Web Hosting

Question: How do I install scripts and software on my shared hosting account? Answer: A lot of that depends on the type of shared hosting account you have. If you have a Linux account, you should check with your provider to see what packages are available to you. Most will …

Spam is an ongoing problem with any email account, but many people with their own websites are suddenly placed in the position of needing to fight spam on their own. A good web host, however, will provide you with options that should make it pretty painless for you. When I …

After you register a domain, the Internet has to have a way to find your site. Most of the time, your web host will give you a pair of DNS servers to give to your registrar. The DNS servers show the world where your site is, much like a driveway …

Question: What Is .htaccess and How Do I Use It? Answer: Apache HTTP Server by default is controlled by a single configuration file. On many Linux distributions, the file is called httpd.conf or something similar. If you have a shared hosting account, however, you do not have access to an …

Search engines are the largest source of traffic for most websites, so it’s no surprise that webmasters want to rank as well on them as possible. Before good rankings can be obtained, however, first search portals need to find the site. The good thing is this usually happens automatically without …

Inevitably, there are times when you need to do troubleshooting of your web and email services, or you simply need to make sure all of your network services are operating correctly. For years, I have relied on one free service to handle most of my DNS needs. It is called …

Users of Redhat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) were probably accustomed to using a command called “up2date” to update and install security patches and new software releases on their servers. As many well know, however, RHEL is based on the Fedora code base, and Fedora never relied on up2date. Instead, Fedora uses …

The average data center technician is called to perform a number of duties. These include troubleshooting with customers, replacing system hardware, installing Linux kernel updates, and rebooting equipment. One system admin on Yahoo Answers, however, seems to have a much different view of this job: I am a night technician …

When friends ask me about signing up with a dedicated or shared web host, one question I am invariably asked is: “What’s the cheapest provider?” Frugality is an important virtue to master, but when it comes to web hosting, you get what you pay for. You may be tempted to …

Last April, Google hosted the Efficient Data Center Summit, where bigwigs from the largest IT companies showed up to share tips for reducing resource usage, learn from one another, and share hugs and kisses. The attendees gained all sorts of useful insight on how to make their data centers greener …