Web Concepts

On the Lunarpages blog this month we have been discussing some of the greatest scripts out there that you can install on just about any web hosting plan Lunarpages offers to you.  For those who might have missed it, here is a roundup of all the third-party script reviews we did over the month of November.

Best phpBB Web Host Out There?

Could Lunarpages in fact be the greatest phpBB web host out there?  I would say so.  For those of you who do not know, phpBB is one of the most widely used open source forum solutions to date. 

Magento Hosting Comes to Lunarpages

As a professional and open-source e-commerce solution, Magento is offering your online store access to unprecedented flexibility and control.  You can also get it up and running here with Lunarpages, if you are using one of our new LPCP controlled accounts.

Hosting with osCommerce

One of the most widely used shopping cart scripts out there is osCommerce.  It gives the shop owner an open-source online e-commerce solution.  You might have already known that, however did you know a number of our web hosting plans come with a way to get it installed in a single click?

Get bbPress Hosting at Lunarpages

Yesterday, we took a look at WordPress, so today I figured we would check out it’s message board (and less popular) brother from another mother, bbPress.  Forum software can often be slow, bloated and filled with holes – however bbPress is the total opposite. The focus is around being easy to use, speedy, and compliant.

Vanilla Web Forum Hosting at Lunarpages

Lunarpages fully supports the lightweight and simple Vanilla forum script.  What is Vanilla? It is an open-source, standards-compliant, multi-lingual, fully extensible discussion forum for the Web. While it is not supported via the cPanel’s Fantastico or LPCP’s WebApps manager, the script is simple enough for anybody to download, setup and install in minutes. 

E-Commerce Hosting with Zen Cart

The free, user-friendly and open source shopping cart software, Zen Cart is perfect for any e-commerce web site hosted at Lunarpages.  With the thoughts of shop owners, programmers, designers and more in mind, Zen Cart is one of the best third-party shopping cart scripts out there.

PHPlist Hosting with Lunarpages

One of the world’s best open-source newsletter managers can be installed a number of different ways, here at Lunarpages.  PHPlist is a free script that will handle all your  newsletter or mailing lists for you.  It is downloaded over 10,000 tie per month – and is possibly one of the most popular open-source scripts.

WordPress Hosting at Lunarpages

All this month, on the Lunartics blog, we will highlight some of our favorite third-party scripts.  From image galleries to message boards, there will be a little something for everybody.  To get things started, I thought I would discuss with you why WordPress is my absolute favorite blogging script.

SMF Web Hosting at Lunarpages

Possibly one of the best forum scripts out there to date, Simple Machines Forum, is more than welcome to be hosted here at Lunarpages, on many of our web hosting plans.   It is a free, professional grade software package that will have you setup with your own online community in just seconds.

Get Your Joomla Hosting on at Lunarpages

The award winning content management system, which enables you to build web sites and powerful online applications is more than welcome at Lunarpages.  Joomla is all that, and so much more.  For people looking for an easy to use and powerful script to manage their digital empire, Joomla is a good way to go.

For more help with third-party scripts at Lunarpages, be sure co check out our web hosting wiki.

Related Tips and Tricks:

• SMF Web Hosting at Lunarpages
• Vanilla Web Forum Hosting at Lunarpages
• Get bbPress Hosting at Lunarpages

&copy Lunarpages Web Hosting - Also, don’t forget to follow @lunarpages on Twitter!

Original post by Mitch

As a professional and open-source e-commerce solution, Magento is offering your online store access to unprecedented flexibility and control.  You can also get it up and running here with Lunarpages, if you are using one of our new LPCP controlled accounts.

What Makes Magento So Great?

Where Magento really shines is it’s modular architecture.  It really puts the control of the online business back in the hands of the shop owner.  Any online merchant out there today would be silly to second guess this terrific script’s abilities of getting the job done.  Many people who have grown tired of other shopping carts systems have migrated towards Magento because of functionality and delivery, which are two areas where Magento outshines the competition.

At Lunarpages, you can install Magento on any LPCP powered hosting account, either by a manual install or via the LPCP’s WebApps instant script installer.  Your choice.  Our cPanel powered plans do not support the backend needed yet to host Magento.

Need Help? Check out our profile page on Magento in the web hosting wiki.  The third-party scripts and services section of the Lunarforums should also come in handy if you run into a problem.  There is also a demo of Magento featured on OpensourceCMS’s web site.

November is Lunarpages Script Month!

Keep watching the Lunartics blog all throughout the month on November for even more third-party script suggestions, tutorials, tips and more.  You can also get tons of information and details about just a handful of the third-party scripts we support on the web hosting wiki.  We also have a special forum dedicated to third-party script discussions over at the Lunarforums.  Subscribe today to the Lunartics RSS feed for instant updates when we release a new script suggestion!

Related Tips and Tricks:

• E-Commerce Hosting with Zen Cart
• Hosting with osCommerce
• SMF Web Hosting at Lunarpages

© Lunarpages Web Hosting - Also, don’t forget to follow @lunarpages on Twitter!

Original post by Mitch

One of the most widely used shopping cart scripts out there is osCommerce.  It gives the shop owner an open-source online e-commerce solution.  You might have already known that, however did you know a number of our web hosting plans come with a way to get it installed in a single click?  Lunarpages is a great provider of osCommerce web hosting.

You can easily install the osCommerce script by doing so in cPanel’s Fantastico, LPCP’s WebApps or by downloading it and installing it manually.  The manual install option might be tedious to some.  That is why I am so excited to see we can give you an easier way to install from the cPanel or LPCP control panels.

Can you extend osCommerce? Yes, you can.  This e-commerce hosting script supports add-ons.  Add-ons are extra scripts and services you can install to give your e-commerce business extra tools, a new appearance, or a number of new features the basic script does not provide.

The official osCommerce web site delivers multiple ways to try the script or see web sites using the script.

• Visit the Demonstrations page for online demonstrations.
• Visit the Live Shops Directory site for a list of worldwide online shops powered by osCommerce.

osCommerce is a great feature rich tool, which provides out-of-the-box shopping cart functionality and style.  If you are looking for the perfect osCommerce hosting plan, you might check out the extra benefits the Business hosting plan offers.

You can find more how-to articles in our web hosting wiki.  The third-party scripts and services section of the Lunarforums should also come in handy if you run into a problem.

November is Lunarpages Script Month!

Keep watching the Lunartics blog all throughout the month on November for even more third-party script suggestions, tutorials, tips and more.  You can also get tons of information and details about just a handful of the third-party scripts we support on the web hosting wiki.  We also have a special forum dedicated to third-party script discussions over at the Lunarforums.  Subscribe today to the Lunartics RSS feed for instant updates when we release a new script suggestion!

Related Tips and Tricks:

• E-Commerce Hosting with Zen Cart
• SMF Web Hosting at Lunarpages
• Save $72 on Business Hosting at Lunarpages

© Lunarpages Web Hosting - Also, don’t forget to follow @lunarpages on Twitter!

Original post by Mitch

The free, user-friendly and open source shopping cart software, Zen Cart is perfect for any e-commerce web site hosted at Lunarpages.  With the thoughts of shop owners, programmers, designers and more in mind, Zen Cart is one of the best third-party shopping cart scripts out there.

You can easily install Zen Cart one of three ways.  We give the option to install manually, through LPCP’s WebApps page or cPanel’s Fantastico page.  The process is simple, straight forward and to the point.

If you need to see example of Zen Cart powered web sites, you can check out Zen Cart’s showcase page.  OpenSourceCMS.com also has a hosted demo of the shopping cart script on it’s web site.

Here are a few more Zen Cart tutorials that should come in handy:

• How to Move Your Zen Cart Install to Lunarpages
• How to Reset the Admin Password
• How Can I Upgrade Zen Cart Manually?

You can find more how-to articles in our web hosting wiki.  The third-party scripts and services section of the Lunarforums should also come in handy if you run into a problem.

November is Lunarpages Script Month!

Keep watching the Lunartics blog all throughout the month on November for even more third-party script suggestions, tutorials, tips and more.  You can also get tons of information and details about just a handful of the third-party scripts we support on the web hosting wiki.  We also have a special forum dedicated to third-party script discussions over at the Lunarforums.  Subscribe today to the Lunartics RSS feed for instant updates when we release a new script suggestion!

Related Tips and Tricks:

• SMF Web Hosting at Lunarpages
• PHPlist Hosting with Lunarpages
• Get bbPress Hosting at Lunarpages

© Lunarpages Web Hosting - Also, don′t forget to follow @lunarpages on Twitter!

Original post by Mitch

Possibly one of the best forum scripts out there to date, Simple Machines Forum, is more than welcome to be hosted here at Lunarpages, on many of our web hosting plans.   It is a free, professional grade software package that will have you setup with your own online community in just seconds. 

How to Install SMF? – Simple Machine Forum comes with both cPanel’s Fantastico and LPCP’s WebApps collections, respectfully.  You are also more than able to download the installation package from SMF’s official site, and install it yourself. 

• How to Install SMF Manually

Mods, Themes and Upgrades… oh my! – SMF, like many third party scripts we provide to you, comes ready, willing and able to handle a number of different plugins, or as they call them “modifications”.  These mods will add features, remove features and many more possibilities.  SMF is also no stranger to customized themes either.  You can browse through their directory of themes, or design your own.  The forum script is also very well written, and is kept up to date, as soon as a security (or any other) flaw arises. 

More SMF Tutorials and Help

Here are a few more SMF tutorials, tips and more we have collected:

• Simple Machine Forum FAQ
• How do I delete the Simple Machines logo on the default SMF theme?
• How do you add custom tabs to the Core (default) theme menu?
• Convert Current Forum Software to SMF
• What is repair_settings.php?

For more information, and help – be sure to check out the web hosting wiki.

Want to play with it, before you install it, yourself? Play with the demo that is hosted over at OpenSourceCMS.

November is Lunarpages Script Month!

Keep watching the Lunartics blog all throughout the month on November for even more third party script suggestions, tutorials, tips and more.  You can also get tons of information and details about just a handful of the third party scripts we support on the web hosting wiki.  We also have a special forum dedicated to third party script discussions over at the Lunarforums.  Subscribe today to the Lunartics RSS feed for instant updates when we release a new script suggestion!  

Related Tips and Tricks:

• WordPress Hosting at Lunarpages
• Vanilla Web Forum Hosting at Lunarpages
• Get bbPress Hosting at Lunarpages

© Lunarpages Web Hosting - Also, don’t forget to follow @lunarpages on Twitter!

Original post by Mitch

Lunarpages fully supports the lightweight and simple Vanilla forum script.  What is Vanilla?  It is an open-source, standards-compliant, multi-lingual, fully extensible discussion forum for the Web. 

While it is not supported via the cPanel’s Fantastico or LPCP’s WebApps manager, the script is simple enough for anybody to download, setup and install in minutes.  For more help on the install process, check out this quick guide I wrote up for the Lunarpages web hosting wiki.

Addons Galore – One of Vanilla’s big strengths is the fact that is supports a number of awesome addons to extend the script even further.  Via their addon page, you can check out a number of themes, plugins and applications available for your own Vanilla message board installation.

• Browse Through the Most Popular Addons for Vanilla!

Want to take the script out for a test drive?  Check out the demo features on OpenSourceCMS to take a look at both the front end and the back end of this fantastic forum script.

For more Vanilla support and help – be sure to check out:

• Vanilla Help, Tutorials and More on the Web Hosting Wiki

November is Lunarpages Script Month!

Keep watching the Lunartics blog all throughout the month on November for even more third party script suggestions, tutorials, tips and more.  You can also get tons of information and details about just a handful of the third party scripts we support on the web hosting wiki.  We also have a special forum dedicated to third party script discussions over at the Lunarforums.  Subscribe today to the Lunartics RSS feed for instant updates when we release a new script suggestion!  

Related Tips and Tricks:

• Web Hosting Forums Get a New Design
• Get bbPress Hosting at Lunarpages
• WordPress Hosting at Lunarpages

© Lunarpages Web Hosting - Also, don′t forget to follow @lunarpages on Twitter!

Original post by Mitch

Yesterday, we took a look at WordPress, so today I figured we would check out it’s message board (and less popular) brother from another mother, bbPress.  Forum software can often be slow, bloated and filled with holes – however bbPress is the total opposite.  It is focused around being easy to use, speedy, and compliant with all the web standards.

Just Like WordPress, for Message Boards…

The install process is pretty straight forward for anybody who has ever installed a basic script before.  You download, you configure, you install on your hosting account. Just like WordPress, it too comes with a number of plugins to extend the functionality and performance.

Here are just a handful of tutorials to help you get stated with bbPress:

• How to Install bbPress on Your Hosting Account
• Working with Themes and Templates in bbPress
• How to Integrate bbPress with WordPress

You can find more bbPress help on our web hosting wiki.

Want to try it out before you install?  Go try out the demo hosted over on OpenSourceCMS.  They’ll let you play with both the front end and the back end of the message board script.

Overall, if you are familiar with WordPress, and you are looking for a way to add forums to your web site hosted with Lunrapages, bbPress is worth checking out.  It might not be as feature rich as some of the other forum scripts out there, however it definitely gets the job done.

November is Lunarpages Script Month!

Keep watching the Lunartics blog all throughout the month on November for even more third party script suggestions, tutorials, tips and more.  You can also get tons of information and details about just a handful of the third party scripts we support on the web hosting wiki.  We also have a special forum dedicated to third party script discussions over at the Lunarforums.  Subscribe today to the Lunartics RSS feed for instant updates when we release a new script suggestion!  

Related Tips and Tricks:

• WordPress Hosting at Lunarpages
• Keep Your WordPress Plugins Up To Date
• Web Hosting Forums Get a New Design

&copy Lunarpages Web Hosting - Also, don’t forget to follow @lunarpages on Twitter!

Original post by Mitch

All this month, on the Lunartics blog, we are going to be highlighting some of our favorite third party scripts.  From image galleries to message boards, there will be a little something for everybody.  To get things started, I thought I would discuss with you why WordPress is my absolute favorite blogging script.

WordPress truly is a state-of-the-art publishing platform that is easy enough for anybody to use.  It focuses on aesthetics, web standards and real usability.  Also, since it is totally free to use, that makes it even better.

WordPress is Easy to Install

At Lunarpages, you can easily install WordPress via cPanel or the LPCP control panels, so that gives you instant access.  If you would rather install the script yourself, you can do that too using WordPress’s world famous five minute install.

The Extras for WordPress are Awesome

As far as extras go, you can not overlook the WordPress plugins and WordPress themes.

Plugins – You can bring up how great WordPress is, without mentioning the slew of plugins that have been developed for it.  You can easily install plugins from the WordPress administrator interface (after you have it installed) or browse though all the plugins available at WordPress Plugins Directory.

Themes – There are many themes you can choose from too.  The world greatest designers have really given it their all to provide you some great looking designs.  You can browse though many of them at the WordPress Theme Directory, or even build your own theme to use. 

For more assistance and help with WordPress, be sure to check out our web hosting wiki page dedicated to this great blogging script. 

• WordPress Help, Tutorials and Tips on the Web Hosting Wiki!

Also, try the WordPress demo over at OpenSourceCMS to play with the administrator interface.

November is Lunarpages Script Month!

Keep watching the Lunartics blog all throughout the month on November for even more third party script suggestions, tutorials, tips and more.  You can also get tons of information and details about just a handful of the third party scripts we support on the web hosting wiki.  We also have a special forum dedicated to third party script discussions over at the Lunarforums.  Subscribe today to the Lunartics RSS feed for instant updates when we release a new script suggestion!  

Related Tips and Tricks:

• Keep Your WordPress Plugins Up To Date
• Working with WordPress 2.7
• WordPress Theme Design Resources

&copy Lunarpages Web Hosting - Also, don’t forget to follow @lunarpages on Twitter!

Original post by Mitch

By Mitch “Hates Info-mercial Web Design” Keeler

Why is it that almost every eBook or “great money making deal” that you see out there is always based around a web page that looks like it was built back in 1995?  That is a question that has just plauged my mind forever.

As an act of public service - I am going to now donate my time to these poor saps and find them a few basic design tutorials that they can read and learn from (hopefully).

CSS Tinderbox

Web Designer Wall

Smashing Magazine

A List Apart

Digital Web

NETTUTS

woork

Know of anymore CSS or design magazine-style sites that we could send to the people who keep making these ugly eBook or “make money quick” sites?  Share the wealth!

&copy Lunarpages Web Hosting - Great web hosting with unlimited disk space and bandwith for only $4.95 per month? Check out the Winter Special!

Original post by Mitch

By Mitch “WordPress-er” Keeler

Comments are a very important part of your blog.  If you have a blog setup, you want to make sure you give your commenters a little something extra, to keep them coming back for more.&nbsp Here are ten great comment plugins for the WordPress publishing engine.

 WP Grins - WP Grins will provide clickable smilies for both the post form in the admin interface and the comments form of your blog.

 Akismet - Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not.

 GD Star Rating - Star Rating plugin allows you to set up rating system for pages, posts and comments in your blog.

&nbspAJAXed Wordpress - A highly customizable plugin to add AJAX to your blog. AWP uses AJAX to load posts inline, paginate posts, load and submit comments, and more.

 MyCaptcha - Allows you to display a captcha on your comment form to avoid spam.

 Subscribe to Comments - Subscribe to Comments allows commenters on an entry to subscribe to e-mail notifications for subsequent comments.

 WP Wall - “Wall” widget that appears in your blog’s side bar. Readers can add a quick comment about the blog as a whole, and the comment will appear in the side.

&nbspLive Comment Preview - Live Comment Preview is the simplest way to get live comment previews on your site. Simply activate the plugin — That’s it!

 Easy Gravatars - Add Gravatars to your comments without modifying any template files. Just activate, and you’re done!

 @ Reply - This plugin allows you to add Twitter-like @reply links to comments.

As an extra bonus, be sure to check out our contest themes too:

• Lunarpages WordPress Contest Themes - Series One
• Lunarpages WordPress Contest Themes - Series Two
• Lunarpages WordPress Contest Themes - Series Three
• Lunartics - Free WordPress Themes

Now maybe you shouldn’t add ALL of these plugins to WordPress, but pick out the ones you like and let us know how they work for you.  If you are looking for a great place to host your WordPress powered blog - the Lunarpages Basic hosting plan makes a perfect choice.

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

Original post by Mitch