| FAQ's | |
| What is a web site? | A web site is your opportunity to be seen on the World Wide Web. It is a physical space on a computer (web server) that is connected to the internet. Your web site is where you store your web pages that make up the content of information about your business or organization. Through the domain name (URL), such as your_name.com, anyone can access your site and learn about you. Whether your site is strictly information based, or complete with online ordering features for your product, visitors will have access to you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If you have a business, you can use the internet to approach consumers you might not be able to reach through conventional advertising and media vehicles. The World Wide Web is your link to worldwide exposure. It is important to remember that if you intend to have your site accessible 24/7, it is wise to host it with a company that dedicates all of its bandwidth to hosting. ODE is such a company. Our network is not bogged down by users trying to access the Internet, rather we are dedicated to serving up your content and providing you with all of the special features you need to professionally host your site. |
| Why do I need a web site? |
E-mail. Internet e-mail is an excellent means of communication with tremendous cost savings. With your company's online image at stake, you should make sure your e-mail address includes your company name (yourname@yourbusiness.com ). Names, such as brian@hotmail.com, appear unprofessional and may damage sales. The domain name, and with that your e-mail address, is very much the storefront of business today. All of our hosting packages offer e-mail addresses. Reserve your domain name before it is taken by someone else! Web Pages. Cost managers are usually shocked by the amount of material that can be distributed over the Internet to millions of people at minimal cost. Not to mention the fact that the content can be dynamically altered and redistributed without incurring additional fees. Compare that to the latest release of your most recent four-color brochure or catalog! Information Retrieval. ODE is committed to making sure your site has all of the right programming and database tools so that your company's information can be presented in the form you desire. If you have not yet hired a developer, our business solutions team is committed to finding secure answers to your complex information issues, whatever they may be. Successful companies use web-based business solutions for:
E-Commerce is rapidly growing as a way to conduct business effectively and efficiently by minimizing delay through geographic distances and time restrictions. Internet commerce is expected to reach a volume of $800 billion by 2002, and soon every business will be affected by it. At ODE, we have packages that enable you to partake in e-commerce. We give you the ability to set up a shopping cart on your site, in less than 30 minutes! We also offer Secure Server ability, as well as CyberCash. Don't be left behind - sign up today! |
| What's a domain name? | A domain name is your address on the World Wide Web. With your company's online image at stake, you should make sure your domain name includes your company name (www.yourbusiness.com ). Then, your e-mail address will also be specific to your company. Names, such as brian@yahoo.com, appear unprofessional and may damage sales. Your potential clients may assume that your company isn't established if it doesn't have its own domain name. The domain name is very much the storefront of business today. There are tens of thousands of domain names registered every day with over 4 million already reserved. Reserve your name before it becomes the property of someone else. |
| How do I transfer my site to ODE? |
These are the basic steps:
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| Can I pay with credit card or do I need to issue a check? | Either is fine. However, if you pay by check you must pay either semi-annual or annual. If you are a Reseller you must pay by credit card in a monthly billing cycle. |
| When you say annually, do you mean pay you all the money up front, or pay monthly for one year? | You must pay the full year at once, if you choose the annual contract. |
| What steps do I need to take to set-up a virtual domain at ODE? | Simply signup with us by filling out a our online order form. |
| What is the time needed to make space on your server available? | Space will be made available the same business day! Once an account is set-up an activation notice will be sent to you via e-mail including your user-ID, password, and your IP address. |
| Do you offer dial-up Internet access? | No, you will need local Internet access in order to maintain your website and retrieve e-mail addressed to your site. |
| Does ODE support Macintosh systems? | Sure. You can use the Fetch program to transfer files from your Mac to our system. You can also use Telnet and the POP e-mail programs like Eudora, Claris E-mail and Netscape Mail. |
| Whom can I contact by phone or e-mail if further questions come up? | The easiest is to respond to our address: sales@odenet.net. |
| Are your servers connected 24 hours a day, 7 days a week? If not, when and why are they disconnected? | Yes. They are always connected and always monitored. |
| What web server do your servers run? (Apache, Netscape, or...?) | Apache 1.3.6 |
| What are your server types: NT? UNIX? Both? Other? | We use UNIX. |
| What do Autoresponders do and are they included? | An autoresponder is similar to an alias, but it also will send an automatic reply back to the sender. |
| What programs can be used to access e-mail (pine, elm, Netscape mail, etc.)? | All POP clients can be used -any program which downloads the files from our server onto your computer. You can use mail user agents which run on our servers (such as pine), with a special configuration. You cannot use IMAP programs. |
| Can I access my domain address with or without the "www"? | Yes, you will be able to access the domain address with or without the "www" in front of the domain name. |
| What is an email alias and is it unlimited? | An e-mail alias means if you send mail to webmaster@odenet.net, that address is aliased to whomever needs to receive it. It can be one person or multiple people, however you need it structured. It is unlimited - get as many as you need for no extra charge! |
| Do you have a database system? Cold Fusion? mSQL? Other? | We use mySQL. |
| Do you have FTP and FTP Anonymous access? | Yes, we provide both FTP and FTP Anonymous Access with certain account Packages. |
| Do you have a limit on the FTP transfer? | No. There is no limit. You can update your pages an unlimited amount of times, at any time you wish. |
| Do you use Netscape's SSL technology? | We use Apache-SSL which is several times more secure than Netscape SSL. |
| Are your virtual servers able to work with old and text-mode browsers such as Lynx, or will users with those browsers not find our index.html when putting in only www.ourdomain.com (in other words, are they truly virtual)? | They are truly virtual - you get your very own IP address on the web server. They will work with Lynx. |
| I would like to know if you support VRML 1.0 and 2.0 mime types wrl and mus? | We support these. You can set your own MIME Types with your .htaccess file. |
| Does each virtual server have its own log files? | Yes. You have your own Log Files . |
| Do you provide a CGI-BIN personal directory? | Yes, a CGI-BIN is provided with certain Account packages. |
| What is CGI access? | CGI scripts (Common Gateway interface) are used to provide things like counters, form responses, guest books, and many other things. ODE gives you full CGI access for no extra charge! You can write your own scripts, install someone else's, or use one of our preinstalled CGI scripts. |
| Which languages are supported in CGI (e.g. Bourne shell, Perl, Java)? | Bourne, Shell, and Perl are all supported and available. ODE does not offer Java support at this time. |
| How can I manage my e-mail users (add/remove/update). How can I setup mail redirection for my users? | To add or delete POP boxes, use the Mail Manager at http://yourdomain.com/menu You redirect mail by editing the address, un-forwarding to the POP box (which deletes it if that's the only reference to it) and forwarding to whatever email address you desire. |
| Do you charge additional fees for hosting a secure web site? | No. It is a free standard feature. |
| Can I set up forms for secure transmission? | Yes. There is no extra charge. |
| What cgi scripts are preinstalled? | pgpmail.pl, formmail.pl and count.cgi |
| Does ODE offer SSI? | SSI is on all of our servers. You just need to be sure that you call yourÊfiles with the .shtml extension. |
| What version of Perl does ODE use? | 5.00404 |
| Can we set up password protected areas with .htaccess? | Yes you can. You can do this through your control panel. |
| May I promote my ODE web site with bulk email? | Spamming is in violation of our service agreement. There are legal and ethical issues involved in mass mailing of unsolicited email. Any user of our services who has sent a large number of unsolicited email will have their account closed within 24 hours. A pro-rata share of their current contract will be refunded. |
| Do you host foreign domains? | Yes we host all types of domains foreign and domestic. |
| Do ODE servers support IMAP? | Our servers are not configured to be able to support IMAP. IMAP is possible, however, for only the main username of the account. We cannot provide any support other than turning on your access to IMAP. If you would like this, please let us know where you connect from and we will make an ftp connection to the server. We have to open a port for the location/s that you can connect to the server from. |