MINNESOTA MICRONET FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS: WEBSITES If you don't find the answer to your question here, send E-mail to help@mm.com or call (651) 681-8018 (9am-5pm M-F). If you need to call outside our regular business hours, please leave a message.   Home   Technical Support   Services & Rates   Access Numbers   General Server Settings   Contact Us   SETUP GUIDES     -DSL     -Dial Up     -E-mail     -Web Browsers     -Website Publishing WEBSITES FAQ How do I create my own personal home page? How do I create a home page for my business? Will you help me with my HTML? Do you develop Web pages for customers? How much storage do I have for my Webpage? Is my Website backed up to tape? Can I run my own CGI? Can I put a form on my Webpage? Can I setup a guestbook? Can I setup a database? How do I get my Website listed on the search engines? Do you support Microsoft Front Page Extensions? Do you provide Website statistics? Can I have password access to my Webpages? Does your Web server support secure transactions? I'm getting 'File not Found' error on my Website. Why don't changes to my Webpage show up? Can I install a shopping cart? How do I create my own personal home page? How do I create a home page for my business? Follow this link for step by step details. Will you help me with my HTML? No, we do not provide assistance with learning HTML. There are plenty of books and online information about HTML. Do you develop Web pages for customers? Occasionally. And if it's a project we can't take on, ask and we will refer you to a number of Web page developers. However, if you already have a Web page that needs updates or additions, revisions, new graphics, etc., yes, we do Website maintenance. E-mail or call 651-681-8018 for information. How much storage do I have for my Webpage? Depends on your account. Personal and regular business Website are 5MB. Virtual host Websites are 100MB. Extra commercial Webspace is available for $10/month for 100MB. Is my Website backed up to tape? Yes. We run a full backup at least once per week. But it's always a good idea to have a backup of your own, just in case. Can I run my own CGI? Yes, if you have a Virtual Host Website -- you can run your own CGI in your own CGI bin, or you can use our shared standard CGI programs. If you don't have a Virtual Host Website, you may use the standard CGI programs we have installed. We have CGI for converting form input to an E-mail message, create an image map or do a mailto. Can I put a form on my Webpage? Yes. We have a CGI program called cgiemail that will convert your form to an E-mail message. Some customers use this to create a guestbook. Detailed instructions on how to use this script can be found here. You can even create a form with Front Page and with a minor edit to the HTML, have Front Page use CGI. Instructions on how to do this can be found here. Can I setup a guestbook? Sort of. You can't install one of the popular guestbook CGI programs but you can use cgiemail to collect guestbook-like information. Can I setup a database? Yes, you can use MySQL database package. There is no extra charge for a small- to medium-sized database. There is an extra charge for a large database. How do I get my Website listed on the search engines? Number one: make sure that the meta tags, keywords and descriptions in the html for your Web pages contain the info you want people to be able to search on when using a search engine to find your Website. Number two: Register your Website with appropriate search engines. Some search engines require that you submit the information to them. Some search the Web and catalog the information; you do NOT submit the information to them. For search engines that let you submit the info to them, make sure the info you supply is the info you want people to be able to search on. Some search engines charge a fee when you submit your information to them. Others only charge a fee to speed up the submission process. Appropriately announcing your pages is your responsibility. Do you support Microsoft Front Page Extensions? Yes, we do support Microsoft Front Page. If you want Front Page Server Extensions enabled, let us know. However, if you don't want them enabled, YOU CAN STILL USE FrontPage to publish Web pages on our servers. You just won't be able to make use of some of the features supported by FrontPage. The following FrontPage Web Bots and features do not require FrontPage Extensions, which means YOU CAN use them here: Frame Wizard HTML Markup Bot Include Bot JavaScript Wizard Substitution Bot Timestamp Bot TOC (Table of Contents) Bot VBScript Wizard The following FrontPage Web Bots and features do require FrontPage extensions (and are not supported here). Please note: You CAN create forms such as the Feedback Form with FrontPage, then simply edit the HTML to use CGI. It's actually quite easy. Instructions are available here: Confirmation Bot Discussion Web Feedback Forms (save results bot) Guest Book Forms Registration Web Save Results Bot Scheduled Image Scheduled Include Bot Search Bot Do you provide Website statistics? Yes, but only for business Websites. Web stats are available online and are updated daily. To view your Website's statistics, add /cpanel to the end of the URL for your Website's home page. Example:     http://www.mydomain.com/cpanel You'll need to enter the same username and password you used to upload files into your Website. If you don't remember what your username and/or password are, e-mail us or call 651-681-8018. Web stats are provided free of charge. Once logged in, click on Web/FTP Stats, then click on Webalizer if that's the Website package you prefer. Can I have password access to my Webpages? Yes. Here is what you need to do to password-protect Web pages. This means when a visitor to your Website wants to look at these pages, the visitor must first enter a username and password: Password protection is done on a directory basis. In your public_html directory, create the directory or folder you want to protect. You can name this subdirectory/subfolder whatever you want. The Web pages you want password protected go into this directory. In that directory, (with notepad or simple text) create a text file called .htaccess. (Note: You must name the file .htaccess) The contents of the .htaccess file should look as follows: <Limit GET> require valid-user </Limit> AuthUserFile /home/usernameforwebsite/.htpasswordfilename AuthGroupFile /dev/null AuthName "Enter username and password." AuthType Basic The line that starts AuthName contains the prompt message telling folks to enter their username and password. You can modify it later after you see how it gets used, if you want to. The line that starts AuthUserFile has the full pathname to your home directory -- this is where the file that will contain the encrypted passwords resides. (Note: You can name the password file whatever you want. We've named the password file .htpasswordfilename in our example because we wanted to; you can name yours whatever you want - .htpasswd or something else. Just make sure what you choose for the password file name in the AuthUserFile line is exactly the same as you'll name the password file in the home directory.) Normally, the password file is put in the user's home directory. For usernameforwebsite, substitute the appropriate username. In the home directory (the home directory is one level above public_html; the password file will be at the same level as public_html), create the password file. Again, you can name this file whatever you want, as long as it's exactly the same as what you entered in the AuthUserFile line. You will have to ssh to shell.mm.com and use the htpasswd command. Usage of the command is as follows: Usage: htpasswd [-c] passwordfilename username The -c flag creates a new file. So the first time, enter: htpasswd -c .htpasswd somebody For .htpasswd, substitute whatever name you've picked for your password file. For somebody, substitute the first username you want added. This is usually the administrator's username. You'll be prompted to enter a password. Enter it. You'll be prompted to enter the password again. Enter it again. After that, when you want to enter a new user and password, enter: htpasswd .htpasswd nextbody For .htpasswd, substitute whatever name you've picked for your password file. For nextbody, substitute the next username you want added. You will be prompted for the password. Enter it. You'll be prompted for the password again. Enter it again. You can either assign individual passwords per user or create a group username and password. To test it, go to the URL or take the links on your Website to the password-protected pages. It should prompt you for a username and password. Entering an accepted username and password will give you access to those Web pages. More information is available at this URL: http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/docs/tutorials/user.html Does your Web server support secure transactions? Yes. Information and pricing are found here. I'm getting a `File not Found' error on my Website. Some FTP programs change the filenames to all UPPERCASE. In your HTML code, you may be specifying the filename as all lowercase. Our Web server runs on a UNIX operating system, which is smart enough to know that file.htm and FILE.HTM are two entirely different filenames. Make sure your FTP filename and your HTML code agree, both in spelling and in upper/lower case. Why don't changes to my Webpage don't show up? Hit the Reload/Refresh button. If that doesn't work, clear your Web browser's cache, then hit the Reload button. Most Web browsers cache Web pages and serve them up from the cache instead of the Web server. Also, make sure the files actually transferred and went into the right directory. Can I install a shopping cart? Yes. The control panel for your Website comes with several types of shopping carts. To access the control panel for your Website, go to the URL for your Website's home page, followed by /cpanel.     Example: http://www.yourdomain.com/cpanel Enter the same username and password you use to upload files into your Website. PLEASE REMBER . . . PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU HAVE ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE ON ALL YOUR COMPUTERS. MAKE SURE TO RUN IT AND UPDATE IT FREQUENTLY!! COMPUTER VIRUSES CAN BE ACQUIRED THROUGH OTHER MEANS THAN E-MAIL. SOFTWARE TO COMBAT ADWARE AND SPYWARE IS ALSO A GOOD IDEA! To COMBAT ADWARE, GO HERE. NOTE: Ad-Aware is the name of the software that corrects the problem. Adware is the bad guy; it's not what you want. Yes, the names are very close. A good way to remember is: You're aware you need Ad-Aware. TO COMBAT SPYWARE, GO HERE. Top of Page Home > Help > Websites FAQ       Copyright © 1994-2008 by Minnesota MicroNet. All rights reserved.