Top 10 Reasons Your Site Isn’t Working – Episode 193

Posted on Aug 23, 2009 in All Posts, Podcasts, Specials

Web Hosting Podcast #193 Are you wondering to yourself, why is it that my web site isn’t working? Why is my web site down? Is my web site down or is it me? These are questions I hear in the hosting industry day after day, year after year. I have heard them so many times, and seen so many reasons for the problems in question I have been able to compile a list of the top ten reasons why your web site is not working.

So that, my hosting homies, is the topic of today’s show.

Download the Web Hosting Show, Episode 193!
Running Time: 10 minutes | File Size: 4.67 MB

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

This week on the podcast we will be covering the top ten reasons why your web site is not working. So without further interruption, let us take a dive into these troubling web site problems.

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Dead Body Pose Bring Stress Relief to Web Hosting Workers

Posted on Aug 20, 2009 in All Posts, Articles, Beginner Help

People who work in web hosting, especially help desk support or system administrators, spend a lot of time at their desk. So with that in mind, I thought I would share with you a simple yoga pose I picked up that might look a little silly, but it does help to de-stress you some.

The dead body pose in Yoga is an easy one for relieving stress.  It is pretty simple too.  You want to lay flat on your back on your floor.  Next, turn your palms up. Let your arms and legs fall to a natural relaxed position. Stay in this position for about five to ten minutes.

The main benefit of this pose is both mental and physical relief.  You want to try to clear your mind, and stop thinking about what has got you in this position in the first place.  After words, you should feel a little better and should be ready to go again.

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How to Install a WordPress Plugin

Posted on Aug 18, 2009 in All Posts, Articles, Beginner Help

Help with WordPress Plugins

WordPress is probably one of, if not “the” most popular blogging script out there.  One of the things that makes it so great is the wide variety of plugins you can install to extend it’s usability.  So how do you install a WordPress plugin? Why, I am happy you asked.

First thing you need to do is to download the plugin, from the plugin’s official site, or from a directory like WordPress’s Plugin Directory site.  Once that has been done, you see it often comes in a .zip compressed folder.  You need to un-compress it using your favorite file unzipper – to it’s own folder.  Now you have the folder for the plugin setting on your desktop.  What is next?

Next, you will want to start up your favorite FTP program and upload the folder to this directory:

/wp-content/plugins/

Each plugin should have it’s own folder, so since your plugin you want to install is already in a folder just upload the entire folder to the folder named “plugins” within your wp-content folder.

Now, login to your WordPress administrator interface and click on the Plugins link in the left-side menu.  Scroll down the list till you see the plugin you just installed, and click the the link labeled “Activate” in the box for the plugin.

Simply follow the on screen instructions after that, and your new plugin should be up and running.  Often plugins have additional features you need or can setup and customize, so check the plugin’s documentation for that information.

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How to Create a .htaccess File

Posted on Aug 14, 2009 in All Posts, Articles, Web Hosting Tutorials

.htaccess - a real american hero?I like to tell you about the basics here on this show, as well as the advanced things.  Creating a .htaccess file is some where in between.

The .htaccess file is a way to make a change to the configurations of your hosting account for each directory.  For example, once you put a .htacess file in your public_html folder, on a Linux based hosting account, it will set the rules for that folder and all the folders created in it.

Here is everything you need to know…

Step 1 – Open up a text editor (such as Notepad or cPanel’s File Manager) and add in the lines you need and save the file.

Step 2 – Using the cPanel’s File Manager or your FTP client you will need to upload the file to the location you need it. This is usually inside of your public_html folder.

Step 3 – Rename the file to .htaccess, and save. It should be noted that .htaccess is the file extension. It is not filename.htaccess or yourpage.htaccess, it is just named .htaccess.

Truth be told, you really don’t need to know what the .haccess file is, as long as you can find the right snipits of code or “recipes” in it to get the job done.  At least now you know how to create it… and knowing is half the battle.

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How Should Web Hosts Adapt to the Social Web?

Posted on Aug 11, 2009 in All Posts, Articles, Commentary

A lot of the appeal of Facebook or Twitter is that you catch people in the buff.  No, not that there are a lot of nudist on the social networks.  What I mean is there is a lot of “raw” and “un-edited” thoughts out there.  Of course, that isn’t to say you can’t organized your “raw” thoughts before you get them out there.

How should web hosts act on social networks? It is all about striking the right balance of many different things you want to get out into the public.  Here are a few topic ideas.

Social Network Help for Hosts Contacting Customers – Be sure to search around Twitter, Facebook and the like for people who are mentioning you, good or bad.  With the people who might be saying they are having trouble with you (you can often spot this, because they are saying that you suck) be sure to lend a helping hand.  To those who are singing your praises, be sure to thank them for doing so.

Social Network Help for Hosts

Support Updates – Having a major problem that is effecting many customers?  Rather than hiding under your desk and sucking your thumb, it might be better to get out there in the angry mob and let them know what is going on.  For the most part 95% of the population out there will be ok with disaster, as long as they know what is going on.  Just think how happy those people on the Titanic would have been, for example, if the ship had a better PR person.  It is something to think about.

Social Network Help for Hosts

Plug Yourself and Market to All – If you have a good following of people requesting to be your friend, you need to make sure you strike a good balance between giving your current followers something they can use, and also give the searchers out there a reason to look into you.  Half you marketing posts should be focused towards your base and the other half should be focused toward potential customers.

So there you have it, follow these steps and you will finally have something to do on that Twitter account or Facebook fan page you haven’t touched in a while.

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Having My Own HostingCon – Episode 192

Posted on Aug 10, 2009 in All Posts, Podcasts

whs192 I’m not here to save the day.  I’m not here to change the face of web hosting.  So what am I here for?  I am here to help.  Help you learn more about the web hosting world in a podcast. All that I ask is for around 10 to 15 minutes of your time and I promise you will walk away at least knowing something you didn’t know before.  Let’s have our own hosting conference, me, you and hundreds of our closest friends.

Download the Web Hosting Show, Episode 192!
Running Time: 12 minutes | File Size: 5.29 MB

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Here are just a few topics from this week’s episode:

  • Was I Snubbed by HostingCon?
  • How Should Web Hosts Adapt to the Social Web?
  • How to Create a .htaccess File
  • How to Install a WordPress Plugin
  • Dead Body Pose Bring Stress Relief to Web Hosting Workers
  • Why I Don’t Do Web Hosting Reviews!

Here is this week’s web hosting news headline:
HostingCon Kicks Off – Media company iNET Interactive will host HostingCon 2009, the premier conference and trade show, at Washington, D.C.’s Gaylord National Resort on August 10 to 12.

Trivia Question – True or false, Tucows started in 1993? (to find out the answer, be sure to download and listen to this week’s podcast!)

Hope you enjoy this week’s podcast, and check out the archives where you are sure to find many more.  Also, if you have any feedback, comments or complaints – you can contact me at here.  Enjoy the show, and share it with your friends!

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Forgotten Negatives about Cloud Hosting

Posted on Aug 06, 2009 in Articles, Beginner Help

Cloud Hosting Might Be Bad? Now, many might be getting excited about cloud hosting, and how it is going to innovate and change the way we all related to the world of web hosting.  What many places and people forget to mention are the negative impacts that cloud hosting might have.  Yes, there are some negative issues about cloud hosting that might need to be worked out before it can go main stream.

Cloud Hosting is Still New – I hate to play the role of Captain Obvious, but cloud hosting is still a relatively new thing in the world of web hosting.  It is hard to get people to try something and in turn, it is hard to troubleshoot a problem because there is a chance, somebody has not run into it before.  That leads us into the next big issue with cloud web hosting, which is…

There are Not Enough Cloud Hosting Experts – When a web host adds “cloud hosting” to their line up of services, it is often setup by a third party, and then that third party is gone.  It is up to the web host to hire people who know how to troubleshoot cloud hosting issues, or to train the current staff – and that can sometimes be another cost web hosts are not going to want to flip the bill on.

The Cloud Hosting Idea is Still Confusing to Many – Web hosting in the general and traditional sense, still confuses a lot of people.  If it didn’t, you wouldn’t be listening to a podcast about it.  Now, pulling the proverbial tablecloth out from under these web hosting customers who have just started to understand what web hosting is all about, and saying, “Oh no, now we keep your data in the clouds” is really going to tick people off.  Until cloud hosting is easily explainable, I don’t think it has a chance of replacing your traditional hosting setup.

For more views about cloud hosting, check out:

So, not to say cloud hosting is a bad thing, it just has many more hurdles to jump over before it is a mainstream service that people really want to use.

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Why You Should Not Host Your Own Videos

Posted on Aug 04, 2009 in Articles, Commentary

Marketing your Brand Using Free Hosting Services

Should you host your own videos, or should you turn towards some of the free video hosting services out there to do it for you?  This is an internal battle going on with many web hosting providers out there – and I’m going to tell you why the second choice might be the better one for you.

Video Sharing, Converting and Playing are All Server Killers

The number one reason why you should not host your own videos, is simply put in two words, server resources.  By outsourcing this task to a place like YouTube, Revver, and other online video sharing services, you take the load video hosting and distributing takes on a server.  For those of you using shared hosting services, this is particularly important, because you want to keep your resource usage as low as possible.

Open Your Videos Up to a Wider Audience, to Gain More Eyeballs

My second reason for saying you should not host your own video content is for marketing reasons.  Stop and think for a minute, who gets more traffic – you or YouTube?  YouTube would be the obvious answer to many.  Now, how could you turn that to your advantage?

  • Publish videos people are looking for
  • Make sure to include your brand name and domain name

Now you are creating one more way for people who might be randomly surfing for content via YouTube (or any other video sharing service out there) to find your videos, and your web site.

If you have the resources to host your own videos, because you do not fear the server resource issue, chances are you don’t need to market yourself using these means.  However, for us small guys and gals in the wild and wacky world of web hosting, we need every advantage we can take – and this is one free service available to you worth taking advantage of.

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5 Common HTTP Errors (to watch out for)

Posted on Jul 31, 2009 in Articles, Web Hosting Tutorials

error-pages

It is no secret that bad things sometimes happen to good web sites.  When this happens on your web hosting account, it is often shown as a HTTP error.  Each problem that could happen with a web site, has an HTTP error code associated with it, which is suppose to tell you what the problem is.  The problem is that they are not really translated into something the general public can understand.

Have no fear though, because I am going to give you five of the most common HTTP errors and what they really mean.

500 Internal Server Error

This is your general purpose error message from the server say, “Hey… none of the other messages really fit here, so we are just going to tell you something screwed up, please try again!”.  It could be coming up because the site in question is overloaded with requests, or it could be a system admin trip over the power cord.

404  Not Found

Hey, that isn’t there – so go away is the general message you should get when you see a 404 error code.  Probably the most famous error code, if they were ranked by popularity.  The requested resource could not be found but may be available again in the future… if your lucky.

403  Forbidden

The 403 error is telling you, that you really are not suppose to be there.  It is kind of like the 401 error code, except this time you didn’t even have the chance to try to log in to view the files.  You are just not allowed, go away, you are not suppose to be trying to look at that.

400  Bad Request

When you get this HTTP error, it usually means your browser access the page in the wrong way, or somehow your request to view the page was corrupted along the way.  The signal got lost, confused and started looking for a magic leprechaun, and totally forget about your request to view that site.

401  Unauthorized

With this web page error code, you see it when you put in the wrong user name or password when trying to log into a protected area.  For example, you were trying to log into that ex-girlfriends photo collection to see if she had deleted all the pictures of you.  Since you got the 401 error, you’ll never be able to see she simple edited your face out and replaced it with a headshot of Bill, that vampire guy, from True Blood.

Have another HTTP error that has you stumped?  Leave a comment, and perhaps we will do a round two of these geek to regular speak HTTP error translations.

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Using Proxy Sites to Troubleshoot Web Site Downtime

Posted on Jul 29, 2009 in Articles, Beginner Help

Poor Tom... Now when most people think about surfing via a proxy, they are talking about doing it for privacy reasons.  Proxy sites can also be used for troubleshooting problems between yourself and the server your web site is hosted on.

Think of it as your chance to check your web site out as if you were across the country, or across the globe.  It lets you trick the server into thinking you are coming from another location, so you can see what somebody in a different location might see if they went to your web site.

Tom Troubleshoots via a Proxy

There are a number of different proxy web sites out there.  Here are a few examples:

Now, why might somebody want to use a proxy site?  When it comes to web hosting, it is often used to see if a web site is really down or if you are having some sort of connection problem between yourself and the hosting server in question.  Let me explain further.Solve Downtime with Proxy SurfingTom notices his web site isn’t coming up.  He goes to his favorite proxy site, and tries browsing from there, and it does come up.  This tells him that there is a problem between himself and the hosting server, but there is not a problem between other people and the hosting server.

Now, I would say this is as much of a troubleshooting solution as it is a troubleshooting tip. Oh boy, you know that you can’t see your web site but other people can.  That still isn’t fixing your problems, right?  Well, letting your web hosting support team know that you have tested it this way will save them time as they look into the problem for you.  It could be there is a problem with the connection down the line with your internet provider.  You might be blocked for some reason on the server side.  You might have accidently started to block yourself, even.

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