Host Supreme Ltd -

FTP is File Transfer Protocol, an internet protocol used to transfer materials over the Internet. It is very fast, very efficient, and very reliable.

What does "Unlimited FTP Site Updates" mean?

This means that you have access to your site via FTP over the Internet 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You can "upload" files to your site - in other words, transfer files from your computer to the Host Supreme web server on the Internet - and you can also "download" files from your site - in other words, transfer files from your site on the Host Supreme web server, to your computer.

What is the first step in setting up a website?

The first step is to gain FTP access to your site, and upload the initial file to the proper directory. This initial file is generally named index.html, and it is the web page that will be returned when you call up www.yourdomain.com..

How do I gain FTP access to my site?

First, get the best FTP program on the Internet, which in our humble opinion is Cute FTP. You can download it at: www.cuteftp.com
After it's installed, run the program (double click on the yellow icon), and then click Add Folder - this is where you will store your FTP site info. Then click Add Site. In the panel that comes up, enter a name - call it anything you want - ftp.yourdomain.com. Then in Host Address, put: yourdomain.com. (Obviously if the extension is NOT .com - if it's .nu or .edu or whatever, you would use the appropriate extension) In User ID, put your User ID - this is usually the same as the domain name - and then in Password, carefully type your password - I say carefully because it will be masked, so you won't be able to read it - this password is CASE SENSITIVE!
Now click OK in the lower left of the panel, and you will see your domain name in the right hand panel - highlight it and click Connect - lower right part of panel. If all goes well, the program will establish an FTP connection with your site and take you to the home directory. Go up 2 directories to /home/web and this is the right place to put your index.html file
.

How do I "upload" and "download" files using CuteFTP?

CuteFTP is VERY easy to use, and has a very intuitive, easy to use interface. The lower left panel is YOUR COMPUTER - the lower right panel is THE REMOTE SITE - in this instance, your Host Supreme ftp site. Everything is drag and drop - to upload, drag the appropriate file from the left panel to the right panel. To download a file on the remote server, simply reverse the process - drag the file on the remote server - lower right hand panel - over to the lower left panel. Easy!.

Where do I put the index.html file?

When CuteFTP opens the site ftp.yourdomain.com, it initally goes to the directory - /usrs/web You will need to move up 2 directories to /web. This is the place to put index.html/ Make sure you do NOT put the file into one of the folders you see there - put it UNDER those folders. Also put all your pictures and other files for you site in this same directory.

What does "updating the site" mean?

Basically what a webmaster does is download files from a website, operate on them and/or change them with an HTML editor such as Arachnophilia, and the upload the changed file back to the site. More recent versions of cuteFTP have such features conveniently integrated with the ftp program.

What is HTML, and what is an HTML editor?

HTML is HyperText Markup Language - it is essentially a kind of typesetting language, and is used to create pages on the web. Our recommended editor - for creating and manipulating these images - is 1st Page 2000. We provide all new clients with a FREE copy of 1st Page 2000 and it can be downloaded immediately after your Linux Professional Plan account has been setup. Read the Help file, practice a while, and you'll pick it up in no time.

How do I set up email accounts with my domain?

One account is automatically set up when the domain is set up - yourdomain@yourdomain.dom To setup additional Pop3 accounts, login to your web site control panel at www.your-domain.dom/siteadmin.

What about Email Auto Responders?

Email auto responders are very useful in Internet commerce. Essential, an auto responder is a robot which resides on your site, and does one thing - when it receives an email - from anywhere - with its name on it - it sends its text back to the source of that email. Uses for these little robots are limited only by your imagination..

How do I set up an Email Auto responder?

Login to your control panel at www.your-domain.dom/siteadmin.
Use the "Vacation Message" feature to setup Email Auto Responders on ANY e-mail account. Auto responders are unlimited! Use as many of them as you like.

What is an email redirect account?

These "aliases" are simply lines of code in your home directory which "bounce" emails from one email address to another. Let's say you have a web page and you want people to email you, but you don't want your personal email address to appear on the page. Solution? Use a forwarding email account. Emails sent toJoe@your-domain.dom (the address shown on the web page) will automatically be forwarded to joe@personal.dom

How do I set up email redirect accounts?

This is similar to setting up Auto responders. Login to your control panel at www.your-domain.dom/siteadmin. Select the use you wish to setup the alias for. In the email options section type the email alias you wish to use minus the @domain.dom. Use one email address per line.

How can I track who is requesting email from my Auto responders?

A copy of the email will always be sent to the pop3 account attached to the Auto Responder

What is MailBot or ListServ?

A MailBot is a robot which resides on your site, and which redirects a single email sent to it, to a list of email recipients. There are companies out there specializing in setting these up - many of them charge plenty for it too! With your Host Supreme Web Domain, however, you can set up as many as you like - free!

How do I setup a MailBot?

Basically, the MailBot is just a variation on the email redirect account, covered in (.13) above - all the same rules apply - it goes in the HOME directory, and you must rename it .redirect - it's thus a file that is invisible to FTP. Create it with an HTML Editor - NOT a word processor. It will look like this:
myclub jim@aol.com , joex@ix.netcom.com , sally@fugio.org , jimmiep@thorn.com , sevent@moet.com , bing@crosby.com
NOTE: Now any email sent to: myclub@yourdomain.com will automatically bounce from your domain, back to all the folks on the list above. NOTICE: this is the drill: From the hard left margin: alias name tab tab email space comma space email space comma space etc If you alter the list, which you probably will, to add and subtract members, be sure to maintain the spaces and commas as shown here.

How do I get access to traffic statistics for my site?

Very easily - go to this URL: http://www.yourdomain.com/logs You'll find detailed reports in various formats on your traffic, including where hits are coming from, at what hours of the day, month, etc. Also you'll be able to tell which files are being requested. Essential for fine tuning your web marketing strategy! .

Does Host Supreme really offer "Unlimited hits"?

For the vast majority of domains, traffic never becomes an issue and yes, within reason, you should never worry about the number of hits your site receives, but as a practical matter, no provider can provide you with unlimited resources for a fixed price. Bandwidth costs money, and unlimited amounts of it are not available to anyone. Therefore, we set a limit of 5 gigabytes of transfer per month on your domain - anything over this we bill at $12/gigabyte. We reserve the right to shut down any site without notice that is in arrears on payments for overage on traffic.

What is Host Supreme's policy on "spam," or unsolicited email?

The sending of unsolicited commercial email, or "spam," is strictly prohibited. We have a "zero tolerance" policy on spam, and reserve the right immediately to terminate without warning any domain, without refund, that sends out unsolicited commercial email, in any amount.

What about Microsoft Frontpage 98?

Host Supreme's servers fully support the Microsoft Frontpage HTML Editor and Publisher. However, there are two ways to approach using Frontpage 98. If you want to PUBLISH your web pages to your Host Supreme domain using Frontpage, we structure your domain as a Frontpage domain. This has some downsides - for example, Frontpage basically takes over the domain - it disables FTP, and it disables Telnet access as well. In other words, once you convert your site to full Frontpage - both Editor and Publisher - ONLY Frontpage can be used to access your domain. Many of our clients prefer to use the Frontpage Editor only, and then use an FTP client such as CuteFTP to upload webpages - this is in our opinion the 'best of both worlds.'

Hey, I just checked out my new site and my counter does NOT work!

Most everything will work on the site immediately; the counter and a couple of other functions, however, are set to begin working when your 'alpha' name begins answering - if your site is brand new, this will take 24 to 48 hours.

Do you have an 'uptime' guarantee?

Yes. We guarantee that your site will be up a minimum of 99.9% of the time. If we fail in any given month, you receive one full free month of hosting service. .

Can you help me with my HTML, web page, CGI programming, etc?

Time permitting we give advice via email on these issues but remember, we are providers of web space and can help you with 'content' only as time permits. Please visit our Web Design section for anything you require in this area, whether It be simple advice or varying jobs ranging from minor to major web development projects..

Can I change a password to my email account, FTP account, or main account?

Yes, you can do this yourself easily via your web site control panel at http://www.your-site.dom/siteadmin.

I don't want to learn HTML or design a web site - can you design it for me?

Yes! We offer highly competitive design services through a network of talented professionals. Contact us for more details or visit the online Web Design services area of the site.

can't get my CGI script to work. What could be wrong?

Here are some tips on CGI:
- Scripts must be made executable with chmod 755 filename
- Any script must end in .cgi to ensure execution
- Scripts that dont respond with Content Type tag as firsLIne, must be named nph-Scriptname.cgi . The nph- stands for non-parsed-headers.
- Perl 5 is located at /usr/bin/perl perl 4 is at /usr/bin/perl4.036 , make sure the first line has this right.
- Perl scripts will REFUSE to run if uploaded in binary from a non-unix computer. Make sure you upload scripts in ascii mode only!!!
Perl 4 scripts usually will need to have any @ or $ escaped with \ character to be perl 5 compatible. ie print "webmaster\@yourdomain.com"
The directory cgi-bin is reserved for our shared cgi directory. Your cgi(s) are called from your cgi-bin with an alias. This is the only way the server can distinguish between the main cgi-bin and the cgi-bin in your /www/htdocs directory.
Example Alias
Let's say your domain is joe.com.
Use FTP to go to: ftp.joe.com
You'll find a folder there in your main directory called cgi-bin
That is the cgi-bin for joe.com
Now let's say you upload a script to that cgi-bin, called script.cgi
The ALIAS address of that script is now: http://www.joe.com/cgi-joe/script.cgi
NOTE WELL: The address is NOT: http://www.joe.com/cgi-bin/script.cgi
In setting up your script, you will need the PATH - the path of the above example is: /www/htdocs/joe/cgi-bin
Yes this is confusing but you must get it right for the script to work!
index.cgi is valid, as a directories home page for a cgi script. Like wise you could replace index.htm with index.shtml to use PARSE(Server Side includes).
Server Side Includes only work in files with .shtml extension. The execute bit and read public bits must be on to use .shtml.
.shtml files need to have their permission changed to 755 -- chmod 755 filename.cgi
Cool server variables
If you can't figure out why it doesn't work , run it from the command LIne, or rename it to nph-Scriptname. You'll see more error messages.
CGI is programming, don't be mistaken into thinking it is as easy as HTML. It isn't. We have a list of consultants well versed in CGI and would be glad to work for you on a consulting basis.
If you are going to use perl, buy a Perl book. If you can't figure it out, ask us and we will help you by email on a time permits basis.
There are many documented examples in /www/htdocs/cgi-scripts
If You Are Unable to do your own cgi scripting and setup You can contact us here at Host Supreme through our technical request form and we will either guide you step by step or install the script(s) for you for a small fee.

<< back