|
|
|
If you have a web site, then, in order for anyone to see it, the web site must be hosted. Hosting is a service provided by Internet Service Providers whereby you rent part of their Internet server. An Internet server is simply a computer that has been designed to meet the needs of Internet users e.g. access web sites, send e-mails etc.
Like broadband, not all web hosting is the same, far from it. At Scotz.Net, we focus on micro and small businesses. The needs of our customers are very different from those of an individual or large business and the services we provide reflect that.
We know that, as a small business user, your scarcest resource is time and our services have been designed so that you can work from your office, from home, whilst you are on the move and at whatever time is convenient to you.
It is worthwhile sitting down and thinking through how you want to work. Ask yourself questions about:
- work / life balance,
- do you work from your office, your home or on the move,
- your existing computer, the software that it runs and the technical skills needed to operate it.
This will help you focus on your needs.
When you have decided which services you require, go to the relevant price list pages and indicate the ones you feel that you need. We will discuss with you the chosen services to make sure that they will meet your needs. Alternatively, you can e-mail or call us on the number below for clear, practical and jargon free advice.
Click on any Tex Spex heading to get more information.
|
|
TEX SPEX
Basic Web Hosting Service.
UNIQUE DOMAIN NAME
Your domain name is crucial to the success of your business. It must be memorable and reflect your business name or products, e.g. www.mowersrus.co.uk.
At Scotz.Net we will search for the most suitable domain name, register it and complete the necessary paperwork. Furthermore, we will automatically renew the domain name rental whenever it becomes due thereby ensuring that it will never lapse.
If you already have a domain name that you would like to use then we can arrange for its transfer.
10 SUB-DOMAINS
A sub-domain is a web site within a web site. On a large web site, they simplify the maintenance and navigation of the web site. An example would be community.weblogz.net/elgg
Our basic service provides for the creation of an unlimited number of sub-domains.
POP3 E-MAIL ACCOUNTS
Each account is an autonomous collecting point for e-mails. You could, for instance, set up one e-mail account for each department e.g. Sales, Purchasing, Accounts etc. Alternatively, you can set up one e-mail account for the company and other e-mail accounts for individual employees.
Each account can have an unlimited number of aliases. For instance, there is a POP3 account called sales@yourdomain.co.uk. There are three people in that department called Tom, Dick and Harry. It is possible to send e-mails to the Sales department using
* tom@yourdomain.co.uk,
* dick@yourdomain.co.uk
* harry@yourdomain.co.uk
* sales@yourdomain.co.uk. Four e-mail addresses but just one e-mail account.
Usually, e-mails are removed from the Internet server once they have been downloaded onto your computer. However, it is often necessary to store e-mails online for short periods enabling you to enjoy a holiday etc. To facilitate this, we provide every e-mail account with 100MB of disk space for the temporary storage of POP3 based e-mails.
Our basic service provides for the creation of up to 500 POP3 accounts.
E-MAIL CLIENT SUPPORT
An e-mail client is the software or device that you want to send or receive e-mails with.
Although most of our clients use Windows based computers, we will provide technical support to the best of our ability for any e-mail client hardware.
If it is:
- an android based smartphone,
- a Blackberry smartphone,
- an iPhone,
- an Apple Mac,
- a Windows PC
or any other e-mail client device then we will provide technical support where we can.
Although most of our clients use Microsoft Outlook for their e-mail client software, we will provide technical support to the best of our ability for any e-mail client software.
If it is:
- Eudora,
- Outlook,
- Outlook Express,
- Thunderbird,
- Winmail
or any other e-mail client software then we will provide technical support where we can.
Whatever your preference for an E-mail client, we can usually accommodate it.
Many of our clients use Microsoft Internet Explorer to send and receive e-mails over the web, we will provide technical support to the best of our ability to any web based e-mail browser.
If it is:
- Chrome,
- Firefox,
- Internet Explorer,
- Opera,
- Safari
or any other web based e-mail client browser then we will provide technical support where we can.
Whatever your preference for an E-mail device, client or browser, we can usually accommodate it.
E-MAIL CHECKER
With Scotz.Net, the risk of virus infections is reduced.
All e-mails processed by Scotz.Net are first scanned by our anti spam and anti virus checkers before you are allowed access to them.
Once processed, they are scanned by your own anti-virus software before you are allowed to read them.
Please note that this service is in addition to your own anti virus / anti spam software. It is not a replacement for it. You remain responsible for the security and integrity of your computers.
WEBMAIL
If you are:
- waiting for an urgent e-mail but it is 6pm and you want to go home,
- if you are out of the office and want to check your e-mails,
then Webmail is for you. No matter where you are in the world, be it at home or abroad, you can use our web based e-mail facility to read and respond to e-mails that have still to be downloaded onto your office computer.
Simply use any available computer or smartphone and enter webmail.yourdomain.co.uk, submit your user name and password and you are ready to go.
WEB SPACE
To host a web site, store and process documents or run your online systems you will need an adequate amount of web space (an allocated portion of a hard disk).
Our basic service provides each customer with 500MB of web space, far more than most businesses will ever need.
WEB SITE DEVELOPMENT
At Scotz.Net, we are enthusiastic about the use of technology to give your business the competitive edge. If you are successful, then so are we.
If you want to:
- install an existing web site,
- develop a new web site,
- develop a software product,
- install a third party product
then you have reached the right Internet Service Provider.
In order to successfully undertake any of the above, you must have access to one or more of the following:
- COBOLscript,
- Django,
- HTML (including SSI),
- Javascript,
- MySQL database,
- Perl,
- PHP,
- PostgreSQL database,
- Python,
- Ruby On Rails,
- Tcl
Very few, if any, Internet Service Providers provide such a breadth of facilities and services. At Scotz.Net, we believe that our customers should have access to the latest tools to keep them ahead of their competitors.
CGI / SSI
The Common Gateway Interface (CGI) is a mechanism by which you, or your Web site designer, can develop "behind the scenes" processes e.g. Shopping Cart, Contact Form, database etc.
For the more experienced web site developer, we provide the Server Side Include (SSI) facility to enable your source code to be re-used and global changes to be applied.
BANDWIDTH
Bandwidth is a confusing concept. It is essentially the amount of traffic you are responsible for causing on the Internet. There are six main types of bandwidth:
- broadband traffic caused as a result of you requesting a page to be displayed from a web site. This is a tiny amount of traffic, simply a request to the web site asking for a specific page.
- broadband traffic caused by the page contents being sent down the telephone line to your computer.
- broadband traffic caused by the sending of e-mails.
- broadband traffic caused by the receiving of e-mails.
The above items are metered and set against your monthly broadband allowance. Should you exceed the allowance then an excess usage charge may be levied.
- uploading and downloading of data from your web site e.g. using a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) tool to upload modified web pages or to download a special back up copy of your database.
- responding to a request for a web page by sending the page down the telephone line to the web site visitor.
The above items are metered and set against your monthly web site allowance. Should you exceed the allowance then an excess usage charge may be levied.
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
In a perfect world, nothing would go wrong. However, from time to time, problems do occur.
The Scotz.Net Help Desk will assist you in resolving any problems with your computer. We also provide a chargeable service whereby an engineer will visit your premises and resolve the problem for you.
Choose the most convenient method to contact our Technical Support service. Contact us by:
- telephone,
- e-mail,
- text,
- raise a support ticket,
The contact details can be found on our Contact Us page.
We will respond to every Technical Support issue by:
- dealing with the problem there and then while you are on the telephone.
- dealing with the problem and calling you when it is resolved.
- e-mail you with our response,
- connecting to your computer using our remote access software and modifying your computer setting for you.
- arranging an on site visit by an engineer or web developer.
The most important thing to remember is that, we do not leave our customers stranded. Even if it is a problem outside of our remit, we will provide help and advice.
TEX SPEX
Optional Services.
ADDITIONAL DOMAIN NAMES
A domain name is unique, but sometimes an organisation wants to be known in two or more ways. For instance the garden equipment retailler Marshalls Garden Machinery uses the domain name marshallsgardenmachinery.co.uk. It is a long and difficult domain name to use so they also have the alternative domain name mowersrus.co.uk - a much simpler and memorable name.
Rather than maintaining two web sites, two sets of e-mail addresses, two sets of user names and two sets of passwords, we simply superimpose one domain name on top of the other. In this way, its doesn't matter which domain name a web site visitor uses or the e-mail address, they all go to the same place.
Another use is where a domain name can be misspelled, hyphenated or the wrong suffix used. For instance, inveralmond-brewery.com is superimposed on inveralmond-brewery.co.uk to ensure that potential customers have the best chance of successfully reaching the web site.
This service is called Web and E-mail Forwarding.
ADDITIONAL SUB-DOMAIN NAMES
As mentioned earlier, a sub-domain is a web site within a web site.
We also mentioned that our Basic Web Hosting service provides for the creation of an unlimited number of sub-domains.
You can also superimpose a domain name onto a sub domain using web and e-mail forwarding e.g. www,petrolmowers.co.uk could be forwarded to petrol.mowersrus.co.uk.
POP3 E-MAIL ACCOUNTS
As mentioned earlier, our e-mail services provide for up to 500 POP3 accounts per main domain name. Each POP3 account is an autonomous collecting point for e-mails and we set aside 100MB of disk space for each account.
For POP3 accounts, e-mails do not tend to remain online for long. They are downloaded regularly, often several times a day, and then removed from the server. In the event that the 100MB of disk space allocated to any account is insufficient for your needs, please let us know and we will adjust the allowance.
ARMOURED E-MAIL
This facility is a specialised e-mail service and deals with the vast bulk of spam and virus infected e-mails before it reaches our Internet servers.
The service is enacted for all e-mail accounts on the domain and is charged on the number of POP3 or IMAP accounts being used.
The service is extremely effective and we are confident that the additional costs are recouped from the saving of time and technical support as the potential for your computer being damaged due to virus infection from incoming e-mails is virtually eliminated.
IMAP E-MAIL ACCOUNTS
Internet Message Access Protocol is a mechanism whereby all e-mails, both sent and received, are retained on our Internet server and copied to your computer. This enables the user to access the e-mail service from anywhere in the world. As the e-mails are stored online, it is not necessary to leave your computer on.
Our e-mail server is secure and access can only be gained using your user name and password.
Because e-mails are stored for longer on an IMAP e-mail system, each e-mail account is allocated 500MB of hard disk though this can be increased if the need arises.
The e-mail server actually contains four hard disks and uses RAID technology so that any e-mail, be it sent or received, is stored on each of the four hard disks.
At all times the four hard disks are identical. This means that, in the event of a problem developing with one of the hard disks there are still another three copies, identical in every way, still working. When an engineer replaces a faulty disk, the system brings the new server up to speed within minutes.
WEB SPACE
As mentioned earlier, web space is necessary to host your web site, to process and store documents and to run any software that has been installed.
We also mentioned that our Basic Web Hosting service allocates 500MB of web space to every customer.
In the very unlikely event that you will exceed this number, please do not hesitate to contact us as we can allocate as much web space as is required.
BANDWIDTH
In order to avoid excess usage charges it is important that you purchase the right level of bandwidth. Excess usage charges tend to operate like unauthorised overdrafts on your bank account. For this reason, we provide tools that enable you to monitor the bandwidth used.
In the early months, we will monitor your usage to ensure that you are using the correct level of bandwidth.
|