Web Concepts

By Mitch “Yipee!” Keeler

Now I know many of us have used Google’s Webmaster Tools section a time or two, and maybe even submitted our own site map to it. Did you know though that you can do the same with Yahoo! search? The Yahoo! Site Explorer is one way to make sure that Yahoo! knows you are on the web and ready to be indexed.

One really cool thing is that they allow you to submit your RSS feed to be crawled too. You can also setup dynamic URLs. There are up to three dynamic parameters that you want Yahoo! to treat specially whenever these are seen in URLs belonging to your web site in question. Think of it as redirects that only Yahoo! can see.

All in all, I would say the Yahoo! Site Explorer is another “site stuff” bookmark you should be sure to submit yourself to.

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Original post by Mitch

By Mitch “Tutorial Finder” Keeler

Now that the WordPress Design Contest (version 2!) is on its way I have been getting a lot of questions that sound a lot like this one:  I want to enter the contest, but I am not sure exactly how to create a theme for WordPress? As long as you know some things about web site design, CSS and working with templates - you should have little to no problem at all.  Here are a few tutorials though to get you started with the theme design process:

WordPress.org - Theme Development

WordPress.org -  Designing Themes for Public Release

Wordpress Tutorial: How to Create a Wordpress Theme

So you want to create WordPress themes huh?

How to Create a WordPress Template or Theme

Make Your Own WordPress Theme

Have any other favorite WordPress theme tutorials you would like to share?  Feel free to drop them into the comments!

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Original post by Mitch

By Mitch “Monochrome” Keeler

Move over Google Docs and Zoho Writer, there is a new word processing application online.  Feast your eyes on Writer, the Internet typewriter.  

No logging in, complicated menus or any of that jazz.  This is the first lightweight online word processor I have run across.  Just because it is lightweight doesn’t mean it is short on features though.  You can setup a new document, save, get word count, send it to others, download and print your written words. 

So is this just one out of many more to come like it?  I’ve always been a big fan of your lightweight writing programs and this online counterpart looks very compelling as well. 

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Original post by Mitch

By Mitch “THE April Fool” Keeler

I have to say there have been a lot of “creative” stories Online today.  Here are some of the best (or maybe the worst depending on how many you have seen) April Fools 2008 stories so far.

• Betamax to HD-DVD Converter
• Gmail Custom Time?
• Google Bedroom?
• TechCrunch acquires Tiger Beat?
• Wales Resigns from Wikipedia to Become a Monk?
• Firefox Facts Goes to the Dark Side?
• Opera Scores 106 on Acid 3 Test!
• Wi-Fi Makes Teacher’s Head Explode?
• Lance Ulanoff (PC Mag) still Uses Windows 3.1?
• All YouTube Front Page Videos Go Here?

I love April Fools Day!  Seen any other good ones?

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Original post by Mitch

By Mitch “cPanel is Your Friend” Keeler

Your .htaccess file, with any Apache based server or hosting account is a very powerful tool that if you can learn to use for your advantage can help you complete many time consuming or difficult tasks with ease. How do you create one though for your web hosting account? This is a question that we get here time to time, and here is your solution.

Login to your cPanel with your user name and password, then once you have made it in, head over to your File Manager. Now the File Manager’s interface is a very familiar Windows-styled look at your files on your hosting account. You will want to click on your folder icon next to your public_html link next, that will take you to the insides of the public_html folder.

Inside you will see all your web site files. You need to scan down the page till you see the bold text, Create a New File. Click that and you should get in the upper-right corner a box with a few more setting to fill in. In the empty text box, put in .htaccess. Keep the drop down box on Text Document and then hit the Create button.

Now you have your .htaccess file inside of your public_html folder all with the help of cPanel and your helpful File Manger.

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Original post by Mitch

By Mitch "Mr. Organization" Keeler

There is no doubt that when you sign on the dotted line and get your hosting plan of any type, shape or size (you know, we do that sort of thing here at Lunarpages web hosting) you are given a lot of links to keep track of.  You have the link to your customer account page, to your own domain, to manage your domains.  Now the Customer Account Page does a good job for most at centralizing all your Lunarpages goodies but I thought I would share my way of doing things.

In your browser’s bookmarks make a folder named projects and a folder named admin.  In the projects folder I want you to create a new folder for each domain you are hosting.  Inside of this folder you would put all the links you want quick reference to (such as actual domain links, cPanel links, stats and more).  It should look something like this:

Projects Folder

     YourDomain1.com Folder

           - Control Panel Link

           - Actual Domain Link

           - Stats

Now if you put all the important links by domain inside of the projects folder then what is the admin folder for?  This would be for the domain links that you use the most.  For an example, if you installed WordPress you would be logging in there more often than cPanel, right? Just fill this folder with links for the admin interface for the scripts you have installed on your hosting account.  Here is an example of that:

Admin Folder

     - YourDomain1.com WordPress Admin

     - Your2ndDomain.com SMF Admin Screen

Then you can go on and on from there.  What organizational tips do you use to manage your own web site links?  I’d love to hear them if you have any that are really unique.  

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Original post by Mitch

by Tiara Rea

Because offering Unlimited Add-Ons and 1500 GB storage space just isn’t enough, Lunarpages has two more incredible announcements to tell you about!

1) SSH/Shell Access available!!

Omg, this is big news, guys. SSH access to our Basic and Business shared servers has always been a major concern of ours, as we don’t want to put customers who don’t need it on servers with those who do. So, to keep everybody secure, you can now pay an additional $2/mo to be placed on a SSH Shared Server! So if you need root access for your website, just let us know and we can move you to one of these special servers. And if you don’t need SSH access, don’t fear – your account will remain untouched and you will not be placed on a server that allows it.

2) Apache 2 Available

Yep, more amazing news. If you want Apache 2, just add it to your web hosting purchase at no additional charge! And if you’re an existing customer who would like Apache 2, let us know and we’ll move you to an Apache 2 server for free. That way, everybody who doesn’t need it can remain where they are, but if you can’t live without Apache 2, you can move without hassle.

That’s pretty much the rule of thumb here at Lunarpages – give the customer exactly what they need and maintain as much convenience as possible.

Enjoy, everybody!

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Original post by Tiara

by Tiara Rea

Because offering Unlimited Add-Ons and 1500 GB storage space just isn’t enough, Lunarpages has two more incredible announcements to tell you about!

1) SSH/Shell Access available!!

Omg, this is big news, guys. SSH access to our Basic and Business shared servers has always been a major concern of ours, as we don’t want to put customers who don’t need it on servers with those who do. So, to keep everybody secure, you can now pay an additional $2/mo to be placed on a SSH Shared Server! So if you need root access for your website, just let us know and we can move you to one of these special servers. And if you don’t need SSH access, don’t fear – your account will remain untouched and you will not be placed on a server that allows it.

2) Apache 2 Available

Yep, more amazing news. If you want Apache 2, just add it to your web hosting purchase at no additional charge! And if you’re an existing customer who would like Apache 2, let us know and we’ll move you to an Apache 2 server for free. That way, everybody who doesn’t need it can remain where they are, but if you can’t live without Apache 2, you can move without hassle.

That’s pretty much the rule of thumb here at Lunarpages – give the customer exactly what they need and maintain as much convenience as possible.

Enjoy, everybody!

© Lunarpages Web Hosting - $25 off Web Hosting! Coupon Code: blog25

Original post by Tiara

Need help with importing your e-mail accounts into Gmail so that you can use Gmail as your e-mail client of choice? As long as you follow along (step by step) this should be an easy thing to do. Now why would you want to do this?

Well for an example you might really enjoy the Gmail interface? You want to have access to multiple accounts at the same time via webmail? The reasons are endless.

Setting up and using Gmail’s mail fetcher is easy and free. Won’t cost you a penny.

Step #1:
Click Settings from the top of any email page.

Step #2:
Click Accounts.

Step #3:
In the Get mail from other accounts section, click Add another mail account.

Step #4:
Enter the full email address of the account you’d like to access (you@yourdomain.com), then click Next Step.

Step #5:
Google will populate the Username and POP Server fields when possible, based on your email address. If you have problems later on down the road you might try changing it to “yourdomain.com” or “mail.yourdomain.com”. Next enter your password for the e-mail account in question. After you do that, click on Add Account.

To edit your account after it is setup, login to Gmail and then go to Settings and then the Accounts tab. Look for the section titled: Get mail from other accounts. Next to your e-mail address click on edit info to change your setting or Check mail now to manually have Gmail check for new e-mail. You can also click on View history to get a log of the last 4 times Gmail has downloaded mail from that account.

Hint: Double check and make sure your not leaving a version of the e-mail on the server (unless you want to). If no messages are being downloaded this can often cause your e-mail account to run out of space - and causing you problems with e-mail later on down the road.

Also be sure to follow the POP3 e-mail setup advice that comes with your Lunarpages welcome e-mail. For more information about using Gmail with your own e-mail account check out these links:

Gmail Help Discussion:
http://groups.google.com/group/Gmail-Help-Discussion

Gmail Support:
http://mail.google.com/support/

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Original post by Mitch

By Mitch Keeler

Tis’ the time of the year to be doing all those things you’ve been putting off for so long. Nobody really rolls out updates in December because we are all too filled up with eggnog to work on our web sites. With that said, it does make for a perfect time to work on that to do list you should be doing every six months or so with your web site.

1. Review your terms of service or acceptable use policy (if you have them) to make sure you have all of your bases covered.

2. Update your “about us” page with new details, or refreshed details about your own personal information or project your web site is about.

3. See if there are any script updates you need to do, like with your blog, forums or other content management systems. Actually this one you should do more than once a year - but worth mentioning just in case you have not.

4. Check your links (or as many as you can) to make sure they are still working.

5. Go through your 404 errors - and make sure you are redirecting the ones you need to and make sure a page didn’t go missing in action while you were looking elsewhere.

6. Start work on a new web site layout if needed. Always good to spruce up your visual look - even if you just reorganize how things are laid out or change the colors a ‘bit.

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Original post by Mitch