Please use our FAQ to answer some of the Frequently Asked Questions about our hosting service. If these don't answer your questions you may try our contact page.

Table of Contents

1. How Do I Place My Files On The Web Server?
2. What Name Should I Use For My "homepage" To Get It To Load Automatically?
3. What Can My File Names Be?
4. What Does My Local "cgibin" Directory Do?
5. What FTP Software Do You Suggest?
6. When Will My Domain Be Active (propagation)?

How Do I Place My Files On The Web Server?

Click Here to Find out more on F T P!

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What Name Should I Use For My "homepage" To Get It To Load Automatically?

You must name your main loading file one of the following names:

index.html
index.htm
home.html
home.htm

This list also shows the order of precedence for home page names on our system.  As you can see from the list, "index.html" takes highest precedence.  What this means is that if you have two files in your main directory, one named "index.html" and one named "index.htm", our system will treat the file named "index.html" as the home page.  Please keep this in mind when you are naming your home page.

Also, be sure to name your home page in lowercase.  Our system will not treat a file with capital letters in it as a home page.  For example, if your try to name your home page as "INDEX.HTM" or "Index.html", our system will not recognize the file as a home page.  Please keep this factor in mind as well when you are naming your home page.

Finally, the home page must be located in your main directory, which is the first directory you see when accessing the web server via FTP

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What Can My File Names Be?

Thisishowto.com uses servers which run a variation of UNIX. All UNIX machines are case sensitive. This means that if you upload your files with upper case letters in them, then your references in your HTML code must also match the case. The easiest way to manage this issue would be to keep everything in lower case.   Also, spaces and special control characters are generally not a good idea.

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What Does My Local "cgibin" Directory Do?

This directory allows you to execute a CGI script written in Perl, UNIX Shell, or C. Perl and shell programs are self-compiling and can be utilized immediately after transfer to the "cgibin" directory.

IMPORTANT: All scripts must have a ".cgi" extension.

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What FTP Software Do You Suggest?

Click Here to Find out more on F T P!

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When Will My Domain Be Active (propagation)?

Once the InterNIC announces that your domain name has been registered (or transferred, if applicable), it usually takes about 2-7 days before it is active. All internet providers must update their records (DNS tables) to reflect new site locations. This is called propagation.

Who is the InterNIC?  Click here for a link to their site.

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