SoftData Internet Hosting Blog

Posts Tagged ‘web hosting’

We have today launched a brand new web site at http://www.businesswebhost.co.uk/ with new features, lower prices and free downloads

SoftData Internet will be publishing new tutorials and demos on the new plesk 9 control panel in the next few days. Watch this space.

Hardly a day goes by without emails or phone calls asking us about cheap web hosting. Well, we just dont do cheap hosting. We know there are cheaper hosting deals out there, but in the end you get what you pay for.

Apart from the amount you get with SoftData Internet with your hosting acount ( very often charhed as extras from so called cheap hosts ) , how many do a complete backup of every site, every day ?

We have now finished our server upgrades, and we are now running the latest versions of Plesk, php and mysql

We now offer special monitoring services for those with mission critical web sites:

URL Monitoring

HOW IT WORKS

Retrieve a selected URL, checking for multiple strings of text within the page to ensure your site’s availability and to ensure that content has not been changed without authorization.

The given content cannot span over a line break and cannot be more than 5 consecutive words. We ask that you please provide us with static content as dynamic content cannot be used for this type of monitor. Also, the monitoring device will search for the given content in all parts of the source code; header, footer and body. Please keep this in mind when specifying a content check.

We strongly recommend NOT searching for the content “OK” with this type of monitor.

Please provide us with a working URL and a content string of up to five words within the page that should be verified.

Example:

https://example.com/loginpage.com

(Check for content: Welcome to the Login Page)

IMPORTANT – Before monitoring is enabled, we ask that you provide us with detailed emergency instructions as to how you would like us to respond to an outage or failure. Also, please provide a list of primary and secondary emergency contacts in case of such an event. These contacts will be recipients for any Rackwatch related ticket notifications. We must have the contacts and emergency instructions on file before any monitors are deployed.

To assist you in writing these, here are some questions you can answer:

1. Would you like us to troubleshoot the issue or just notify you?

2. Would you like us to work on it for a certain amount of time before we do contact you?

3. Specific troubleshooting instructions (such as custom scripts or what to do for a specific error)

4. A set of primary and secondary contact numbers. Emails will be created when a ticket is created, please ensure that the email you want to be contacted on are listed as technical contacts for the account.

URL Synthetic Transaction Monitoring. £40.00 per month each (5-steps or less).

A script of up to five steps through your website that simulates how a typical user interaction transpires. These scripts are repeated every ten minutes and triggers an alert if any of these five steps cannot be completed. For example, if a customer goes to a website but cannot complete the process of adding a product to the site’s shopping cart, this would trigger an alert. URL Synthetic Transaction Monitoring gives you the piece of mind that your website is functioning properly at all times.

We install free wordpress blogs with several themes we have written on every hosting pack. The technology has improved so much that now, you can set up a whole web site that you can maintain yourself. Here are a few examples:

http://www.gloucesterghostwalks.co.uk/

http://www.talented-force.com/

http://www.gloucesterlawcentre.co.uk/

When a .uk domain is registered, there is an option for non trading individuals to have their address details omitted from a public lookup.

Only domain name holders that are non-trading individuals can opt-out of having their address details published. In other words, if you do not use or plan to use your domain name for business, trade or professional transactions you will be entitled to opt-out of having your address displayed.

Sadly, we are seing more and more domains using this illegally, in particular, so called web design companies who really do know better.

By registering a domain name ending in .uk (with some very limited exceptions), you enter into a contract of registration with us (Nominet UK) on the following conditions, which includes conditions limiting our liability and relating to our use of your personal information. This contract is just for the domain name and separate to any arrangement you may have with any other organisation for providing internet services.

In other words registering a domain like this breaks your contract with Nominet.

SoftData Internet Ltd are of course full members of nominet, and are capable of registering .uk domains on our own TAG. Nominet are changing some of the ways in which registrars like ourselves register a new domain.

The requirement to supply a registrant billing contact for new domain name registrations has been removed.

We have reduced the number of telephone numbers associated with a contact to two landline and two mobile numbers. We have also removed the fax number. This applies to all contacts for both registrar and registrant accounts. This change only affected a small number of registrars who have been contacted to clarify their correct numbers.

Any new registrations made with more than the allowed number of telephone numbers will be rejected.

There have been some changes to the welcome email that we send out. When a new account and a new account contact is created we send a welcome email giving account login details. We have shortened and simplified this message and for registrant versions greater emphasis is given to their registrar’s details and if applicable the registrar custom message.

On 5 May 2009 we will be introducing a new function that will allow registrars to lock a domain name that they suspect is involved in phishing activity.

The phishing lock removes the domain name from the zone file and prevents any further changes being made such as registrar changes or nameserver modifications.

The phishing lock can be activated using EPP or the automaton. There is also an unlock operation to remove the phishing lock.
All this information is available on the official Nominet site

New users of our Taxi Plus bookings software are being offered a completely free web site.

See our Taxi Plus Blog

Every business that has a web site should choose their web host  carefully. SoftData Internet are extremely proud of their web hosting services.

1 Reliability. It is vital that you choose a web hosting company that is reliable and has a good reputation. We are currently running at 99.9% up time. The only down time has been to upgrade our services, and we have managed this in minutes out of office hours.

2 Operating System. Most websites are hosted on a Linux platform and most web site owners prefer web hosting that uses Linux servers for Web Hosting. Our servers run on Linux and we use the world famous Plesk system for our customer control panels. All the services you would expect, mysql database,php, asp etc are provided as standard.

3 Email . We provide unlimited email accounts, and each one is protectd from viruses by DRWEB and from spam by Spamassasin. You can recieve and send your emails from any email client and we also give you a web based interface so that even when you are away from the office, so long as you can get onto the web, you can manage your emails.

4 Backups. We back up every site every single day, so no matter what the problem might be, within 2 hours we can restore yesterdays site for you.

5 We are local. When you phone us you use a standard phone number, not a premuim rate line, and of course you can even come and see us personally.

Click here to visit our hosting web site