Archive for January, 2010

Generally, it’s a rather handy feature to have Outlook suggest email addresses as you type but have you accidentally added an email that was spelled wrong or that you’ve emailed once and it always appears? Deleting that email address is easier than you think! So easy, it’s almost not worth mentioning how to do it, but we know that it will be of interest to a few of you which changes everything and definitely makes it worthy of a mention!

Start to type the email address in a new message, when it appears, scroll to the email address so that it is highlighted and hit the “Delete” button on your keyboard. It’s that easy!!

We are noticing more and more that people are having difficulties setting up their email accounts in popular mail clients such as Microsoft Outlook, Entourage, and Mail.

We have just added new online documentation complete with screenshots to assist you in set-up process (if you have Outlook 2007, we’ve created a YouTube video to help you!). If you are still having difficulty, give us a ring. As one of the services that we provide, we configure and test email accounts remotely for $30/computer. But be sure to check out the pdfs that we have created for you as it’s a free, excellent resource to refer to!

Keep your antivirus up to date – a good free one is Avast, many also like AVGDon’t click on unexpected email attachments

Use openDNS to block phishing sites

Update your internet browser to the latest version

Use Firefox to browse sites – there are many addons that can help protect your computer such as a NoScript which blocks 3rd party websites

Microsoft Word, we all love it and use it, right? So when we need to add new text to our website, we type it up in Word and then cut and paste it from Word because it’s quick, therefore it must be the best, right? WRONG! Word will destroy your website. We figured it’s worth mentioning because so many people use it unknowingly! If at all possible, refrain from pasting text directly from MS Word into your website.

Microsoft adds excess code behind the scenes that can wreak havoc on your website (and you can spend hours frustrated because your formatting is not working properly not to mention the HTML becomes very messy). A better solution is to use a text editor such as Notepad, Wordpad, or TextEdit (on Mac) to copy/paste the text into your website.

On a PC, navigate to your Desktop (the Desktop is on your computer where you may have a nice background picture and various icons such as My Documents, Recycle Bin on your computer), right click on the Desktop -> click New -> Text Document

On a Mac, go to Finder -> Applications -> TextEdit

Paste the text into the text editor and then cut/paste the text again into your website.

There have been spam emails that are circulating with regards to domain names and the .cn extension. A .cn extension is similar to the .au extension at the end of a domain name only instead of Australia, it is the country extension for China. Recipients of the email are instructed to act right away as this is the “final contact” as such to acquire the extension.

Now, unless your target market is extending to China and a need for Chinese presence is important, you can safely ignore these emails. If you have registered your domain with us, we will be the only company contacting you. We, too, have received this very email and want to keep our customers informed that this rather obscure marketing by instilling fear is a hoax.

Do not be fooled by these email attempts to lure you into purchasing something that you do not want/need!

Google is the top ranking search engine by miles and miles (or kilometers and kilometers!). According to Hitwise, last month (August 2008), they accounted for 71% of all web searches in the US. Next up is Yahoo! in a very distant second place with 18%, and bringing in the bronze is MSN with 5%. As such, everyone and I do mean EVERYONE, wants to know how they can appear on Google. First things first. Getting recognized on Google takes time and a fair amount of effort (just getting a domain name i.e. whitedoggreenfrog.com and a hosting package is not enough). We get a LOT of phone calls saying “I typed my name in the search but I don’t show up.” There is not one specific thing that can be done to improve your ranking. SEO (Search Engine Optimization – the industry term) is a synergistic effort of a lot of different factors that when accomplished methodically, can make a huge impact on your site’s ranking, here are just a few:

1.  Google has what are called “robots” that periodically navigate and index sites. These robots will track your site at least once a month but often times a couple of times per month.

2.  The more unique your product is, the better chance you have of standing out from the rest of the competition

3.  Google is king? Well so are links! You must, I repeat, you MUST get links to your site to have a fighting chance for a decent ranking on Google. A 3rd party vouching for you and stating that you are who you say you are is huge. It’s one thing to claim that whitedoggreenfrog.com is a web hosting company but when others are also putting links to their site stating that White Dog Green Frog is a web hosting company, Google takes notice.

4.  Google assigns a measure called “Page ranking” which is also an important factor to consider when looking for links. It is preferable to acquire links from sites with higher page rank (eg: Microsoft has a page rank of 9, White Dog has a page rank of 5 – we used to be 3 and over the span of 2 years with minimal effort, we’ve reached 5). Some sites don’t have a page rank, you’re better off expending your energy on sites with higher ranks than those wit none at all.

5.  Google Australia takes into account those that are hosted locally (in Australia – eg: with our AU hosting packages) and those sites with .com.au domains and will generally rank these sites higher.

It is important to note that SEO is a major endeavor and certainly does not happen overnight (Google takes a while to trust changes to avoid spammers). Big companies that are serious about SEO pay $600 per month for a year as it takes a valiant effort to not only achieve a respectable Google ranking, but also to stay there! A vast injection of SEO services is a good start but there is a bit of systematic work that you will need to perform to stay there. If you’re interested in SEO services for your site, give us a call. For some businesses, SEO can make a real difference. There’s a lot more to it than we can cover here. We provide varying SEO services ranging from a status evaluation, call us for more info.

Most of you probably don’t think about backing up your website, until it’s too late… We pride ourselves on being infallable with our service however there are times when the existential forces line up against you and the Hurricane Katrina of web hosting occurs (once we had 3, yes three!, hard drives fail). So in an effort to be proactive, here is a brief tutorial on how to backup your site with cPanel:

cPanel:
Files – Backup Wizard – Backup – Full Backup – Generate Backup
Once the backup is complete, be sure to download the file to your computer and delete from the server to keep your disk space usage down.

***After creating a backup, be sure to download and save the file onto your computer and delete off of the server to minimize disk space usage.***?

We take pride in the fact that our customer service and desire to empower our customers is what sets us apart from our competition. You have a wide variety of hosting companies and domain registrars to choose from but you’ve chosen us and here’s why:

When you call us, we actively seek out your needs and provide you with the options to best suit your needs and provide you with the knowledge to get started (we understand that ‘technology’ can be daunting and we try to make it as simple as possible because we know that not everyone is Bill Gates or Steve Jobs (not to worry if you don’t know who they are!).

We see the difference everyday when we deal with customers that are (for example) transferring their domain from their previous provider to us. We have spent two weeks trying to deal with a company that have outsourced their services to another country and hours were lost trying to rectify a situation that we can get done in a few hours. Our idea of customer service is not an answering service that says “leave a message and we’ll get back to you” only to receive the call back 2 1/2 weeks later (NOT an exaggeration!).

We realize that “live customer chats” are not a proper alternative to a live person that can promptly and efficiently provide solutions as opposed to “we’ll send an email to the appropriate department.” Anyone who answers the phone has the ability to assess your needs and if we are unable to resolve the solution immediately on the phone, you receive a call back before the end of the day explaining the cause of the delay and what had been done to fix the problem.

We keep 12+ backups of your data. We’ve proactively found and patched a Joomla! hole to ensure sites are secure.

That is the White Dog Difference and we are proud of it and hope that you are too!