Posts Tagged ‘cPanel’

Manage your hosting files with cPanel

Monday, March 9th, 2009

Cpanel is a control panel for web hosting used on various web hosting systems on internet. a big number of hosting companies provide their users with some versions of cpanel so that they can handle functionality and administrate the website very easily.

Basically cpanel is a user friendly interface that helps you to manage your host account environment. It is so simple that even a new user finds it uncomplicated Web Hosting Services and easy to use. its a web interface instead of console, that’s why anyone can use it and complete the tasks faster. cpanel consist of a wide range of features embedded into it. By connecting a web browser to your control panel, you can make any changes you want in your system. It may be ftp server, email configuration, database software etc.

Generally all commercial web hosting companies provide you with an account when you buy any web hosting package from that company. When you log into your account, you are driven to the installation page or sometimes directly the cpanel page. This page gives access to all the features like email, ftp and some other tools so that you can make any changes any where just being connected to the net. Some of the great features are described below:-

Site tools- some very helpful tools like Web Protect, file manager, install/Uninstall FrontPage Extensions and Search engine tool submitting are embedded in a cpanel.

Email- the email program in a cpanel allows a user to add and change passwords to manage email accounts. Auto responders, Forwarders, Mailing Lists, Spam filtering and some more options are also provided in a cpanel.

Back up- back up is a procedure to create copies of account files and database. The back up menu also lets you download any automatic backups that were downloaded by your cpanel administrator.

ftp – using this feature a user can control the ftp accounts by adding, removing or changing passwords, changing ftp login message, anonymous FTP controls.

Stats – the popularity and efficiency of a website can be analyzed by using some tools like Webalizer web stats, Webalizer FTP stats, Analog stats, View latest visitors, View bandwidth usage and View error log modules. These cpanel tools are very helpful in determining how popular the site is.

Advanced stuff and tools – some advanced technical tools are also present in a cpanel. Sub domains can be added or removed. Some pre-defined cgi scripts are java Chat, HTML Chat, phpMyChat, CGI Wrapper, Interchange Cart, CGIEmail, Entropy Search, and Entropy Banner.

Also there are few database management tools like managing MySql database. cpanel is compatible with almost all the popular web browsers like IE, opera, firefox etc. New and inexperienced users those who don’t know command line console programs find a great help in cpanel.

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How to Use an Ftp Client to Transfer Your Files

Monday, March 9th, 2009

FTP is file transfer protocol. FTP is the easiest and also the most secure way to transfer files from one server to another.

What is an FTP client: An FTP Client is software that is designed to transfer files back-and-forth between two computers over the Internet.  It needs to be installed on your computer and can only be used with a live connection to the Internet. You get a number of free FTP clients that you need to download from net and install on your computer.

FTP Client Interface:  FTP client has a very user-friendly interface. It simply involves drag and drop technique of transferring the files between your computer and your website server. The classic FTP Client look is a two-pane design. The pane on the left displays the files on your computer and the pane on the right displays the files on your website server with which you want to start the file transfer process.

Get started with file transfer process: To use an FTP client for file transfer, you need to get connected to your website server. For establishing a connection, you need to enter some basic information regarding the server. The information to be filled in includes:

Host Name: It can either be the IP address of the server else it is of the form ftp.YourSiteName.com

Username and password: This can be either your control panel username, password. Or if you have an FTP account, you can fill in its username and password.

To hold the transfer process, you can simply select the file on either of the panes and drag and drop to the other pane. But before starting, you need to select the respective directory in which you want the transferred file to reside. Or you can just highlight the respective file to be transferred, and click on upload if you want to upload it to the server or click on download if you want to download it from server.

Advantage over online web-based file managers: In case of online web-based file managers, you need to download or upload the files one by one. Thus it can be a tedious process but, this is not the cast with FTP clients (software to handle FTP), in which we can select any number of files at one go and start the process of file transfer. Another very important feature that file transfer process through FTP client is that the files that are selected for transfer gets queued. This feature helps in cases when file transfer process gets terminated in middle of the process. Thus, next time, when you log in to your FTP client, you don’t have to restart the process, the transfer process resumes from where it was last interrupted.

Other Features of FTP client: The auto re-get or resuming feature, a queuing utility, the scheduling feature, an FTP find utility, a synchronize utility, and for the advanced user, a scripting utility.

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Domains and Subdomains

Thursday, February 19th, 2009

Author: Sandi Baker

There are ways to increase your exposure with the power of subdomains but first we need to look at what domains and subdomains are.

What Are Domains?

Domains we are all familiar with. They are our URL which is the full http address. While the Domain name is the name of our website. Keep in mind that in the past theses two where interchangeable and still are with virtual hosting. If you do not have this type of hosting you will be dealing with the fact that there are more websites than there are servers. Many things have changed over the years with so many websites out there now on the internet.

How Does A Domain Name System Work?

The name consists of tow or more labels separated by dots. To the left the label specifies a subdomain.

What Are Subdomains?

This is an extension of your existing, working domain. It is however separate from the domain that it extracts from.

What this means is that a subdomain is considered as it own site.

Why Use A Subdomain?

Some people create subdomains for niches. Others use them to load images that coincide with their main site, There are some businesses that use them to split their departments.

Many uses can be found and the benefits are that you don’t have to start another website, thus incurring another expense. Another benefit is that search engines will count the subdomain as a separate site causing more exposure.

How Do You Create A Subdomain?

Use the topic of your website domain name in your subdomain so that they relate to one another. Go to your web hosting administration panel to create your subdomain.

Let us take a website address such as www.webcrowd.com.au/domains

The subdomain would then become www.domains.webcrowd.com.au

Did you notice the change of the dot and the placement of it?

Most of your hosting will help you with this process or you can purchase some simple software to aid you with this. If you are doing multiple subdomains, I recommended that you purchase the software as this can become tedious.

Important Notes:

You should have at least 4 pages on your subdomain for them to appear as having substantial content for the search engines,

Also keep in mind that this is like any other website. You still must use keywords, content, placement, and submit to search engines, etc. All of these factors must come into play.

You get the idea!

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Important Tips for Web Hosting

Sunday, February 15th, 2009

After the registration of domain name selection of web host is another rational step a user need to consider. Though, finding an ideal host is a daunting task. One can find several companies offering web-hosting services to the clients. While locating keyword web hosting in the search engines one will find more than 100 million outputs!

One cannot deny the fact, for a successful online presence a dependable web hosting is must. Online presence and accessibility of a web site is must. If not, one should remain ready to loose clients and prospects. For an instance, if one compare this with a traditional business.

CATEGORIES OF WEB HOSTING:

One should select a web hosting deal according to his/her site. One cannot fulfill his/her requirements from same hosting deal for a personal web site, web site meant for email newsletter subscription and archives, e-commerce site or web forum. Web hosting can be divided into four prime categories: 

1. Virtual (shared) hosting,

2. Dedicated server, 

3. Collocation server and 

4. Reseller hosting. 

Two most applicable hosting are virtual (shared) hosting and dedicated server.

What is Virtual (shared) hosting? It is a condition in which several web sites share one server. It is a low cost hosting because price is divided between several users. One can locate a standard virtual hosting at a rate of $100 a year.

In a Dedicated server hosting company lease the whole web server from a particular web hosting company. The site of web server is the web hosting company. One can opt dedicated server as a suitable option who does not wish to share a server with other web masters. One can find a dedicated server in two forms managed and un-managed. If one talk about managed server, company will take care of all the setups of user’s server. However, in unmanaged server user needs to take care of all these by him/her self. The benefit of this sort of hosting is that one can fully lodge web hosting as per his/her requirements. Moreover, for a site with ample amount of visitors a dedicated server is the only rational choice. Due to higher cost, starting from $100 per month, those companies that know the worth of Internet business generally use it.

One can say that Collocation server is quite identical to dedicated server. Disparity lies in the fact that company doesn’t take the web server on lease. Their own web server is placed in the web hosting company. In addition to it, company has material access to their web server, which is not available while talking about a dedicated server.

If one mention about Reseller hosting it is aimed to those companies only wishes to begin their own web hosting business.

ASPECTS, WHICH ONE NEEDS TO CONSIDER:

There are many factors which a user needs to consider to prevent any future miss happens:

Web space:

Requirement of Web space vary from site to site. Off course, if user requirement is only a web site containing basic information about him/her and his/her work excluding the use of web applications, then space of 50 MB is quite sufficient. However, a complex e-commerce site along with numerous products in one’s database demands a capacity of 1 GB.

Bandwidth:

The term Bandwidth refers to data transferred from user’s web site and that comprise of graphic details, images, banners and files for download. One should have accurate knowledge of Content before going for an amount of bandwidth. When one talks about the majority of sites, bandwidth of 10 GB a month is quite sufficient, though for few other sites like sites related to desktop wallpapers can frequently consumes even hundreds of GB a month.

Up time or visibility:

It symbolizes time articulated in percents displaying the period a site remained online. One should not be cheerful because someone assured him/her to provide say for 98% up time because it is not going to fulfill his/her requirement. One should get at least 99.7% uptime. Believe it or not, it definitely matters. 

Email accounts:

Email accounts are an integrated and crucial part of web hosting package. It is quite interesting to know for how much will one get only a so called catch –all forwarding which means that all emails sent to somewhere@mydomain.com will arrive to one’s email address or one can set-up email accounts for several users? Also the thing is for how much? Is it intended for 5, 10, 100 or limitless email accounts? In addition to it, there is no harm to verify whether user get a so-called POP3 email address (“real” email address), web mail or rather both? If one has a POP3 email address then he/she can check his/her emails via favorite email client and web mail facilitate the user to inquire his/her emails at any place demanding just a computer and Internet connection.

Form of Server, tools and control panel:

When one mention the two generally utilized hosting then the name of Unix-based or Windows platform comes first. It matters for the result program languages, databases and scripts that one can apply. When one talks about Unix-based platform, general selection is relayed to PHP language along with MySQL, however, when it comes to Windows platform ASP or ASP.NET language will be along with SQL Server. One should enquire that is database is available with package or not, if yes, then how many? Nowadays, contemporary web site must be database-driven.

Too, one should have full knowledge related to tools coming along with web hosting package, if there is only applications for web statistics, file manager and things it is not an concern issue. 

Technical support:

A crucial aspect while selecting a web hosting particularly for a user without having adequate technical skills is technical support. A proper technical support does not take a responsive time more then a day. This is not liable only to selection of web hosting company, but, crucial to any of the company selling products and services, Software Company can be one of the examples.

The coordination of few of the companies is so well thought-out that it takes only 1 hour to give response to user’s queries! Through their source of contact one can predict about the future response. Do the concern company has only email support or also have phone support? Does they provide a toll-free number? Do they offer the facility of trouble-ticket system? Working time is another crucial aspect. What is their strategy of providing technical support is it during working hours only i.e. 9 to 17 or does they provide the facility of 24×7 technical support? An ideal way to detect their professionalism one can create a list of fake queries, drop a line to them and hang around to know their reply time. 

Testimonials:

Several web hosting and software companies have this smart way to increase their customer strength. Testimonials section contains the approval of satisfied customers, attracting more people to their service. This section is not completely reliable. Several hosting companies offer their clients to analyze their portfolio, instead of doing that one should contact webmasters who are taking the service of concern host and register their opinions. One can take help of several sites for further information regarding best web hosting deals and suggestions.

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What is CPanel?

Friday, January 23rd, 2009

by: Mer Amer

Cpanel is an easy to use interface for web maintenance. cPanel is the leading web hosting control panel available today. Even a user completely new to web hosting can easily manage his/her own website. With the Cpanel hosting interface, you’ll have complete control over your website. When looking for a hosting package, CPanel is also a good indicator of the reliability of the hosting provider. The most well known and reliable web hosts would normally provide web hosting plans that are powered by cPanel control panel. cPanel hosting plans that are on the market predominantly support PHP and MySQL, FrontPage, Fantastico and RVSkins. 

With CPanel, you will have access to lots of useful stats such as disk usage and space, bandwidth usage and sub domains through cpanel. The current version of CPanel is CPanel 11 or CPanel X, which gives you full control of every aspect of your account. Hosting packages that come with CPanel are a very cost effective solution as they allow you to host multiple web sites under the same account. Another very useful program-Fantastico can be directly managed from the cPanel control panel. Essentially, what Cpanel does is that it condenses the dozens of commands needed to complete one task to a single mouse click. CPanel takes care of tedious and complicated tasks, such as a simple change to the content of your web page, password protecting portions of your web site, or deleting a table in one of your databases. All these can easily be done just by some minor input from the end users. For webmasters that require assistance on web building, certain hosting companies would also provide cPanel control panel that comes with a range of powerful online building tools. Customers can use these tools to create, configure and launch their website. 

Other available control panels normally restricts your ability to manage your website to just the basic functions like creating email addresses, managing files and adding sub domain names. Cpanel provides much more than these basic tasks, allowing access to the more advanced functions, such as MIME types, cron jobs, OpenPGP keys, Apache handlers, addon domains, password protected directories and a lot more. For the basic users, CPanel still provide the typical program such as to add or remove email accounts, view website statistics, install different PHP / mySql scripts, get access to your online Web Mail and more. Some other functions of CPanel are to create a POP or default email account, autoresponder, subdomain, custom error pages. Users can also create an MySQL database PHPMyAdmin to manage databases, install FrontPage extensions, redirect a URL, redirect mail change, create an add-on domain, create a FTP account and to password-protect a directory. All these vast array of programs would normally come with tutorials to assist users especially newbies to ensure that using CPanel would be an ease.

In summary, CPanel is an integrated program that combines the requirements of basic to advanced users in one user-friendly interface. It definitely will save you a lot of time and hassle of completing your tasks manually. The best fact is that it is directly linked to Fantastico, enabling users access to a multitude of programs that are extremely useful for managing websites.

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What is Fantastico?


Thursday, January 22nd, 2009

by: Mer Amer

Fantastico is a program that comes with most hosting packages, integrated with the popular online control panel- Cpanel to offer web hosting useres the ability to install popular programs and scripts. The installation of these programs and scripts are significantly simplified, all with the ease of a click of a button. Web-hosting users are able to install multiple instances of popular open source programs for their web design needs. For users who intend to get their sites up and running in minimal time, Fantastico is the perfect solution. 

Also referred to as Fantastico Deluxe, the popularity of this program seems to just keep on growing, and with good reasons. An interesting feature of Fantastico is that it is updated on a regular basis to ensure that users will always get the latest software patches and upgrades. Users will have that peace of mind of knowing that their scripts are kept up-to-date with security updates and functionality improvements. 

It is important to note that Fantastico is available for Linux / PHP web hosting only. Having said that, this is not to be mistaken with its compatibility with the user’s operating system. Linux / PHP web hosting works perfectly fine for users using Windows as their operating system. In fact, most of the web hosting services on the web are running on Linux system. 

Fantastico Deluxe also normally comes with Templates Express, which is a series of static templates for website building. This reduces the hassle of having to build websites from scratch, especially for beginners. Webmasters can expect to easily set up a fully functioning dynamic website and has many features such as polls, calendar, weblinks, message comments etc. Other features include multiple polls, templates, unlimited options, IP logging, IP locking, cookie support, comment feature, vote expire feature, random poll plus more. Fantastico includes easily over 40 scripts for you to choose from. For the more experienced users, you would notice that Fantastico is an amazing cPanel/PHP based Web application. It automatically installs preconfigured PHP/MySQL scripts and databases into a Cpanel-managed virtual host. 

In short, Fantastico is ideal for any web designer or developer, ranging from someone with no knowledge of building websites to an expert web designer. It provides streamlined development and management process of your website, thus ensuring a hassle-free and a greatly reduce human error in web designing activities. The best part is that Fantastico would normally come as default and for free with every cPanel hosting plans and WHM Reseller accounts. So, needless to say that the next time you go on search for your web hosting solution, having Fantastico is a definite must.

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