Help & Glossary
CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)
A cascading style sheet (CSS for short) file contains the design element of a website, seperating it out from the main content of the website. Using CSS files to define the layout and appearance of a website makes it much easier and far more effective to update a site's look and feel with minimal alteration, and also makes the content much easier to read, especially for search engines.Support Package Features
- Basic
- E-mail support, and support ticket access
- Included free of charge with all packages
- Bronze
- Live chat support in office hours
- Basic setup assistance
- SpamAssassin server-side spam blocking included
- Silver
- All features of Bronze package
- Priority support, via priority e-mail and live support
- Telephone support in normal office hours for basic help (FTP instructions etc)
- Gold
- All features of Silver and Bronze packages
- Assistance with all web hosting issues
- Configuration of common software (e.g. phpBB, PostNuke, etc)
- General assistance with getting aspects of your site up and running
POP3/IMAP4 E-mail accounts
POP3/IMAP4 E-mail accounts are addresses (e.g. you@hostname.com, someone@hostname.com etc) that are available for you to use with your web hosting package. We include 5 as a minimum amount so that people can use their own personalised email address, but additional email addresses are entirely at your own Diskretion. A large corporate company may need serveral thousand email addresses, whereas a small business may only need one. We can cater for any needs required, including those not on the main selection screen - just ask, or choose "custom" in your package selection screen.POP3 (Post Office Protocol, v3) is the usual protocol of choice for many major mail clients, e.g. Microsoft Outlook/Outlook Express, Mozilla Mail, and Opera. IMAP4 (Internet Message Access Protocol, v4) is gradually replacing POP as the main protocol used by email clients in communicating with email servers, which the latest version of the above clients support. Using IMAP an email client program can not only retrieve email but can also manipulate messages stored on the server, without having to actually retrieve the messages. So messages can be deleted, have their status changed, multiple mail boxes can be managed, etc. However, this does occupy space on the server for the e-mails until they are deleted. It is often slightly slower to access messages, as the messages must be requested off the server, but it is much more effective over non-broadband connections for mail reading.
Data Transfer Explained
Data Transfer is the amount of data transfer available in GB (1 gigabyte = 1024MB). If you are using a site that allows people to download large files, or if you wish to upload and download large files via your website, or a busy community site, you may need a large amount of spare bandwidth, or you may run out part-way through the month, and people won't be able to access your site. Home / personal users should find the standard 3GB bandwidth more than adequate for their use, but busier sites, or sites hosting large quantities of downloads may need to purchase extra bandwidth. It can also be upgraded on-the-fly as required, with an upgrade request, and the appropriate add-on charge paid.Hard Disk Space Explained
Hard disk space is the amount of storage available to store files of any type (html, php, jpg, gif, zip etc) on the server. For example, if you are after creating a large website with large quantities of music and video files, you may need a large amount of space available (500MB+). Alternatively, if you only require a small site, with relativly few images, you may only need our 50MB pack which is usually ample space for the majority of small websites. Also, with proper optimization, a typical photograph (640x480) may only take up 20-40KB (meaning a minimum of 25 will fit in 1MB at 40K).Before choosing your amount of hard disk space, please ensure that you have enough for your intended usage. If necessary, this amount can be changed during the year, at the appropriate cost.
Mailing lists
A mailing list is a list of e-mail addresses used to have messages forwarded to groups of people. It can be used either as a discussion group (with all members being able to "post" to the list (a specially chosen e-mail address that forwards to all other members on the list), or it can be used as an announcement / newsletter list, where one person (the list administrator) can send an e-mail to the address, and is automatically broadcasted to all it's subscribers.Parked Domains
A parked domain will display the identical content as the main site when visited. For example, if the domain "gitk.com" is parked on the domain "guysintheknow.com", whichever site is visited the same content is shown, and the address bar reflects the URL that was typed in by the visitor.Addon Domains
Often known as a "pointed domain", an addon domain is an extra domain which is associated with your account. It is usually pointed to a seperate area of your filespace, e.g. /somedomain in your home directory. It acts and behaves as a completely seperate website, although it can be accessed via a subdirectory on the main site.Subdomains
Sub-domains are domain names with the form, anything.yourdomain.com. By definition, a subdomain should not have the prefix of "www". In order to access this domain with the "www" prefix (i.e. www.anything.yourdomain.com), you would have to create a "sub-third-level domain" with the prefix "www.anything". They usually point at a subdirectory within the home directory, similar to the way an addon domain works.MySQL Databases
"SQL" stands for "Structured Query Language". MySQL is a server program which allows information to be stored and retrieved using SQL. For the simple SQL statements that are typical of web based content, MySQL is the fastest of the SQL servers, and by far the most popular. Most web-based programs (e.g. phpBB, vBulletin, Gallery, catalogue systems etc) use MySQL as their database system.Domain Names
A domain name is the unique name that identifies an Internet site. Domain Names always have 2 or more parts, separated by dots. The part on the left is the most specific, and the part on the right is the most general. A given machine may have more than one Domain Name but a given Domain Name points to only one machine. Usually, all of the machines on a given Network will have the same thing as the right-hand portion of their Domain Names (e.g. www.gitk.com, server1.gitk.com, stats.gitk.com).A domain name is also necessary to associate a given internet site name (e.g. www.gitk.com) with a specific IP address (e.g. 127.0.0.23), which allows visitors to access the website without remembering the IP address itself, which may also vary. A domain name is not supplied with our packages unless specifically requested.
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