socket layer (SSL) because it is widely regarded to offer
superior security over the Netscape SSL.
Do you provide
Server Side Includes (SSI) capability? Yes.
Server Sides Include (SSI)
is basically a more primitive sort of CGI scripting
(click here to read about CGI).
It is a variable value that a server can include within an
HTML file - expressed as an embedded statement inserted wherever
you want to invoke the value - before it sends the page to
the requestor, i.e. you or your visitor.
All you have to do is set up the script
per the author's or vendor's instructions, embed the necessary
SSI code inside one of your web pages. Then name the page
with the extension .shtm or .shtml, and when you link to it
or invoke it with either of those extensions, it should work.
Which
browsers will work on my web site? Both Netscape and MS Internet Explorer
- and any other browser for that matter - will be compatible
with your domain, although how well your pages will work within
a given browser depends on how well you wrote your pages,
and whether you are using HTML or other commands that can
be understand by a given browser. Since your domain gets its
own individual IP address as part of the hosting service,
browsers will find your index page easily.
TIP: If you are wanting to make sure
your pages can be read by the widest possible audience, you
should use HTML 4 coding in your pages, and generally avoid
proprietary coding or scripting. To access the complete HTML
4 Specification, click
here to go to the W3C page for HTML 4 specs.
