Web hosts till tell you that they are always looking to build a better mouse trap when it comes to getting customers the answers that they are looking for. Love them or hate them, quick responses are a part of the web hosting business.

Bottom line? They allow support workers to get often asked questions answered as quickly as possible.

Let AutoHotkey Do the Heavy Typing for You!

Thinking outside the box though and trying to see what you really need when it comes to quickly publishing these answers - well, there just has to be a better way. Personally I set out to find something that would allow me to type in a few letters - hit enter, and automatically paste a four paragraphed answer to a question. I found my answer after spending some time playing with AutoHotkey.

AutoHotkey is a free mouse and keyboard macro program. The part your going to be interested in is the AutoText feature which allows you to write up a simple script, type in a few letters - hit enter and have your quick response typed out for you. It does have a learning curve to master but once you do get it down it is a powerful tool for anybody who finds themselves typing the same thing over and over again.

Your Own Virtual Notebook

Another tool I like to keep at my side at all times is my Google Notebook. While doing my own tech support work - it is handy to have some of the most asked questions there at my fingertips. Not much has to be said about this, because the concept here is so easy to understand.

Copy and save things you need to type out or access often inside of Google Notebook. While going through the e-mail or help desk at your hosting company, keep it open in another tab and you have yet another personal list of quick response tools.

So there you have two great ways to make your customer support work just a little easier on you.

Johnny sent me an e-mail that was straight and to the point. The control panel solution, cPanel and enabling hotlink protection seemed to confuse him. So I told him I’d go through the process.

Do you want to keep others from stealing your web site graphics and pictures? The hotlink protection provided by your hosting account’s cPanel prevents other websites from directly linking to files on your web site.

Other sites will still be able to link to any file type that you don’t specify (for example, html files). You can use the hotlink protection to keep other sites from linking to your images, videos, and other files. Read more »

One question that I get from a multitude of web hosts is, “Are there any alternative methods to tech support that you know of?”. With everybody doing the standard e-mail, help desk and live chat support, people are looking for an alternative to give them an edge over the competition.

After sitting here and giving it some thought, I thought about the things I check on a day to day basis and one solution stuck out like a sore thumb screaming for attention. Twitter would make for an excellent web host to client conversation tool. Read more »

Backing up your web site is never fun, but it is something that we all must do. Thankfully, cPanel makes the process easy - but I could see where more than a few folks might be scared about the process.

To help those who are unsure how to get cPanel to backup their web sites I thought I would go through the process step by step.

How Can I Get Started Backing Up With cPanel?

First thing you must do is login into your account’s cPanel and click on the Backup icon. Backing up is a very crucial thing to do because you never know when the worst might happen, and having a good backup could be the difference between being down for a few hours or for a few days.

Now once you have made it to cPanel’s backup page you should see several options available. “Generate/Download Full Backup” (under Full Backups) will allow you to do what you need. It might take a while depending on the size of your web site to generate but once it does - download that and you are almost done.

From this same screen you can download the latest backup created, download your MySQL databases and also depending on your web host you might be able to download your mail settings too.

Now after clicking on “Generate/Download a Full Backup” link you will be given a few more choices. For most users you will back the backup destination to be your home directory. Make sure you have enough disk space to host the backup file. There are other options, but we will ignore them for now. Under e-mail address you can tell the server where to send the log of the backup status. Once everything is as it should be click on the “Generate Backup” buttons and away you go.

How Can I Get That Backup Now?

Now you should be told that once the server finishes generating the backup for you - you will receive an e-mail at the address you gave it. Now if you click “Go back” or just navigate yourself back to the first screen of the backup page you can see that the backup is still “in progress”. After a few minutes or once you get that e-mail back from the server, you can download you backup from here.

Now you should have a full backup of your web site ready to restore if the worst case scenario might happen.

One of the many frequently asked question when it comes to web site creation is how can I get that web site running faster? Well, if you have a lot of images and video - you might want to look at optimizing both for use on the Web. Plain text travels fast, but once you get into some of the extra goodies that add flavor to your web site you might be running into trouble.

How Can I Optimize Images for the Web?

Images are probably the easiest to optimize for the Web. Not many people do it correctly though. Most image formats are compacted enough as it is - but you need to use a few of the best formats for the best performance. Use .png, .jpg, .gif and please oh please stay away from .bmp. The .png format would be my absolute favorite to get the smallest file size and be best looking picture once the compression of the image has been said and done. Read more »

When it comes to dealing with customers, keeping “customer service” in mind is always a good thing. You want to make sure these people are being taken care of because no mater if your the guy who owns the hosting company or your just the grunt that works at one, good things can always come from having a happy customer.

Have are just a few personal customer service rules I always take into consideration when dealing with people who are having trouble or questions about their setup on the World Wide Web. These are from me to the web hosting customer support folks out there. Next time you answer a support ticket, take these tips into consideration. Read more »

Related Podcast Link: Listen to Episode 124!

When it comes to basic webmastering - one of the basics you learn about is watching your stats and learning how to read them to see if what you are doing is working. This is extremely helpful for web sites that have ever-changing dynamic content. The suggestions I am going to share with you though could even go for those people with static content as well.

Use Several Stats Packages!

Most web hosting accounts come with a few stats packages you can use to keep up with the incoming visitors, traffic and downloads. You might also want to use a few others. You don’t just want to hear one opinion on how your web site is doing. You want as many as you can get. Some other good (and free) solutions are: Read more »