Primary name server:  ns0.nameit.net   (This is a zero, not a capital “O”)

Secondary name server:  ns1.nameit.net

Most people are already familiar with the idea of Shared Hosting or Dedicated Hosting. You have a standard plan with set features, most of which you can change without upgrading to another plan. Also you can’t simply upgrade or a single feature that you need to such as RAM and Storage Space as your business grows or shrinks, and you are often paying for more of  a specific feature than you really need.

Cloud Hosting solutions are “scalable” VPS (Virtual Private Servers) that allow you to only pay for what you feel you need. Much like minutes on a cellphone plan. You can move up or down in main features/specs and pricing as the needs of your business change.

For example if you need more Storage Space for your content or applications, but don’t have increased traffic or performance, why pay for an upgrade that includes those features? With Cloud Hosting you can simply pay for an increase in the Storage alone. You can do the same with any other feature (usually Processor Cores and RAM).

Cloud Hosting puts you in a dedicated server environment where you are in control of what you are getting and what you are paying for.

Operating System: CentOS 5.x

Web Server: Apache v2.2.x with mod_security (NEWEST VERSION)

PHP: 5.3.6 through 5.6.x

Perl: Perl v5.8.8

Sendmail: Sendmail v8.x

POP: qpopper v4.1.x

MySQL: Local MySQL Client API v3.23.47, and Remote MySQL Server 5.x

Mod_SSL: 2.2.x (NEWEST VERSION)

• Log into your SMT as the Reseller account.
• Click on ‘Web Services’
• Click on ‘Manage’
• Click on ‘Manage Account Quota’
• Select the domain name and click ‘Edit Quota’
• Simply change the value and click ‘Update’

• Log into your site via FTP.
• Go to the following directory, /www/conf.
• Make sure you are in ASCII mode.
• Open the httpd.conf file in edit mode.
• Locate the virtual host entry located near the bottom of the file.
• Example:
• ServerName domain.com
• ServerAlias domain.com www.domain.com
• ServerAdmin domain@domain.com
• DocumentRoot /usr/local/etc/httpd/htdocs/domaincom
• ErrorLog logs/domain.com-error_log
• TransferLog logs/domain.com-access_log
• Locate the line that says “Document Root”.
• In the example above, the domain name, domain.com, is pointed to the directory called domaincom inside the htdocs directory.
• Change domaincom to the folder name that you would like the virtual host to point to and change IPaddress to your server’s IP address.
• After you save the file, goto the following directory /usr/local/etc/httpd/htdocs
• Create the new directory inside htdocs and move all the contents from the old directory to the new one.

AIT DOES NOT recommend that you put database files outside of this directory, however based upon application needs, you may need to do so.  Below are the steps to perform this action, if necessary.

If the file is not in the standard /db folder, then you will need to follow the instructions below:

• Login to your SMT as a Webadmin.
• Click Additional Services on the left hand side.
• Click Manage.
• Click Manage ODBC DSN.
• Click Add DSN.
• Select the Driver type of Microsoft Access Driver.
• This interface will ask you to select the .mdb file in the /db folder. Do not select any files from the expanded list.  Just input the DSN name and the Description and click next.
• You will receive a success message and it will bring you back to a screen where you can see all DSNs created for the account (under DSN Manager).  Click the DSN name that you just created.
• Now, click on that the Browse button next to the File Path entry.  In this entry, you will see the file path show domain.com\db\.
• Navigate the entire directory path for this account and find the location of the .mdb file you want to add as the DSN.
• Go to the path of the .mdb file, select it, and click on the Select File button.
• Click the Update button.
• At this point, you should have successfully created a DSN for a file that is not in the /db directory.

To designate a site-wide default mail drop option is available on the Linux and Windows accounts through the SMT / cpanel.

Linux Fully Managed Accounts

1. Login to the SMT 5.0
2. Click ‘Mail Services’ on the left hand side.
3. Click on ‘Manage Email Forwarding’.
4. Click ‘Configure Default Mail Drop’.
5. Displayed will be a form that asks for the domain name that the default mail drop is specified, and the email where all default email should be redirected. This can be a POP account on the server, or an email address off of the server.
6. Click ‘Add Default Mail Drop’.

Windows Fully Managed Accounts

1. Login to the IMail Administrator, typically located at //mail.yourdomain.com:8383 as the ‘webadmin@yourdomain.com’ user.
2. Create a Standard Alias named “nobody” on your domain.
3. Point it to the e-mail address where you want any mail which is addressed to nonexistent users to be delivered.

Please note that these accounts should be cleared out routinely to minimize the amount of unnecessary space used.

As most of you probably know, Microsoft ended support for Microsoft FrontPage years ago.

The server side extensions and usability of the application led Microsoft to move to several other product offerings. AIT still provides support for Microsoft FrontPage extensions on both Windows and Linux fully managed platforms, however, it’s getting harder and harder to continue to support an application that Microsoft no longer supports. We’ve found that several customers are still using FrontPage and are looking for guidance on where to go from here. We’ve included a few options for you depending upon your budget, experience, and several other factors.

Free & Open Source Frontpage Alternatives

For the budget conscious, there are freeware content management applications such as WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal. While these are free applications, they do require some level of tech understanding. All of our fully managed Linux platforms support these content management systems. Once up and running, they are very easily portable for resellers to provide the content management side to their customers. Also, with thousands of free templates available, it’s a great place to start if you’re moving to a new platform from FrontPage. Applications such as WordPress, Joomla and the like are very developer-friendly and surprisingly have a very well-supported community. You can find YouTube videos on just about everything you need or wantto know, whichare a great resources to show your customers if they are going to be doing their own content management, enabling you to go out and develop more business. The base installation of these applications is only a start. The real advancements come when you find plugins that provide advanced features to your website(s). The plugins for these content management applications are more advanced and have a great deal of support. There are free and paid plugins that run the gamut from security plugins to ensure hackers can’t login to your installation to plugins that make your simple images AIT alsohas its own control panel SMT 6.0,which includes 1 click installations for these applications.

The downside of WordPress, Joomla and the like are that they require MySQL databases. Sometimes, this can be a showstopper. Most web designers who have never used applications like theseare concerned about the learning curve of using a database for content. There are potential issues with latency (if not managed well) and, if developers do not backup their database regularly, there are potential problems with losing data in the event of an upgrade gone wrong. AIT can assist with all of these issues. Our 24×7 support team hastons of experience with content management application installations, from testing/training to customer sites.

Desktop Application Frontpage Alternatives

For those wanting a client side application, similar to FrontPage, there are a few options. These applications are not free but offer similar or enhanced features as compared to FrontPage. There are Microsoft’s updated development applications including SharePoint Designer and Microsoft Web Expression, and don’t forget Adobe’s Dreamweaver application. All of these applications are robust, have great help manuals, and are all supported on all of AIT’s web hosting platforms. They are very well supported in their communities, and web designers and developers do use them a lot. Because they are commercial applications provided by Microsoft and Adobe, there are also classes available in most major metro areas. Classes are usually taught by technology firms, colleges, or universities. AIT’s subsidiary, AIT Acclaim, has classes available in our Fayetteville, NC, facility. Again, moving this direction will cost money, but it is a well supported option.

There are also other options available. These are only but a few, but they are ones that we’ve seen our customers use to help advance their business and move off of a legacy web development product. We hope we’ve provided some insight with regards to FrontPage and your options moving forward. Feel free to contact us.

I explained a few ways that he could resell the service including the option to get his discount through us and sell to the end user directly without including AIT’s name or product name in it at all. Email Marketer Pro has a feature of being white/private labeled, so he could even put his own logo on the product. But now the hard part came. Once he resold the product, how could he best construct emails that will ACTUALLY be read?

Getting Someone’s Attention via Email

I personally receive approximately 200 email solicitations every single day. From time to time, 1 or 2 of these 200 emails catch my eye. Sometimes that may be because our companyhas a need for a product or service, soeven if the relevant email is a simple plain text email, I will most likley pause and review it if itis well thought out and addresses a business need. I personally like getting HTML emails and images, as do most people (I think). I know there are some issues with this for some people, but, in most cases, they are not making large buying decisions for their companies. The emails that usually get my attention are vivid, contrasting colors with a specific attention grabbing title. If you do your market segmentation and targeting properly, you’re going to get 2% of the people you market to interested in the product or service you’re offering. Now, can you get them to execute on the call to action?

There is a Science to Email Marketing

Now the above paragraph may make it sound like it’s just so simple to market to people. Well, maybe not, but there is a science to marketing via email. Here’s some good pointers that ALWAYS should be followed:

• Have a call to action – Something like ‘Call 1-800-xxx-xxxx for a dealer near you’ or ‘click here to order’ or ‘use this promotion code’. People have to be told to do somethingimmediately. If you’re not telling them what to do next, then don’t waste your time sending out the email.
• Make the call to action entertaining – You have to develop something better than ‘click here’. Having a link is the first step, but sometimes you may need a video, give-away, or a redeemable coupon or key for a special gift (just to think of some simple ideas that I’ve seen personally). Anything entertaining for the reader. Don’t make it stagnant or boring.
• Using Bold or Enlarged Fonts – This grabs the reader’s attention but be careful not to overkill. You can go from getting someone’s attention to creating a sensory overload in a matter of 1 or 2 words. So keep boldor enlarged text to one main theme.
• Call to action outside of images as well – Because some people block images in their email programs or only want to receive text emails, it is a good idea to include the call to action in plain text as well.The images you use can have the call to action but make sureto include it within the plain text of your email.
• Double check your links – This is stupid simple, but I’ve seen this happen too many times in our own business to know. What isn’t getting double-checked is bound to hurt you.
• Track your results – There are systems which will tell you how many people received, opened, and read the email that you sent. Some will also tell you how many bounced. The Email Marketer Pro offering that we provide does all of the above. It will also tell you which individuals opened, read, and even forwarded your email. This is very valuable to be able to ‘re-market’ to them in the future.