| How do I order my web hosting
package? |
We accept payment by direct bank transfer
and PayPal (uses most major credit and debit cards). You can order securely
online by following a few simple steps in our "Order
Wizard" - just click on any Order Now link on any
of our packages.
Our preferred payment method is via PayPal in the following
currencies:
o £ Pounds (GBP)
|
| Can I use my own domain name? |
Yes you can, when you order a package from us, enter your domain name in the appropriate field then click Search, click Self-Management, and then click Submit. If you want to still use your own nameservers, then you'll need to just add a few A, MX and CNAME records at your registrar with your given I.P (if you need assistance with this, please submit a ticket). The second option is to let us configure everything for you, you will just need to change your domain's nameservers to ours (see below), then we will be able to set you up quickly.
Our nameservers are:
ns1.everydns.net,
ns2.everydns.net,
ns3.everydns.net, and
ns4.everydns.net.
After this has been completed, it can take up to 48 hours for your domain to point to your hosting account. |
| Can I try a demo of your Direct Admin Control Panel? |
Yes, you can, click here to go to our login, and use:
Login: demo_user
Password: demo |
| Can I transfer my existing domain to you? |
Yes, although some domain TLD's aren't transferable. Please see our domains page for more details. |
| Whats the process of buying a domain from you? |
We offer many TLD's (see our Domains page).
To order your domain, choose a suitable hosting package, enter your domain name in the appropriate field then click Search, click Register Domain, and then click Submit.
Note: We do not offer registering of domains without a hosting package. Also, new domains can take 24 to 48 hours to be fully registered and activated..
Once you have ordered a domain and hosting package, you will receive two seperate login details. |
| How can I prevent my site from hacks? |
It's best to take an active role in protecting you and your web site from harm. The following tips are strongly recommended...
| Do This: |
Examples and Explanation: |
| Remove executable software that is just sitting around |
If you aren't using one of these online programs - TURN THEM OFF!
You can do this by either deleting them if you no longer need them or by "chmoding" via your FTP software all ASP, CGI, PL, etc. to 644 which will prevent a program from running.
If you aren't using some online software, you might also consider downloading the software to your local PC and then deleting the online version, this way you would have a backup in case you needed to use the software in the future. |
| Change and use strong passwords often |
We all know changing passwords can be a pain, but it's one of the best tips we can give to you.
It's better to frequently change your passwords than to one day find your website shut down because a hacker broke in or used some of your online software in a devious manner. Good practice is to use long (over 8 characters) and a mixture of letters (mixed-case) and numbers eg. Miy7ZAH85weq, this way it'll be harder to hack. A good resource is here! |
| Use firewalls & anti-virus on your local PCs. |
We can't say it enough how important it is to run firewall software on your local PC. We also encourage updating your anti-virus software at least twice or more a month.
So many times we have seen passwords stolen because someone had a virus on their local PC.
Some viruses are called "back door" viruses that allow someone to use your computer, while you are online, to perform their hacking attempts elsewhere. This has the effect of appearing as if you are the one doing the hacking.
Use Firewalls and Update Your Anti-Virus Often - Before It Turns Into a Regret! |
| Update your online software often. |
Periodically check for updates for any web based software you have either installed or someone has installed for you.
Always update your online software especially when a security updates is released. |
| Password protect online folders. |
Too many times we see online folders that aren't password protected.
Don't rely on the software provider to explain the security risks. It's best to password protect any folder that has setup files or admin files or log files or etc. |
| Place an index.html in every folder. |
Create a blank index.html file for EVERY folder. Otherwise, if a hacker finds one of your folders, they can usually see all the other files within that folder via the browser.
So put a blank index.html file in every folder to prevent this basic hacking attempt from happening.
This is especially important for folders like /images /orders /admin etc.
You might also set the html file to redirect them to your home page with the following code between the <head> </head> commands...
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0; url=http://www.yourdomain.com">. |
| Log 404's. |
404's are generated when someone tries to visit any page on your website that doesn't exist. Usually most of these are innocent from people that are coming from search engines to pages that no longer exist. However, hackers know what pages exist for 1,000's of programs you can install on your web site. They look for these pages via automated software and their software logs this information for them to come back to your site later to attempt to use the web based programs in ways you haven't anticipated.
You can log 404's via web based software you can install or your host may already provide this information.
Our clients can view this information by using their Control Panel under "Stats" and then "Error Log"
This report will also show images that aren't loading, missing files, and is helpful for debugging web based software. |
|
| How long will it take for my web
space to be set up? |
| Once your order has been received and
full payment has been authorised, we aim to set up your
new account within one working day.
If your order and payment are received before 3pm, Monday to Friday
we will set it up the same day unless you opted for Bank Transfer as your payment option.
Once you have ordered from us and your web space has
been activated, you will receive a welcome email including
your password and username.
Note: If you order and do not pay your opening invoice within 7 working days, we will delete your order and domain name. |
| What Platforms do you support? |
| Currently we only have Linux platforms.
Linux is the most used operating for hosting web sites. |
| What websites do you not allow? |
We allow many genre of websites, however,
we do not allow adult sites, warez, mp3's or anything
illegal.
Please Note: We do not condone warez, illegal scripts or anything illegal on our servers.
We reserve the right to disable/delete your account
without notice! No refunds will be issued! Please see our Terms & Conditions for more details. |
| What is an "Email Account"? |
| An email account enables you to send
and receive email using yourname@yourdomain. Depending
on your package choose, your hosting package will come
with a minimum of 5 email accounts that you can set up
for yourself, your friends or your colleagues to use. |
| What limit do you set on maximum
mailbox sizes? |
| Each email that sits in your mailbox waiting to be collected takes up a small amount of disk
space. We do not set any limit on how much disk space
individual mailboxes can use other than you cannot exceed
the total disk space allocated to your hosting account. |
The amount of space used by the following
services are all included in your total web space usage
calculations:
* All files e.g. HTML pages, images, flash movies
etc stored within your home web directory
* Data stored in databases
* Mailboxes
* Backup files
We do not set any limit on how much space any of the
items listed above can use, but the sum total may not
exceed the total space allocated to your hosting account. |
We set up our servers to prevent anyone to use our SMTP
server. To send email, you need to set up SMTP Authentication in your mail
client. The password is as same as your POP3 accounts', more details can
be viewed here |
This can be very useful if you want
to reply to an email with an automatic response. For
example:
* "Out of office" message Going to be away from your
desk for a while? Just set up an auto responder that
replies to any emails you receive with your own message
e.g. "Thanks for your enquiry. I am away on holiday
and will respond to your email when I return.";
* Information Packs You can add file attachments to
your auto responder enabling you to automatically send
out information about your products or services.
For example you could have a message on your web site
that says "Send an email to info@yourdomain.com for
an information pack." |
Depending on what registrar you use,
it might be a different setup. To point your domain
name to our servers, you need to add the following records:
| Name |
Type |
Content |
| @ |
A |
{I.P} |
| * |
A |
{I.P} |
| ftp |
CNAME |
domain.com. |
| mail |
A |
{I.P} |
| www |
A |
{I.P} |
| |
MX Record |
|
| Name |
Priority |
|
| mail.domain.com. |
10 |
|
Note: {I.P} stands for the I.P address that will be
given to you, you can find this in your welcome email.
Please however, depending on your registrar, note that all CNAME and MX records must
be terminated with a . or they will not work correctly.
You need at least one MX record or no mail will be received,
if this MX record points to a sub domain (like mail.domain.com),
ensure there is valid DNS A or CNAME for that record.
However, if you opt to change your domain's existing nameservers to ours, we will set everything up for you . |
| Yes, we offer technical support - either
through our client section, email or live help. We also
have technicians monitoring the servers 24/7 to ensure
that they are always up and running. Please note: We cannot
provide support for third party scripts. |
| Yes, our control panel has a Log Manager
to view these logs - we also offer the statistic program
Webalizer free to all accounts. These logs can become
very large, so we suggest that you delete these periodically. |
| There are 2 ways you can do this:
1. Online File Manager
Our Control Panel has an in-built Online File Manager
which can be accessed via your Control Panel. This enables
you to upload files using just your web browser meaning
you can upload web pages, images and scripts from any
internet enabled PC anywhere! Although, if you are planning
to upload large files, we suggest you use FTP.
2. FTP (File Transfer Protocol) Software
There are many excellent FTP packages available, some
of them free, that enable you to connect to your web
space and upload your files almost as if you were just
copying files to another disk on your PC. Here are some
examples:
CuteFTP (PC), Fetch (MAC)
Please refer to your welcome email on how to set these
up.
Note: Do not delete your public_html folder, if you do, your whole website will be deleted.
|
| No, as providing Shell access to a server
is a huge security risk. In the interests of our customers'
security and the protection of our server hardware and
software we do not provide Shell accounts to our customers.
Some of the most commonly performed tasks that Shell
access is normally required for can be performed via
your Control Panel:
* Set up password protected directories using .htaccess
files: Your Control Panel enables you to do this much
quicker and easier using a simple web interface.
* Change file permissions: Your online File Manager
enables you to do this using a simple form and most
FTP packages also include this facility.
* Set up cron jobs Instruct the server to execute a
script at regular intervals e.g. 4am every day or every
Monday lunchtime.
If you require something more advanced to be done at
the Shell level then we will be only too happy to help. |
| Each time someone views one of your web
pages the HTML, images, flash movies etc have to be transmitted
from the web server to the client's web browser. This
is what we mean by bandwidth usage. Bandwidth is not an
unlimited resource so we must allocate our clients a certain
amount they can use each month.
Even our smallest package includes a generous amount of data
transfer per month which is enough for many thousands
of visitors.
To keep your bandwidth usage down, optimise all your
image/media files as much as possible to reduce their
file size. Even large photos can be reduced to as little
as 30kb. Always avoid making large files available for
download such as movies or audio files - this will make
your bandwidth usage go through the roof!
When your bandwidth reaches your maximum allowance,
then your site will be disabled and will be inaccessible
until the following 1st of the month. |
| CGI stands for Common Gateway Interface
which is the standard method by which data is passed between
web servers and web applications. Perl is the programming
language most commonly used when writing CGI web applications. |
| PHP is a general purpose server-side
scripting language that was written specifically for web
developers. Many other languages used for web development
existed before the advent of the internet and are therefore
not necessarily so well suited for the purpose.
It is much easier to use than many other server-side
languages due to it's embedded nature. Snippets of PHP
code can be placed within your HTML page and the server
processes these before outputting a plain HTML page
to the browser. This means it is extremely easy for
beginners to pick up and master the basics.
PHP is supported by dedicated developers, a massive
online community and thousands of ready-made scripts.
Current statistics estimate that over 13 million domains
worldwide use PHP (source php.net). |
| MySQL (pronounced "My ess cue el")
is an open source Relational Database Management System
that uses Structured Query Language. Information is stored
in "Tables" which can be thought of as the equivalent
of Excel spreadsheets. A single MySQL database can contain
many tables at once and store thousands of individual
records. It's fast, reliable and flexible.
PHP and MySQL work extremely well together. Useful
tutorials on how to use them are freely available on
the web and some excellent reference books have been
produced catering for complete beginners to experienced
web application developers. |
| No, we only offer MySQL on our servers. |
