So you have your website up and running. It’s receiving a decent amount of traffic and your business is beginning to expand. You’ve left the contact info and are beginning to have your private email filled with business related matters. Now, you want to create an email through and connected to your business’ domain name. Gmail and YahooMail are great for private matters but it can be overwhelming when business and pleasure, as far as email is concerned, collide.

To create an email through your business’ website, log into your control panel and search for the “Email Setup” button. You can than choose the kind of email you want to have (i.e. “Add new POP3”). Post Office Protocol 3 (POP3) is the most common and frequently used kind of email, allowing the messages sent to you to be transferred onto your computer and be seen when you log into your account. Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) lets you work with messages without downloading them to your computer. Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is used to send and receive messages in both the POP3 and IMAP email options. Use POP3, create a user name and password, and save your info. Be sure to send a test email to your new address to make sure you’ve done it correctly.

Any questions or concerns, feel free to contact our 24/7 email tech support: support@webii.net.

The ability to stay connected is more important than ever in this digital age, and having the ability to access your emails on mobile devices such as your Iphone or Ipad, has become essential for conducting business while out of the office.

Though it is a useful resource, if you don’t know how to configure your email settings on your Ipad or Iphone, then that leaves you without a very valuable weapon in your business arsenal.

Fortunately for you,  WEBii offer both video and screen shot tutorials for how to configure your Idevices to receive emails from your WEBii email accounts.

You can check out our Ipad tutorial video, as well as our other webtutorials by clicking here.

Our support page also offers screen shots to go along with the video tutorial and you can view them here.

We hope that this helps, and if you need further assistance, we are always happy to help.

So who do I call for what type of tech issue?

As a web hosting company, our tech support staff has had a fair share of calls about all sorts of IT problems outside of our control – but we understand.  A good business owner just needs good information, and they need a good network of people to rely on for various issues that challenge them.   You can’t expect the owner of a restaurant to learn the ins and outs of server technology.

What a Web Host Is Responsible For

Your web host is providing you with server space and resources to store your website and allow it to be accessible via the Internet.  On a typical shared web hosting plan, your website is hosted on a server along with several other websites, and you are sharing resources with those other customers.  Your web host’s staff monitor the health of their server and network, and you save money by not needing to purchase a sophisticated data center and servers, and by not needing to hire an IT manager to maintain that server.

If there is a problem with the server or network that your web host operates, you will contact them for support.

What a Web Developer Is Responsible For

Your web developer is the web design/programming professional who built your website.  They can help you to maintain features in the website, and troubleshoot problems with coding errors.  In some cases, they team up with other graphic designers, database programmers, or marketing professionals to turn around your complete website project.

If there is a coding error with your website or its back-end software, you should usually talk to your web developer.

When a Website is Hacked

There are 2 ways that a “hacker” or their abusive program can possibly compromise your website:

1. They could get in through a vulnerability in your website’s code.

2. They could get in through a vulnerability/infection on the server where your website is hosted.

In our experience over the last 15 years, number 1 is the most common.  Number 2 tends to be more likely for servers running Windows, since so many viruses and malware issues target the Windows platform (WEBii uses mostly Unix servers).  They are also more likely to happen to a web host who does not have a good security protocol in place, such as the reliable intrusion detection systems and firewalls at WEBii.

If your website breaks because of a problem with the software you are using or a coding error, you should consult your webmaster or web developer first to troubleshoot the issue.  They will be more familiar with the make-up of your website and where to look for causes and solutions.

If your web host’s server has been compromised by an infection, it would then be their responsibility to investigate and resolve that.

Local IT Problems

Sometimes issues can also happen to your local computer systems, email programs, and related software at your office.  We may help you to troubleshoot an email issue and realize that something has disturbed your actual email program on that computer, rather than our email server.  When you do not have a full time IT manager to rely on at your office, it is a great idea to hire a professional Managed IT Services company.  These firms usually handle everything from streamlining your office network to cleaning up viruses on your computers and troubleshooting computer problems.

Beyond the Basics

There are even more special scenarios we have dealt with that can throw an extra wrench in a technical question.  But your peace of mind comes in knowing that it is possible to solve your tech problems, when you establish a solid network of professionals in a variety of technical areas.

We often include a link to a business owner’s Facebook fan page (local business Facebook Pages) on their website, so they can encourage their visitors to “subscribe” to current updates and create a comradery between their business and its customers.

But what if someone clicks on the Facebook link on your website and they are met with nothing but a login page?  They can’t peek inside the Wall a bit and check you out a little first? This is a common problem created by permission settings in your Facebook account.

Here’s what to do:

Login to your administrative Facebook account (the personal account of one of the admins) and visit your Facebook Page.

Click the Edit Page button on the right.

Under Manage Permissions, there is an option for Countries.  People often enter their home country or their customer’s countries in this box, but that will cause problems.  If someone is not currently logged into Facebook, Facebook does not have an immediate way to identify their country so it will force them to login first before they are allowed to view your Page.  Remove any countries listed here, and just leave the Countries box blank.  (Unless you do want to restrict certain countries from seeing your Page at all.)

With that setting adjusted, your Facebook page will be viewable publicly, even to visitors who are not yet logged into Facebook.  They will be prompted to login when they decide to “like” your page.

Find WEBii on Facebook too! Become one of our special fans.

In a default Magento setup with a basic theme, Magento includes an option to “Checkout with Multiple Addresses”.  This is styled as a plain-Jane blue link (no offense, Jane).  Especially if you turn off One-page checkout (and only want to use multi-checkout), this link remains bland and unnoticeable.  No more bright orange Checkout button.

Styling this link is quite easy with a little CSS.

Add the following style class to your stylesheet (in your theme):

.cart .totals .checkout-types li {/*my awesome styles go in here*/ }

In one Magento Setup, I created a graphic button background similar to that “big orange checkout button” and included it in this style class.  (Of course you would only want to do this if you are not using one-page checkout, because then you just have 2 duplicate looking buttons on top of each other.) If preferred, you can include the text label on your button graphic and disguise the default text label (which is quite long) with your CSS.

A simple dress-up without modifying any core Magento files.

Magento is one of the many feature-rich shopping cart softwares that WEBii works with to develop customized e-commerce websites for small and medium-sized businesses.  Learn more about our e-commerce services.

You open your Inbox and bob excitedly in your seat – you have new messages in your Twitter account!

But wait – do not click on that link.

Yes, this is yet another disappointing scam email.  It’s not really from Twitter.  It’s not really a nice message about how amazing your tweets are.  It’s someone who wants you to click on a link to spur some type of negative consequence.

For safety, delete the suspicious “Twitter” email notice, and just visit your Twitter page directly in a web browser.  If you truly have messages and re-tweets waiting for you, they will be there.

Did you recently get an email about a “dispute” for your “trademarked domain” in another top level domain?

I have seen a lot of these types of notices received by our customers, boldly urging the owner of a .com domain about the “pending purchase” of a similar domain with another country’s extension – such as “mycompanyname.cn” (a China extension).  The verbiage is a bit sneaky, sounding as if someone is just on the edge of buying your domain if you don’t do something quick!

Be wary of these – they are scams.  Most likely, no one is on the verge of buying your domain name.  In fact, you probably have no interest in owning a domain name that is located in another country where you may not even do any business. A couple of my customers did attempt to reply to the message asking for more information, only to receive a more urgent and stern reply (in a threatening tone).  My recommendation is to ignore the email and delete it.

The trend of late is a revisit from “your account has been updated” emails.  These emails may be phrased to tell you that a recent security patch has been applied to your email service or website, or something similar.  Then you will be asked to open an attached file to remedy the problem or officially apply the “security” fix.  Beware – and definitely hesitate – before opening any attachment.

In most cases, your web hosting or email hosting provider will never ask you to open a file to deal with any sort of technical support issue.  If you are unsure, simply pick up the phone and call your tech support team, or email them directly in a fresh email message (not a reply to or forward of that suspicious message).  If you enjoy WEBii.net service, these emails are absolutely NOT from us – we will never ask you to open a file to address anything with your email services.

This is a recycled tactic used by hackers and spammers to gain some sort of control over your computer or your information.  The file is most likely a malicious software.  The message may even say it is “from” your own website domain.

A good rule of thumb is to only open attachments that you are expecting from parties that you know.

Sometimes a little bit of javascript is necessary to control certain features in a website, such as a simple slideshow element on a page, which was a better choice over the heavy Flash animation.  But as organic SEO becomes more prominent, we must learn to minimize the presence of javascript among our web page code, and strive for “clean” search-engine-friendly code.

Instead of including your javascript directly on the web page, link to it as a source.

In the head of the page, create the script tag, but instead of including the script code within the container of the script tags, link to an external javascript file.  For best organization, store your javascript file in a /js folder (or /scripts or something similar).  Your linked tag will appear in this format:

<script language=”javascript” src=”js/filename.js” /></script>

Now, as your page code is read, this is referenced on one line and the search engines (or other resources) do not need to wade through a long javascript to get to the important meat of your website – the content.

Are you asking yourself “Is my website down?”

There are many, many different things that can cause a connection error between between you and your website. Just because you can’t load your website, it doesn’t mean that your web hosting server is actually down.

If your web browser is displaying a connection error, try these things before calling your web hosting company:

1) Try connecting to a different website, and refreshing the page.

If you can load the other website correctly, skip to step 2. If not, you have a general internet connection issue, and should contact your internet service provider.

2) Check your domain name registration: www.whois.net

If your WHOIS record shows that your domain name registration is expired, you simply need to renew your registration with your Domain Name registrar, and your website will be back up shortly. If your domain name registration is NOT expired, skip to step 3.

3) Try connecting using your website’s IP address.

If it works, something is wrong with the DNS for your website. You will need to contact your Web Host and let them know that your Domain Name is not resolving correctly.

If you still cannot connect to your website, even using the IP address, you might be blocked by your hosting company’s firewall, and you will need to contact them.

The best way to tell if your website is actually down, or if your issue is specific to your network, computer, or web browser, is to have someone that is connected to the internet from a different network attempt to visit your website. If no one is available, you can visit your website via a proxy server. Connecting to your website via a proxy website will simulate connecting from a network outside your own.

Here is a link to a popular free proxy site:
www.megaproxy.com

If someone from a different network can connect to your website, then your website is functional, but there is a connection issue caused by either your network, computer, or browser. Your hosting company’s firewall might be preventing your computer from accessing their servers as well, so you should give them a quick call and let them know what is going on.