CPanel features what does all this stuff do? Getting started.

This is the first in a series of posts on how best to use CPanel and the major features it offers, in plain english so it won’t be necessary to know any technical jargon for it to make sense. This series will assume that you are hosting with Hostmonster since they have one of the most straight forward installations of CPanel avalible most other hosting companies that have CPanel will work the same, if you don’t already have a host Host Monster is Highly recommended and can be found here. http://www.hostmonster.com/track/maxx777/[b2blog]
The first thing we will cover is getting into the Cpanel itself, then we will cover both setting up an email program in CPanel and then in a number of email programs like outlook, thunderbird (a free email client from the same company that brought you the free browser Firefox)
If you don’t need this much help, just so to the summary near the ens of this article, it will list the steps required and not explain things.
The first thing to do is go to hostmonster and enter your domain name and password, on the right side, then just click on control panel login. The next page you see is a page of 4 choices, cPanel hosting, Postini Anti-Spam filter, domains, and Common actions (we will cover these in a later article) for now we are going into cPanel hosting click the link that says Click Here to login to your yourdomain.com cPanel account. now it will log you in and a pop-up window will ask you if you need help. if you click yes, cPanel will ask you to choose a language, and then select from a drop down menu that lists, introduction to hosting, web disk setup, new email account setup, and webmail. for the sake of this tutorial click no thanks, and you will be taken to the main CPanel menu, in the fourth section down the first choice is email accounts, just click on that and pick out any email address you want and a password that you want for that account and click create, the system does the rest for you. now all you have to do is add the new email account to your email program and your’e all set! setting up the email client works pretty much the same on windows machines here are the things you will need to know.
Type Of Mail Server: POP or POP3
POP server: mail.yourdomain.com (for incoming mail)
POP username: (your full email address)
POP password: (the password that you selected when your account was setup)
Here are the settings that you’ll need to send email:
SMTP server: mail.yourdomain.com
SMTP username: (your full email address)
SMTP password: (the password that you selected when your account was setup)
For a Mac it’s as follows.
Step 1:
Open MacMail and click on Mail and choose Preferences.
Step 2:
Click on Add Account.
Step 3:
Type in your name, email address, pop3 and smtp settings, and the login info. For the username, use the complete email address.
Step 4:
Click Get Mail.

Here’s the summary for adding an email account. from any web browser.
1. go to hostmonster.com (or your webhost).
2. log in to your account.
3. log into CPanel.
4. click email accounts 4th section down.
5. enter the name you want to use for your new email account.
6. enter the password you want to use for that account.
7. click the Create button and you have set up an email account!
For instructions for setting up email clients for hostmonster account follow this link http://helpdesk.hostmonster.com/kb/index.php?mod_id=2&kb_keywords=email and follow the instructions for your particular email client, and if you have any questions, email us at
hosts@weryd.com

Domain Names Free Privacy – How to Protect Your Privacy When You Register a Domain Name

Are you worried about your privacy online when starting a website? You should be. When you register domain names – free privacy settings from your registrar can protect you from spam, prying eyes, or worse.

What’s the problem?

• You have to give your real contact information when you register a domain name. This includes your full name, mailing address, telephone number and email address.
• Your contact information is publicly listed as the contact for your domain name. Your name and personal information is published in the WHOIS database which can be searched by anybody using free web tools.
• Your contact information can be harvested by marketing companies for telemarketing and spam email.
• If you run a website that deals with controversial issues, your personal information is easily accessible to disgruntled visitors who want to take action.
• Worse case scenario - your contact information helps build an online picture of you for identity theft.

Don’t get us wrong. Listing contact information in the WHOIS database isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

• Law enforcement officials can use the information to fight crime.
• Consumers can use the contact information to fight fraud.
• Corporations can use the contact information to fight trademark infringement.

What’s the solution? Domain Name Privacy Registration.

Chances are you’re not doing something evil with your domain name. Free privacy options from your registrar can help protect your privacy.

• Instead of publishing your contact information in the WHOIS database, your registrar lists their company name, address, telephone numbers, and email.
• You still retain full rights and ownership of the domain name, but this way, your contact information isn’t obvious.
• A good registrar will offer free privacy when you register the domain name. Other companies can charge anywhere from an additional $6.99 per year and up.

What’s the catch? Domain name privacy isn’t perfect.

• You’re hiding your privacy behind your registrar’s contact information. Your privacy is only as strong as your registrar’s will to keep your contact information private.
• Domain Name Privacy will protect you from prying eyes and spam harvesting, but it won’t hide you from the law.

Life of a Webmaster: Managing Multiple Websites or Domains

Hello there fellow webmasters. I know how frustrating and tiring can be to manage multiple websites or domain names or client accounts so I decided to outline the most important parts of process. Remember, you are not alone. There are thousands of webmasters like you and me struggling to stay on top of their website maintenance and management.

Some of the most important task for a webmaster:

1. Website statistics:

You have to frequently check webpage statistics and take action depending on the statistics result. For example if the number of visitors decreased last month then you have to do something about it. Find out what went wrong, maybe. Also you have to often check bandwidth and space usage for every domain/website account. You may also want to check subdomains stats/usage too.

2. Login Details Maintenance:

Having a lot of websites/domains means that you have to deal with a lot of usernames and passwords. It’s not a good idea to stick with one password for all your websites or accounts. I hope you understand that. Keeping good track of all your website’s login details also helps when you want to access those websites via FTP. Setting FTP access and logging in to the servers can be frustrating.

3. Taking Backups:

If your web server does not support automatic back ups then it’s your responsibility to take copies of your website’s data. This is especially important when you have running databases (e.g. when you have a forum or portal). Taking frequent back ups can also help when you want to change servers.

4. Email Management:

Managing multiple domains and websites means a lot of email addresses. How do you deal with that? The smartest way to go through it, is by using email forwarding. I hope your server supports this feature since it is a common one. The idea is to redirect all email-messages from one e-mail address to another. That way, you can have a main email address and multiple other -redirect- email addresses. All messages will be redirected to your main email address.

5. Client Management:

A lot of webmasters, apart from owing websites, they also offer webhosting services to people. Everyone is tempted to make some extra cash this way. I only host websites for people i personally know. Anyway, if you have some clients you have to keep track of their domain and webhosting accounts.

Here are some issues that may arise:

- Domain expiry issues

- Account bandwidth limit reached issue

- Name server management issues

- Client support issues (online, phone etc)

- Finances

and more.. It takes a lot of time and effort to deal with all that!

6. Website/Domain Management Software:

If you use WHM/CPanel control panels you have a lot of control over your accounts. I’ve tried lots of control panels and they all offer more or less the same level of control but I stick to WHM/CPanel. Now, there’s software based on these control panels that helps you automate webmaster tasks and manage multiple websites and accounts even if they reside in different servers.

If you search for -Domain Management Software- or -Website Management Software- you’ll get millions of results. This software is supposed to automate your life and streamline your business even further. Webmaster tasks like:

- mass nameserver management

- mass account creation

- mass subdomain creation

- multiple FTP uploading

- mass chmod commands

can be applied to multiple websites on the same time and maintained through one central location. Choosing the right domain/website management software can be tricky. Be careful when messing with that. It depends on your experience level and your way of thinking so choose wisely. You must know what you are doing. For example, you may not have many websites and feel that you don’t need such management software.

There are a lot more issues and tasks that a webmaster is responsible for. I just thought of mentioning some of the most important and time consuming tasks for the average webmaster.