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This is a miniature FAQ. If your question is not answered, please contact us.

  1. The Basics
  2. Using Plesk
  3. Webmail
  4. Setting up POP3 Mail behind restrictive ISP's
  5. FTP
  6. FrontPage Publishing
  7. Files
  8. Directories
  9. Error Pages
  10. Redirection and subdomains
  11. Web Statistics
  12. Content Management
  13. Backing up a MySQL Database
  14. Other Questions?

The Basics

In order to setup a website you need two distinctly different things:

  1. A domain name. This is what your guests will type into their browser to find your site. This is something like www.domain.com. These are purchased from a domain name registrar like GoDaddy.
  2. A website hosting account. That's where I come in. I do not register your domain name for you, it is not included in the price of hosting. I usually recommend using a third party such as www.godaddy.com to obtain your domain name first, and then sign up for the web hosting package here.

Why buy a domain name separately?

The short answer is that you want to have as much control over your domain name as possible. If you leave buying and registering the name up to your web host, you are dependant on that host from now on. To setup your domain name properly, the name has to be set to point the computer that you're website hosting account is on. You can do this easily with the information provided to you by the hosting company. It takes about 1 minute to do, literally.

A domain name should cost anywhere from $9 to $20 a year, depending on the type of domain name you get. Domains ending with .info or .name are cheaper than domains ending in .tw or .cc for example.

If you buy a domain from your hosting company, you are not usually able to log into a "domain account" to do this yourself. The hosting provider does it for you. So, what if you're not happy with your hosting provider's service and you now want to cancel your hosting account and go somewhere else? If their support is slow to begin with, you'll have to contact them and ask them to change the setup for you. And what kind of speed do you think they will put on that request?

Basically, you're safer if you buy your own domain name and manage it yourself. Once you do that one minute of work, you're done and there isn't anything else you will need to do unless you have to change you email address or contact information, etc. But that's not a big deal. If you use my service, I will usually be able to (at your request) log into your domain hosting account and do the setup for you if you are not comfortable doing it yourself.

Using Plesk

Learn how to use the Plesk control panel through this tutorial. Do note you must have Javascript enabled to use Plesk, or else you'll get an endless loading screen.

Webmail

You access your webmail at http://webmail.yourdomain.com, not http://mail.yourdomain.com. If you would like to try another online mail reader, there are a few in your Applications Vault.

Setting up POP3 mail behind restrictive ISP's.

If the tutorial didn't work, follow along if your ISP is blocking port 25 (you can't send mail). The following is a list of ISP's who block port 25.

  • NetZero
  • Mindspring
  • MSN
  • Earthlink
  • Flashnet
  • MediaOne
  • AT&T
  • Verizon
  • Bell Sympatico
  • People PC
  • Verio
  • Comcast
  • Cox

From DedicatedResources.com

  1. If your ISP is listed on there, look up their outgoing server. For instance, Earthlink's is smtp.earthlink.net. Your outgoing server won't be mail.yourdomain.com—it will be your ISP's: smptp.earthlink.net
  2. Your username will be your ISP's [me@earthlink.net] as will your password.
  3. Once that's done, your incoming server will be mail.yourdomain.com
  4. Your mail account password corressponds with username@yourdomain.com.
  5. Don't check any SSL/authentication boxes

FTP

FTP is easy to setup. Download a free FTP client first:

Servertype FTP
Host yourdomain.com
Username Your username
Password Your password
Port 21

Depending on your access, you may need to check "bypass proxy settings" for it to work.

Microsoft FrontPage Publishing

All accounts support Microsoft FrontPage publishing. When you sign up, you are given a username and password to use for logging into your account with FrontPage.

I personally suggest that if you use FrontPage to publish your website, that you do not also use FTP to upload files. If you use FTP to upload files, I suggest you don't also use FrontPage. Through experience, I have found that using both FTP and FrontPage occasionally causes problems. I have personally messed up one of my accounts on two separate occasions. What happens is the FrontPage Server Extensions somehow get corrupted and you won't be able to log in with FrontPage any more. You can still login to the control panel through Plesk and you can still login to your account through FTP. But sadly, FrontPage won't let you in anymore.

Filetypes

There are no filesize and extension restrictions for bdarby hosting. Unauthorized and unlicensed copying and downloading of someone else's copyrighted work is illegal however.

Viewable (you can see it in your web browser) files are uploaded to /httpdocs/. If you ever ecounter a "sticky" file (one that won't go away), send us an email.

Directories

The files that are viewable by a web browser are uploaded to the /httpdocs/ directory. For instance, the index page you'd see by typing in http://yourdomain.com would be located in /httpdocs/ directory.

If you're a neat and tidy person, you can safely delete the following:

  • Anything inside the /httpdocs/ directory (/images/,/picture_library/, etc)
  • If you don't use Frontpage, you can delete all the _VTI directories only from the PLESK control panel.
  • Don't delete the plesk-stat directory

Error Pages

Your error pages can be customized by going into the /error_docs/ directory. This is in the main directory "above" /httpdocs/.

Redirection and subdomains

You can purchase a domain name and have it mask or redirect to one of your subdomains.

For general redirection if you moved a file (EX: /dog.htm) to another location (EX: /dogs/henry.html), you can modify the .htaccess file in the root directory. Find an empty area and enter the following:


# Redirect dog.htm to /dogs/henry.html (this is a comment)
redirect 301 /dog.html http://www.yourdomain.com/dogs/henry.html

Web Statistics

To view your Webalizer Statistics, go to: http://yourdomain.com/plesk-stat/webstat/ and enter your password (same as the main user's FTP). Webalizer documentation. Webalizer is fairly limited, but a more detailed and better looking one is Slimstat.

Content Management

With a MySQL database, you can install a Content Management System, which make updating and expanding your site easy. One of the best CMS's is Textpattern. Scross PHP, JM Deldin Photography, and ProWeb are managed by Textpattern. There is no practical reason to use static, manually updated HTML pages with your hosting when Textpattern and other CMS's are available for free.

Backing up a MySQL Database

  1. Log into PLESK
  2. Click your domain name
  3. Click Databases
  4. Click the database name.
  5. Click DB WebAdmin. A popup will appear (tell your pop up blocker to allow popups from your domain).
  6. Click the Export link on the front page.
  7. You don't need to touch anything on the next screen, except for what kind o file you want to save it as. I chose a compressed zip file.
  8. Click Go

That's it! Point and Click!

Something Not Covered Here?

Do you still have questions? Please send us an email.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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