The following FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) list is designed to answer many of the commonly asked questions about our services. After looking over this page and our Online Web Hosting Support section, if you have any further questions or would like to make changes to your account, please contact Technical Support.

Web Hosting Related Questions

Domain Name Related Questions

Microsoft FrontPage Related Questions

Unsolicited E-Mail ("Spam") Related Questions

What is virtual Web hosting?

We specialize in virtual Web hosting, which means that you can find a home for your Web site on our high performance Web servers and establish your presence on the Internet with your own unique domain name. This is a very intelligent and cost effective alternative to hosting your own web site internally. Our shared hosting environment gives you the benefits of high performance servers, high bandwidth connectivity that can seamlessly grow with your needs, pre-installed software, guaranteed reliability and around-the-clock support, all at a small fraction of the cost of doing it yourself.

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Do you offer dial-up internet access?

No. Local Internet access will be necessary to maintain your Web site and retrieve your e-mail. Because we provide only Web hosting, we do not have to maintain the hundreds of modems necessary to provide dial-up service. This allows us to specialize in Web hosting services, which means that we can provide you or your business with the most dynamic hosting environment available anywhere. We do recommend certain providers, and can assist with connecting your business to the Internet.

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Do you offer web page design services?

Yes, we do offer web page design services to assist customers with the design and coding of their web site.

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Can I upgrade or downgrade my account ?

Yes. You can upgrade or downgrade your account at any time. We will invoice you for the pro-rated monthly charges. No setup fee will apply for upgrading, but our standard setup fee would apply when downgrading plans. Please see our Hosting Support section for more information and instructions.

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Is __ GB per month of data transfer going to be enough to support my web site ?

Our experience has shown that the monthly data transfer limits will be far more than enough bandwidth for the average Web site at each plan level. Depending on the quantity and size of your files, this could support many thousand hits per month. Note that only a small percentage of our customers have ever exceeded our data transfer threshold. Should your needs grow, however, we have cost effective plans that are designed to grow with you. For example, most of our customers begin with our Shared Plus plan. Those whose sites have become quite popular have either upgraded to one of our Shared Signature plans or have upgraded to our VPS plans, which have much higher data transfer limits. A very small percentage of our customers with extremely popular sites have found it cost effective to upgrade to our Managed Private Server plans, which have high enough disk space, data transfer limits, and dedicated bandwidth to accommodate nearly all of our customers' needs.

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How do I transfer files to my Web site ?

Files can be transferred to the Web server via File Transport Protocol (FTP). If you need FTP software, you can download a program for either the PC or Mac. We recommend BulletProof FTP for Windows-based systems. An FTP tutorial is available for first-time users.

Microsoft FrontPage users should "publish" their sites to our server and should not use FTP, except for uploading CGI scripts or other ASCII files. The FrontPage extensions must be installed on a hosting account to use many FrontPage features, including publishing. If you did not ask to have the FrontPage extensions installed on your account when you opened your account, please contact our support department and we will be happy to install them for you at no charge.

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Will I have unlimited access to update my pages ?

You have unlimited access to your account via FTP or FrontPage 24 hours every day. As such, you can create and maintain your Web pages on your own computer and upload files to your Web site at your leisure and as often as you wish.

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Can I use my account for commercial purposes ?

Yes, you can use your account for commercial purposes. The World Wide Web has become a most efficient and cost-effective means of making information available to the users of the Internet community. Our Shared Hosting plans plans provide the features you would need to set up your own online commerce solutions, and in addition we offer several e-commerce hosting plans with built-in shopping cart software. We can also assist you with obtaining a credit card merchant account to accept credit cards.

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Can I resell space within my own account ?

Yes. You can resell space within your account. However, you will be responsible for its content and data transfer. It will not be possible to acquire multiple account passwords for FTP access or set up sub-directories of your domain to have their own domain names on our Shared Hosting accounts, but our Advanced Hosting plans allow for multiple web sites within one account.

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How long does it take to set up a new account ?

Most accounts are set up and active within one business day! Once an account is set up an activation notice will be sent you via e-mail including a userID, password, and other account information. You can begin uploading files to your new web site immediately thereafter. Domain account users will be given a temporary URL to access their site via the Web prior to the completion of either domain registration or transfer.

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Domain Name Related Questions

What is a domain name?

A domain name is essentially an address on the Internet that points to your plot of land (your web server). Regardless of how you select and arrange to pay for your web hosting, you need to pay an annual registration fee for your address so that everyone else knows how to find your web server. Currently this fee is $20 per year, payable every two years.

See our The ITS Connection Online article entitled, "Welcome to Internet Island" for more information.

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Can I check domain name availability?

Yes. You can check for an available domain name directly from our Web site.

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Will I be able to access my domain name with or without the 'www.'?

Yes, you will be able to access the domain name with or without the 'www.' in front. For example, you can access the domain name teamITS.com by typing in www.teamITS.com as well as teamITS.com.

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Do you handle domain registration?

Yes. We handle domain registrations directly for customers hosting their sites with ITS!

When an account is activated with a new domain name, we will automatically register the domain using the information provided on the order form. We typically complete the registration within 24 hours, and propagation (after which the rest of the world can see the new domain) typically takes about 48-72 hours.

Also, we can now transfer your existing domain registration from Network Solutions or another provider to ITS for hassle-free renewals and low pricing.

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What is a NIC handle?

Every entity registered with Network Solutions has a NIC handle. You can use the same NIC handle as the contact for several domains. This way, if you make a change to information for a NIC handle (i.e., the e-mail address), all domains using that NIC handle will be updated as well.

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Whom shall I contact regarding InterNIC billing?

You should contact ITS directly for domain names registered through us. Most domains ordered after March 1, 2000 were registered with ITS. Domains registered prior to this date were registered with Network Solutions.

Questions regarding Network Solutions billing should be referred to Network Solutions; likewise with other registrars.

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Can I host an existing domain name with ITS?

Yes. When you place your order via our online order form, be sure to specify that you are requesting a transfer and NOT a new domain. You should keep the service at your present provider while waiting for your domain name to transfer. We will provide you with a temporary IP address so you can mirror your site on our server prior to the transfer. All e-mail and Web pages will still be accessed from your current site.

Please note you will need to have your current registrar (the entity with whom the domain is registered) update the name server records for your domain name to use our name servers. This will cause the world to see that your domain now points to your new server.

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Can I transfer my domain name registration to ITS?

Yes, ITS can transfer our clients' .com, .net, .org, and .info domain name registrations from Network Solutions or another registrar to ITS! Please click here for more details. This is not required for ITS to host your site, but you may find that you will save money!

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How long does it take before my domain name is active?

Once your domain name has been registered (or transferred, if applicable), it usually takes about 48-72 hours before it visible to all users of the Internet. All Internet providers worldwide must update their records (DNS tables) to reflect new site locations. This process is called propagation.

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What is the annual fee for domain registration ?

If your domain is registered with ITS, we charge $20 per year to register a new domain name, payable every two years. To keep our prices low, we can only register domain names for accounts hosted with ITS.

Also note you can transfer your domain registration to ITS as well to take advantage of our lower prices.

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Microsoft FrontPage Related Questions

Answers to questions you may have about using Microsoft's FrontPage on our UNIX and Windows NT servers.

NOTE: For specific information on how to use the FrontPage software, please consult the program's documentation or Microsoft Technical Support.

Support for FrontPage

We support Microsoft FrontPage in several ways:

  • We configure your site for FrontPage by installing and maintaining the server extensions.
  • We provide Technical Support related to the functionality of the extensions.
  • We point FrontPage users to resources that will help you solve problems, publish your FrontPage webs and learn techniques for getting the most from your FrontPage software.

We DO NOT provide free technical support related to the use of your FrontPage software. User issues are referred to Microsoft's Technical Support Team, or you can contact ITS directly to have us work with you on an hourly basis.

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Server Extensions

FrontPage extensions are CGI programs that provide the server side implementation of FrontPage. FrontPage communicates with the extensions via HTTP using a Remote Procedure Call (RPC). When the server sees the "POST" request addressed to the FrontPage server extensions it simply directs the request to the appropriate CGI program. The extensions implement authoring (uploading/downloading documents, ToDo lists), administration (setting end-user, author, and administrator privileges), and dynamic content (browse-time WebBot components).

Without the FrontPage server extensions you will not be able to take advantage of the WebBots that are available through FrontPage. Also, without the extensions you cannot author and administer your web using the tools provided as part of the FrontPage package.

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What version of the FrontPage extensions are available?

We provide FrontPage 2002 server extensions on all servers. This version is backwards compatible with earlier versions of FrontPage.

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Getting the extensions installed

New Accounts

Check the box on the order form indicating that you want the FrontPage extensions. New domains that request the FrontPage extensions when the order is placed will have the extensions installed within two days of activation.

Existing Accounts

To have the FrontPage server extensions installed on your existing site, send an e-mail request to ITS Technical Support with the following information:

  • Your domain name
  • Your userID
  • Your request for FrontPage extensions.
  • Confirmation that you have back-up of any Web pages currently on the site.
    (In most cases it is not necessary to delete files currently on the site to install the extensions. However, if there are directories or files with special permissions (.htaccess) these will have to be removed. You can then re-establish permissions and password protection via the FrontPage interface by setting up child webs with passwords.)

On existing sites, the installation will generally be done within 24 hours.

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Charges

There is no charge for installing the server extensions. We will also reinstall corrupted extensions free of charge*.

*Note: There are certain precautions that MUST be taken when publishing and maintaining your site with FrontPage.

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Limitations

There are some issues that potential FrontPage users should consider:

  1. Web size -- This seems to be most critical when a "searchable event" is present in the web (Search, Discussion Forum and Table of Contents). The lengthy process of updating the indices for these functions can lead to the connection timing-out (HTTP 500 Error or 'Server has timed-out').
  2. Disk Usage -- You may create and publish as many child webs as your disk storage space allows. However, for each child web you publish, FrontPage duplicates certain information into indices and hidden files. This adds 'overhead,' increasing the storage space required for your files. Microsoft's documentation notes, "FrontPage's optional full-text search indexes can take up to the same amount of disk space as your textual content."
  3. PRECAUTIONS

    There are several precautions which need to be taken to protect the FrontPage extensions on your site if it is housed on our UNIX servers:

    a) Do NOT use the Edit Access or File Manager features found in your Control Panel to set passwords, limit access, set file permissions or delete directories or files in a FrontPage web. This should only be done through the options in FrontPage Explorer.

    b) Do NOT use regular FTP (such as WS_FTP) to upload files to the server when FrontPage extensions are installed. This may corrupt the extensions, disabling the interactive features available with FrontPage.

    NOTE: The exception to this is when loading custom scripts to the cgi-local directory on your site. Instructions for uploading custom CGI scripts are included in the notice you will receive when the extensions are installed.

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Bots

WebBots are the mechanism for invoking many of the interactive features built into FrontPage. These features are added to your web through the FrontPage Editor | Insert WebBot component.

Some, such as ''Include'' and ''Substitution'' allow elements of the web to be entered once and included in any or all of the pages by inserting the Bot component referencing that element (e.g., a logo or navigation bar). Changes made to the 'master' element are made automatically to any page containing the referencing Bot.

Other Bots, such as Search, Table of Contents and Timestamp, control dynamic browse-time features. These Bots work behind the scenes to keep the web up-to-date for visitors.

For more information on using the Bots, see the documentation provided with FrontPage or contact Microsoft Technical Support.

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Features

Since FrontPage was created for developing Web sites in the Windows environment, some features are only available when the site is hosted on a Windows server:

  • Active Server Pages
  • ODBC and MSSQL Database connections (Access, FoxPro)
  • ActiveX
  • VBScript
  • SSL (Secure Socket Layer) Forms Processing (using the WebBot Save Results component)*

*FrontPage sites hosted on the UNIX Servers may use SSL if the site has its own secure certificate.

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Other Resources

You may also find answers on many user issues at Microsoft's Web site, from newsgroups and, of course, in books on FrontPage.

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