Frequently Asked Questions

This is a more advanced Guestbook written in PHP/MySQL. 

The Agora Shopping Cart is a free shopping cart program. Support can optionally be obtained through a mailing list setup specifically for Agora Users for a small fee of $25.00 per year. You can join the list by visiting: http://www.agoracart.com/

Error pages are displayed to Internet users when any one of a variety of errors occur, such as when a user enters an incorrect URL or is not authorized to access a specific directory in your web site. Companies often customize error pages to brand them with a specific corporate image and a link to their home page. You do not have to customize these pages - the error page is always available, whether customized or not.

All SHWebhosting accounts come with a packge-limited amount of e-mail autoresponders. An autoresponder is a computer program that automatically returns a prewritten message to anyone who submits e-mail to a particular Internet address, whether an individual or a Web site. Autoresponders are widely used by Web sites for the purpose of responding to visitor comments and suggestions in a preliminary way and, in cases where traffic is heavy, as the sole way to communicate with user inquiries. They can also be used by businesses when an employee or department goes on vacation or a temporary leave of absence.

The Backup Management area allows you to download the daily, weekly, or monthly backup file of your entire web site, or a particular MySQL, alias, or filter backup file. If your computer crashes, or your personal backups are destroyed, these files allow you to recover your site in a convenient manner (you could also use FTP to download each file, but it would take much longer as the files are not compressed).

Bandwidth refers to the amount of data that can be transferred to and from your website each month. This data includes html files, graphics, audio/video, e-mail messages, and any other files that are a part of your website. Example 1:</B> A 2 MB file uploaded and downloaded would use a total of 4 MB of data transfer. Example 2: 100 page views of a website averaging 10 KB per page would use around 1 MB of data transfer. Each of our packages has a specific bandwidth transfer limit. If you need more bandwidth, simply upgrade to the next largest package.

With all the tools available today, not difficult at all. Building a successful website is a different story, you need to have knowleadge and experience. At SH Webdesign, we offer a superior expertise at discount cost.

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a simple mechanism for adding style (e.g. fonts, colors, spacing) to Web documents. By attaching style sheets to structured documents on the Web (e.g. HTML), authors and readers can influence the presentation of documents without sacrificing device-independence or adding new HTML tags.

The Common Gateway Interface (CGI) is a standard for interfacing external applications with information servers, such as HTTP or Web servers. A plain HTML document that the Web daemon retrieves is static, which means it exists in a constant state: a text file that doesn't change. A CGI program, on the other hand, is executed in real-time, so that it can output dynamic information.

Cron jobs allow you to automate repetitive tasks on the server that hosts your web site. This is a powerful tool that allows you to take a hands-free approach to repetitive tasks. For example, you could add a cron job that automatically copies a MySQL database to a separate location on your site as a backup.

Disk space refers to the amount of storage your account is allocated. This space is used to store html files, graphics, audio/video, e-mail messages, and any other files that are part of your website. Each of our packages has a specific disk space limit. If you need more space, simply upgrade to the next largest package. 

E-mail forwarding (aliasing) is an email service in which your email is automatically sent (forwarded) from one or more email address, to another (possibly several) specified email address.  

Email forwarding is the ability to configure your email aliases to forward your email to another email address. This can either be for an entire domain, by forwarding the 'Catch All' email alias, or can be on a per-alias basis. The email address you forward email for your domain to can be a mail box associated with an ISP account, or can be a Hotmail or similar free email account. The alternative to email forwarding is delivering your email to a POP email account.

The number of email accounts (johndoe@yourdomain.com) you may have is defined in your package. The number of FTP accounts you can set up is determined by your package.

Fantastico De Luxe is the leading autoinstaller for cPanel servers. With more than 10.000 installations, it provides more than one million end users the ability to quickly install dozens of the leading open source content management systems into their web space.

The easiset way is to install and use one of the FTP programs (some of them can be downloaded on the internet at no cost). FTP program allows you exchange any type of files between the server and your local hard drive. Another way to do it is through the DOS prompt, if you know the command line.

The File Manager allows you to manage your site through HTML, rather than an FTP tool or other third-party application. You can upload, create or delete files, organize files in folders, and change file permissions. While not as sophisticated as most FTP tools, File Manager is free and gives you all the basic functionality necessary to manage your site 

Flash and Shockwave is multimedia technology developed by Macromedia to allow a lot of interactivity to fit in a relatively small file size.

FTP (File Transfer Protocal) accounts are typically used by more advanced web designers who can create their own web pages from scratch, or by using stand-alone third party software. These created pages are then transfered to our web servers using FTP services. The number of accounts you can set up is determined by your package.

In most cases, the delivery time is about 5 business days.

The most commonly used file formats are the GIF (Graphics Interexchange Format, trademark of Compuserve, Inc.) an JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group). In more recent years, some designers increasingly use PNG (Portable Network Graphics) because of the support for optional alpha channel for transparency. PNG is an extensible file format for the lossless, portable, well-compressed storage of raster images.

The number of domains you can host on the account. You can increase the domain limit at any time for a $10 one-time fee (per domain). For example, the Bronze Package has a 1 domain limit by default, but can be increased to 5 domains by adding 4 more at $10 each (total added cost $40).

HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is basically a language used for publishing hypertext on the World Wide Web. It is a non-proprietary format based upon SGML, and can be created and processed by a wide range of tools, from simple plain text editors - you type it in from scratch- to sophisticated web authoring tools.

The IP Deny Manager enables you to block access to your web site from specific IP addresses. This is useful to remove nuisance surfers who use a large amount of bandwidth or to prevent hotlinking to your site (refer to HotLink Prevention for more information about hotlinking 

The Java Chat is a free piece of software that allows you to run a java chat room. The HTML Chat room is good for people who don't want to run something as resource intensive as the Java Chat, but not as efficient as the PHP Chat. This is a PHP/MySQL chat program, installing this will use one of your available MySQL Databases. 

The Java Clock Generator will create a real time java clock for your site. The Java Countdown Generator will allow you to create a countdown box to countdown to a specified date 

The Java Runtime Environment (JRE) is the minimum standard Java Platform for running Java programs. It contains the Java Virtual Machine (JVM), Java Core Classes and supporting files.

All SHWebhosting accounts come with a set number mailing lists. A Mailing list is a very popular way for people to send and receive information of a particular type. For example, you might wish to add all of your customers to a mailing list and then notify them of upcoming sales or specials by sending only one message to the main list address, which would then send the message to all e-mail addresses contained in that list.

FrontPage is a web publishing application created for non-programmers. The Microsoft FrontPage web authoring and management tool gives you everything you need to get your web site up and running fast. HostingWithUs supports the use of FrontPage 2003, 2002, 2000, 98 and 97. Note: FrontPage 2003 support excludes SharePoint Services, available only on Windows Servers.

MySQL is a popular Open Source Software relational database management system which uses a subset of ANSI SQL (Structured Query Language). For more information, see http://mysql.com You may have as many databases as your package and disk space allow.

A page view occurs when a page of your web site is accessed by a visitor.

A Parked Domain is an inactive domain reserved for later use or one that points to another existing domain. For example, the domain name for your hosting account is domain.com and you also have registered domain.net through your domain.com Domain Manager. You may point domain.net to the domain.com IP address. Internet users can now access your Web site using either domain name.

You can protect directories within your site from browsers by using a password to protect them. This allows you to restrict material to only authorized users or store sensitive material online. This has the same appearance and effect as the password protection on CPanel.

Perl is a server-side scripting language which is commonly used to write CGI programs. Perl programs, or scripts, are text files which are parsed (run through and executed) by a program called an interpreter on the server.

Every account comes with a personal CGI-BIN. The CGI-BIN is a directory on the server where the executable CGI scripts reside. You have complete control over your CGI-BIN and can install any custom or 3rd party CGI scripts that you would like, with certain exclusions due to the security risks they post (such as Matt's FormMail script).

A server-side scripting language. The PHP commands, which are embedded in the web page's HTML, are executed on the web server to generate dynamic HTML pages. For more information, see http://www.php.net.

PhpMyAdmin is a tool written in PHP intended to handle the administration of MySQL over the web. It can create/drop/alter tables, delete/edit/add fields, execute any SQL statement, manage keys on fields, and more.

Short for Post Office Protocol, this standard is used to receive email using popular email applications like Eudora, Outlook and Netscape Mail. The number of email accounts (johndoe@yourdomain.com) you may have is defined in your package.

This is a Random HTML generator. It picks a string of HTML code from a list and inserts it in an SSI (Server Side Includes) enabled web page.

Every SHWebhosting account comes with downloadable raw access logs. Raw access logs are used by your graphical web statistic program to generate the charts and graphs. The raw access logs will show the user's IP, date and time of the access, what kind of request was done, which document was requested, HTTP status code, bytes transferred, user agent info, and more. If you prefer to manually interperate your web site statistics, you'll need to download your raw logs to identify who your site's visitors are. Although much more difficult, analyzing raw logs can provide a more detailed look at your sites accesses than graphical web statistics.

The Secure FormMail-clone is a clone of Matt Wright's FormMail with the security enhanced from it's namesake. CGI Email takes the input of an HTML form and converts it to an email format defined by the author of the form

SSI (abbreviation for Server-Side Includes) is a server-side scripting language. SSI scripting commands are embedded within a webpage and are parsed and executed on the web server to generate dynamic HTML pages. Common uses of SSI are to include files (e.g. a header or footer file) that are used on multiple pages, or to show the current date and time.

A shopping cart is a piece of software that acts as an online store's catalog and ordering process. Typically, a shopping cart is the interface between a company's Web site and its deeper infrastructure, allowing consumers to select merchandise; review what they have selected; make necessary modifications or additions; and purchase the merchandise. We offer several shopping cart solutions if your account type qualifies you for them. 

In this area you can view statistics about your website. Please be aware that only latest visitors is a live feed. All of the statistical reports are updated every 24 hours. All of the bandwidth information is updated every 6 hours. If you wish to compare data from each statistics program you should only compare data that is at least 36 hours old to ensure that it has been updated and is providing the correct information. Please note these times are estimates, and are subject to change based on the amount of traffic on the server.

Spam Protection is provided through SpamAssassin and BoxTrapper. SpamAssassin is a mail filter to identify spam using text analysis. Using its rule base, it uses a wide range of heuristic tests on mail headers and body text, to identify spam, or unsolicited commercial e-mail. BoxTrapper is a white list and challenge response system for your email accounts.

Subdomains or 3rd level domains are web addresses that operate just under a top level domain, but behave as an independent domain. You can place a word or phrase in place of the standard www like subdomain<BR> (subdomain.domain.com) and redirect all requests for that URL to a different directory within your website. You can set up subdomains from within your control panel. 

Telnet is a way of connecting to other computers. Telnet allows you to connect to another computer and then control it in a limited way by giving it commands. The window where you type commands is like a gateway through to the remote computer: your own computer acts like a terminal and plays no part in what happens. Telnet is sometimes called terminal emulation or shell access. SSH (Secure Shell) is a lot safer than telnet. The problem with telnet is that everything you type, including your password, is sent to the other computer in the clear without encryption. This makes it possible for other people to find out your password by eavesdropping on network traffic. There are measures in place on HostingWithUs and in some other parts of the Data Center to prevent this, but ssh eliminates all possibility by encrypting whatever you type before it gets sent out of your computer. What you send is then decrypted at the other end by the host computer. This access is only granted on certain accounts, by request, with proof of identification.

The vector file format (SWF, AI, EPS or SVG), has the lines and shapes trasferred as mathematical deffinitions, unlike the raster files (BMP, JPEG or PNG) where they are series of pixels lined up in rows with color values applied to each individual pixel. The biggest difference is that the vector files are scalable and you can change their size without the loss of quality, while the raster files pixels cannot be streched without the siginificant quality loss. But, raster files have far more realistic appearance, while the vector files have that unavoidable computer game look and feel.

Now you can check your e-mail from any computer with an Internet connection. Hosting With Us Web Based E-Mail is a professional solution for accessing your e-mail from a web browser. You can choose between Horde, SquirrelMail and Neomail for your easy to use web based interface.

The Web Control Panel which we use is CPanel. CPanel is a fully featured web-based control panel that allows you to manage your web hosting space and domain name through a web interface. CPanel gives you more control to access and manage your web site. You have the ability to manage all aspects of e-mail, files, FTP, CGI scripts, and web site statistics.

Needless to say, planning is very important. At SH Webdesign, we will carefully gather all the information, analyze your needs and goals and work with you through the development process to refine your plans.

In most cases up to 2 weeks, or less.

Any images displayed on any web page are called web graphics. Their sole purpose is to make the web page look more attractive and to mark a specific places on the page for easier viewing. Although they are not required, every website should have some graphics because they significantly improve it's appearance. Think about the difference between the plain sheet of paper vs. some nicely designed catalog page.

Yes. Your browser needs to download each graphic on the web page you are visiting in order for you to see it, but with moderate use of graphics and with the correct file formats, you probably will not see any difference. Your internet connection speed plays a big roll here.

The right colors can mean bigger profits for your website. You may even want to hire a professional web designer to help you. Make sure the web designer you hire is not just a programmer, but also a graphic designer and/or marketer. After all, the reason why 99% of all websites fail is because it was created by a technician, rather than a marketing expert. Click here to find out more

It depends on the website purpose. Open source platform feature complex website functions that can be added to the site with a click of a button, but they require a regular maintenance which often needs to be performed by an expert. For example, if you need a shopping cart on your website, open source platform such as WordPress is a way to go, but if your website is used just to present your business to the public, it's better to go with a custom solution, they are virtually maintenance free.

Yes, we will include the implementation of GeoQuote, or any other equivalent CRM plug-in at no extra cost.

Yes, however there is no WordPress plug-in for GeoQoute so this task would require a PHP/HTML expertise. SH Web Design will gladly do this for you.

Any web server that supports PHP can host the GeoQuote plug-in, however keep in mind that generating a real-time quote is a complex task that may take several minutes to complete, and some shared hosting providers (like GoDaddy) limit the PHP run time to only 60 seconds, in which case the application will time out. You should check with your web host first and make sure they allow at least 360 seconds.

It really depends on how fast the search engines index the updates on web pages, we usually say at least 60-90 days before you can see any improvement.

No, quite the opposite, if your website is properly optimized your website rank will continue to grow naturally.

Depends on the duration of your campaign. If you want to plan for a long run, it's always better to consider the organic SEO, it's more cost effective, but if you want to see quick results, then pay-per-click or another paid advertising is the way to go. Sometimes the combination of the two is necessary to achieve results.