TheWebHostingBlog.NET » PowWeb Hosting

PowWeb Downtime Alert: Shopsite Issue

bigBert — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 12:23:44 +0000

Currently, PowWeb Shopsite users are experiencing downtime based on the latest PowWeb Alert:

We are currently aware of an issue affecting the ability to log into your ShopSite control panel. Our network operations team is aware of the issue and are currently working to resolve it. This alert will be updated with more information as it becomes available, thank you for your patience and understanding.
- 02/28/10 at 21:39 ET

UPDATE:

The issue related to the ShopSite Control Panel has been resolved at this time. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. If you have any further problems, please contact us by phone or create a ticket using your Support Console.

Useful Links

PowWeb Home page

PowWeb has gone Unlimited!

bigBert — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 13:12:49 +0000

PowWeb hosting now offers unlimited disk space, bandwidth and mailboxes. An for a limited time, they are now offering their One Plan for only $3.88 a month! Click here to learn more..

Useful Links

PowWeb Home page
PowWeb Special Offer Page

Improving MySQL Performance at PowWeb

bigBert — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 04:28:47 +0000

I got this announcement regarding the atest MYSQL changes at PowWeb

We are constantly working to improve MySQL performance on our shared hosting platform, and we wanted to let you know about some of our latest initiatives, as well as steps you can take to make sure your database applications are secure.

CUSTOMIZED HOST NAMES
When modifying your code in the future, please be sure to use yourusername.powwebmysql.com as your hostname.

We are in the process of updating the code of all customers to use this customized configuration. (Rest assured, this hostname cannot be accessed from an outside source; it’s only routable from inside our network — even a DNS lookup won’t find it.)

You may recall that we began customizing MySQL hostnames last year to include your username instead of the server name:
yourusername.powwebmysql.com

Configuring hostnames in this way provides a degree of flexibility if the resources of certain MySQL servers exceed capacity, translating into better performance for your databases.

MySQL QUERIES: 50,000 PER HOUR
To ensure optimum MySQL performance for all our customers, we are limiting the number of queries per login to 50,000 per hour and the duration of individual queries to 60 seconds.

This should not be an issue for the vast majority of customers — in fact, most customers will experience improved performance as a result of this measure. However, if you do suspect that you’re exceeding the query limit, log into your MySQL Management Tool, and if you’re over the limit, you’ll see a notice with more info.

We apologize for any inconvenience; however, on a shared hosting platform, there are practical limits to the amount of resources we can dedicate to individual customers. If this becomes an issue for you, you may be able to reduce the number of queries you are running by using application-level caching, combining queries or taking advantage of nested queries wherever you can.

CHECK YOUR APPLICATIONS: DON’T GET SPAMMED OR ABUSED
Be sure to closely monitor your applications — don’t let them get spammed or abused! These tips will help keep you protected, as well as keep our MySQL servers running at peak performance:

* Check your bulletin boards, forums, blogs, etc., for spammers. Fake posts and comments compromise the integrity of your site and slow down database performance.

* Turn off Guest or Anonymous posting to these applications.

* Require registration, and registration confirmation. Spammers can use programs to automatically sign up accounts on your site and start posting bad content; requiring registration confirmation can reduce this risk.

* Keep your code up to date. New releases of applications often include built-in spam protection and can greatly reduce the number of queries and amount of bandwidth you use.

* Turn off unused applications. Just because you don’t link to an application anymore doesn’t mean it’s not getting traffic.

Useful Links

PowWeb Home page

PowWeb 2nd Plan Offer is Back!

bigBert — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 07:53:01 +0000

PowWeb’s limited 2nd Plan offer is back! Any customer who has an existing account with PowWeb can signup for a second account and enjoy the 39% discount!

The condition is ofcourse, you should have an existing account with PowWeb. Anyone who wants to avail the promo should first login to their current account. Basically, the 2nd plan offer promo makes their regular one plan account $3 cheaper. Regular monthly price is computed $7.77.

Useful Links

PowWeb Home page
2nd Plan Promo Link

Major PowWeb CGI and Unix Permissions Changes

bigBert — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 05:34:12 +0000

PowWeb has just announced a major changes in its platform, particularly on its CGI and Unix permission settings. The announcement is as follows:

As a reminder, our hosting platform includes pools of servers for each of our services: machines that are dedicated to–and optimized for–specific applications (such as e-mail, CGI, e-commerce, etc.). This type of architecture allows us to customize each machine to the service it performs, which means more density per box, and ultimately, faster and more reliable services.

As part of our ongoing efforts to improve CGI performance, we’ve begun the process of updating our CGI servers, blending our existing pooled architecture with some of the more traditional methods of Unix Web hosting.

HOW DOES THIS BENEFIT ME?
Our new configuration will produce the following benefits:

Faster fulfillment: Once you enable CGI for your account, you’ll be able to use it right away.
Better performance: CGI servers will run faster, which means so will your pages and scripts.
Quicker Issue Resolution: Should something happen to one of our CGI servers, we’ll be able to troubleshoot and resolve the issue more quickly.

WHEN WILL THIS HAPPEN?
We plan to implement the new configuration in the near future, and we’ll send an e-mail message to customers that use CGI once everything is in place. (So if you use CGI, keep your eyes on your Inbox!)

WHAT DO I NEED TO DO?
The short answer is “nothing.” You should not need to update any paths, and your scripts should continue to function as they do now. Still, there *are* some changes you should be aware of:

The new configuration adopts the more traditional (numeric) method of handling Unix file/directory permissions, and as a result, we’ve set permissions for customers’ home directories to be 750. With this permissions setting, your scripts should continue to run as they always have, and it ensures that others won’t have “write” access to your files.

Please note: If you change your home directory permissions settings to something other than 750, you may be unintentionally giving others access to change or update your files. There are certain permissions settings that could potentially constitute a security risk (examples include 666 or 777). To protect all of our customers, scripts will not execute if permissions are changed to certain settings (such as 666 or 777).

One final note: If you use the /tmp directory for temporary files, you will no longer be able to do so. You can, of course, place temporary files anywhere you’d like within your home directory.

Well, perhaps these changes will not affect much of my current setup but this would serve as good reference in the future.

Useful Links
The PowWeb Site

PowWeb Announcements
CGI Improvements and Unix Permissions Changes

PowWeb’s New Tool: Domain Pointing Manager

bigBert — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 02:45:41 +0000

PowWeb has just added another powerful tool into its Control Panel, they call it the Domain Pointing Manager. A notice was sent to customers describing how the tool should work:

To make it easier for you to manage your domains, we've launched a Domain Pointing Manager tool. In addition to consolidating several of our existing domain management tools, the new tool also provides increased functionality.

You can now manage the following tools from one central location, instead of having to access them separately: Add Registered Domain to Account Domain to Subdirectory Mapping Domain Redirects/Stealth Redirects Plus, we've made it easier for you to point each of your domains hosted at PowWeb to one of four locations:

Your home directory (the main directory of your hosting account) A subdirectory of your site (i.e., www.yourdomain.com/subdirectory) Another URL (different from your hosting account) "Domain parking" (resolve to a placeholder while you develop your site) We've also added domain-pointing icons to DomainCentral, so you can see at a glance where each of your domains is pointing.

One thing that was made clear by this latest development, PowWeb’s paid service, the Map to Subdirectory Tool, can already be rendered as useless. This means that we no longer have to purchase (or renew) this mapping tool since the new Domain Pointing tool technically does the same thing as what this mapping tool does.

Other exciting features of this new tool is, it can do a stealth redirect to an external URL. It can also enable a Domain park system which was previously not available on PowWeb’s control panel.

This new tool will surely make PowWeb one of the best hosting company on the face of the Earth. Thank you, PowWeb!

Useful Links
Domain Pointing Manager
Map To Subdirectory Bundle

PowWeb Announcements
New Tool: Domain Pointing Managers

PowWeb Now Supports New Top Level Domains!

bigBert — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 06:39:00 +0000

Registering domain names with my PowWeb account gets better everyday. Before, country tlds such as .cn, .de or .eu are not supported on my account. Last May, Powweb added more tlds which would help international users register their domain name with their account. There’s no need to contact a local domain registrars anymore and of course, registration fees can be processed by just using a single account.

Here are the complete list of New TLDs supported by PowWeb as posted by Joshua on the PowWeb Forum:

.at is available. 1 Year $16.95
.be is available. 1 Year $16.95
.biz is available. 1 Year $15.002 Years $30.003 Years $45.00
.ca is available. 1 Year $16.95
.cc is available. 1 Year $34.95
.ch is available. 1 Year $34.95
.cn is available. 1 Year $16.95
.co.uk is available. 2 Years $16.95 Better than GoDaddy
.com is available. 1 Year $15.002 Years $30.003 Years $45.00
.de is available. 1 Year $16.95
.eu is available. 1 Year $16.95
.info is available. 1 Year $15.002 Years $30.003 Years $45.00
.mobi is available. 2 Years $34.95
.net is available. 1 Year $15.002 Years $30.003 Years $45.00
.org is available. 1 Year $15.002 Years $30.003 Years $45.00
.org.uk is available. 2 Years $16.95
.tv is available. 1 Year $34.95 Better than GoDaddy
.us is available. 1 Year $16.95

Domain Privacy is available for $8.99 for the following domains:
.biz
.cc
.com
.info
.net
.org
.tv

Registration fees vary depending on the type of tlds. Hoping to register one of these in the future!

Useful Links
The PowWeb Home Page

PowWeb Forum Links
Domain Registration – Now supporting more TLD’s!

More .htaccess Codes for Additional Domains

bigBert — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 02:09:08 +0000

Browsing thru PowWeb forum really teaches me a lot. I’ve discovered that there are different htaccess codes for redirecting multiple domain names. Aside from the one I’ve posted long time ago, here are more complex sample codes posted on the forum that will surely work with any PowWeb website:

Sample 1:

RewriteEngine On Options +FollowSymlinks RewriteBase / RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^domain_name\.?tld [NC,OR] RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.domain_name\.?tld [NC] RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/subfolder/ RewriteRule ^(.*)$ subfolder/$1 [L]

Sample 2:

RewriteEngine On Options +FollowSymlinks RewriteBase / RewriteCond s%{HTTPS} ^((s)on|s.*)$ [NC] RewriteRule ^/*(.+/)?([^.]*[^/])$ http%2://%{HTTP_HOST}/$1$2/ [L,R=301] RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^domain_name\.?tld [NC,OR] RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.domain_name\.?tld [NC] RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/subfolder/ RewriteRule ^(.*)$ subfolder/$1 [L]

Sample 3:

RewriteEngine On Options +FollowSymlinks RewriteBase / RewriteRule ^([^\.]+[^/])$ http://%{HTTP_HOST}/$1/ [R=301,L] RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www\.)?domain_name\.tld$ RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/subfolder/ RewriteRule ^(.*)$ subfolder/$1 [L]

These codes seems to be confusing to me, although it resembles the one that I previously use. Aside from this, PowWeb users can also use the Map to Subdirectory Tool for creating multiple websites on the PowWeb server.

Useful Links
The PowWeb Home Page

PowWeb Forum Links
.htaccess code examples for an add’l domain
Installing a second domain

Report a Server Outage in Seconds with PowWeb’s SPI

bigBert — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 01:40:40 +0000

Last April, my webhost implemented a new tool that will help its users report any outages on the server. They call it the Service Perception Index. According to the description, it is designed to let customers report slowdowns or non-functional services. Their network operations team monitors customer-reported feedback in real time, and attempts to respond to spikes in reports of poor performance accordingly.

User feedback results can be found on this URL

I’ve taken a snapshot of the feedback results. Here’s how it looks like:

PowWeb Forum Links:
New Feature: Service Perception Index

Choosing from Atmail, SquirrelMail or Horde as your Webmail Client

bigBert — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 04:13:57 +0000

I just found out that Powweb offers three different webmail programs on their web hosting plans. By default, a customer uses the SquirrelMail as their online email client. However, there is an option to change this default setting. This can be done by going to the OPS‘ Mail Tool Settings page.

One disadvantage of moving to another email client is that the entries on each account’s address book will not be moved. Either the user needs to export and import the addressbook manually from the old to the new webmail program of his choice, or he adds those contacts one by one. Changing the default webmail application affects all the existing email accounts. Fortunately for me, I only have one or two mailboxes on my account. If there are other email users on my website, then they will need to import and export their address book. Worse if they need to re-enter the addresses one by one.

Here are some short description of the web mail programs available on my account:

AtMail
One of the first WebMail products to incorporate a video-mail feature, AtMail is a feature-rich IMAP account e-mail solution that provides a complete and innovative user interface for accessing e-mail resources via Web browser or wireless device.

SquirrelMail (default)
A standards-based WebMail package, written in PHP4 for maximum compatibility across browsers. SquirrelMail has all the functionality you would want from an email client, including strong MIME support, address books, and folder manipulation

Horde
Horde is a comprehensive Internet Messaging Program that offers many of the features available in email clients like Outlook Express. Users can read, send and organize email messages, manage calendars, contacts, tasks and notes.

Related Articles
Unlimited Mailboxes at PowWeb

Useful Links
Atmail Messaging Platform
SquirrelMail – Webmail for Nuts!
The Horde Project
PowWeb Home Page