Web Hosting Blog | Lunarpages Lunartics

Save $50 on our Basic Hosting Plan – 4th of July Special Deal!

Mitch — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:28:03 +0000

In celebration of Independence Day here in the USA, we are offering you a $50 discount for any new Basic hosting plan purchase! All you have to do is use the coupon code July4. That is a great offer for an even greater hosting plan.

The Basic hosting plan provides you with:

+ Unlimited Disk Space
+ Unlimited Bandwidth
+ Free Domain Name Registration for a Year
+ Unlimited Addon Domains
+ and a 30-day Money Back Guarantee!

You can see a full list of hosting features here:

Basic Hosting Plan Features and Information!

This deal is only set to go on until Monday morning, so if you’d like to save $50 on your next 12/24/60 month hosting plan purchase, you had better hurry!

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Vote for the June 2009 Site of the Month!

Mitch — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:44:28 +0000

There are only a few more days left to vote in our June 2009 Site of the Month contest. You can check out this link here for more information on how and where to vote:

Vote for the June 2009 Site of the Month!

One of those lucky web sites will not only be able to call themselves the web site of the month for an entire month, they will also gain a mention in our Lunarpages newsletter, get their own special banner to display, and gain a spot in our Site of the Month hall of fame.

How cool is that? Voting this time around goes from June 29th – July 5th! So if you haven’t headed over to the Lunarforums yet to cast your vote, what are you waiting for?

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Two Great CSS Cheat Sheets

Mitch — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 17:31:56 +0000

How does the old saying go? It isn’t cheating if you don’t get caught? Well, don’t tell anybody I gave you these two great CSS cheat sheets! Web designers rejoice, as these are two of the most handy things you can have, well… handy when it comes to cascading style sheets.

Know of anymore cheat sheets from around the Web that you get a lot of use out of? Let us know in the comments!

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Add a Hosting Affiliate Banner to WordPress

Mitch — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 18:24:43 +0000

Today, in celebration of our new affiliate plan tutorial category for the wiki, I wanted to do something for the Lunarpages affiliates out there. For those of you who have installed WordPress (and have a widget ready theme) it is super easy to get a Lunarpages banner up and running on the Lunarpages affiliate plan.

Step #1

Go visit our Lunarpages affiliate plan banner generator, and enter your affiliate user name into the text box (then hit the “enter” key on your keyboard):

Step #2

Click on the banner you wish to add to your WordPress powered blog’s sidebar. (we have dozens to choose from).

Step #3

Copy and paste the code from the text box into your clipboard or copy it into a simple text editing program like note pad to save it for later.

Step #4

Login to your WordPress administrator settings (usually found at yourdomainname.com/wp-admin/) and then click on Appearance and then Widgets. Now, drag and drop a Text widget onto one of your sidebars and paste the code you copied earlier into the text box for the blog sidebar widget. You can give the sidebar widget a name too, such as “Hosting Deal”.

Step #5

Hit the “Save” button and you are done! Now, you can go check out your blog, and make sure the banner is displaying the way you want. There couldn’t be an easier way to get your own Lunarpages affiliate plan up and running.

Did you know that one of our affiliate plan members makes over $50,000 every month? Now, that might be a hard goal to shoot for at first, but the fact that we offer you $65 per person you can bring to us isn’t that bad of a deal. Don’t be left out, earn money with your hosting recommendations today!

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Free Design Stencil Kit from Yahoo!

Mitch — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 17:25:59 +0000

Talk about a nice find. While browsing through my e-mail, I had found that a reader of the Lunartics blog suggested this resource to cover. Yahoo! offers a design and stencil kit to web designers out there for free, licensed under the Creative Commons. That would mean it is free to share and remix, however they do ask they you give them attribution – which is only right.

They offer the kit in the following formats: OmniGraffle, Visio (XML), PDF, PNG, and SVG. Some of the topics covered in the kit include:

Ad Units
Calendars
Carousels
Charts and Tables
UI Controls
Form Elements
and many more!

You can visit Yahoo’s Developer Network site to pick them up for yourself. If you get some use out of them, come back, comment and show off your work.

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Unlimited Desktop Backup for Free from Lunarpages!

Mitch — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 11:38:10 +0000

Now, as a web host, we are always telling customers that one of the most important things they can do is backup their web site’s content. You can never have enough backups – because in the long run, you can never tell when the worst might happen. In the same sense, you should also be backing up the files on your own personal computer too. Now thanks to Lunarpages and the fine folks at Keepit – you can get unlimited desktop backups if you are a customer of Lunarpages.

For all new or existing customers, we are offering three months free of unlimited backup service at absolutely no cost at all. You will have three months to try Keepit out, and see why they are one of the best Online backup providers out there today.

Now, I know somebody is going to ask, “Well, how much is it after the three free months?” and I can answer that for you too. After the three free month trial is over, you can keep the service for a low $5 per month fee. That isn’t much to ask for when it comes to keeping your important files securely backed up off site, right?

Be sure to check out our newsletter feature on the Keepit offer, and if you have any questions on how you can gain access to this wonderful special, be sure to contact us.

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All the Lunar News That is Fit to Print

Mitch — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 16:55:14 +0000

Just in case you missed it, Issue 21 of the Lunarpages newsletter has been released. The big focus this month is on TremenDesk, possibly the best hosted help desk solution you have ever seen before and an exclusive backup deal for Lunarpages clients, courtesy of Keepit.com.

To steal a line from Ron Popeil, “That’s not all!”. You will also get the latest Lunarpages news, suggested TV watching from the Lunar-crew, information about the Gumblar security exploit, more WordPress links than you can shake a stick at – and much much more.

+ Check out all the articles featured in this month’s newsletter!

Click now, supplies are limited! I’ll probably not be allowed to watch info-mercials while I write anymore either…

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10 Awesome Blog Clients to Help You Write

Mitch — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 11:53:58 +0000

Great tools do not make you a great writer, however it can make you a more productive one. Here are ten of my favorite blog clients – in no specific order. By using a desktop client to update your blog (rather than the web site interface) you can often gain features like being able to draft a post locally, or get your hands on even more tools to edit your articles. These selections have those abilities and many more included.

w.bloggar – The one I remember being around the longest is w.bloggar. This blogging tool will work with a number of different publishing platforms and doesn’t disappoint as far as features go.

Qumana – A really simple desktop editing tool, Qumana gives you all the publishing power you would need to write and save your post and to post to any of your blogs.

BlogDesk – BlogDesk makes it easy to write, speeds up lavish processes and assists the author with smart features.

Windows Live Writer – This is the tool I’ve been using for a while. Microsoft has gotten it right when it comes to the WLW. Now if they could just make the rest of their software lineup this easy to use and feature rich.

Post2Blog – a freeware handy blog editor that includes “live” spellchecking, instant image uploading, and an easy to use compose window to get all your writing done.

Thingamablog – A cross-platform, standalone blogging application that makes authoring and publishing your weblogs almost effortless.

WriteToMyBlog – The only “online” application on the list, WriteToMyBlog is a free word processor for your blog that will allow you to update your posts from anywhere.

Zoundry Raven – A next-generation WYSIWYG blog editor that makes posting to your blogs easier and faster. It includes simple tools to add links, tags, photos, music, videos and more.

ScribeFire – You can not forget about this handy Firefox add-on. ScribeFire mixes your browser with a powerful blog editor that can stand up to any separately installed program.

JBlog Editor – Although it is no longer under active development, it is still ne neat tool to use to manage your blog from the desktop.

There you have it, the best of the blog editing clients out there right now. Do you have another favorite that I forgot to mention? How about Mac and Linux fans – what clients do you use? Be sure to leave your suggestions, ideas and endless praise to the comments.

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Robots.txt FAQ

Mitch — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:37:22 +0000

How much do you know about the Robots.txt file? It can be a handy tool for any webmaster to know more about. Here are some of the most frequently asked questions I get about this special little file.

What is the robots.txt file used for?

In web site development, the robots.txt file is used as a special file that can talk back to the search engine spiders and crawlers to tell them what to do. Here is a little more about them from robotstxt.org:

Web Robots (also known as Web Wanderers, Crawlers, or Spiders), are programs that traverse the Web automatically. Search engines such as Google use them to index the web content, spammers use them to scan for email addresses, and they have many other uses.

How do you create a robots.txt file?

All you have to do is create a basic text file (with the name robots.txt) in your public_html folder inside of your hosting account. You can create that from within your control panel or you can create it on your desktop, and upload it via an FTP client.

Can a robot ignore my robots.txt file?

Yes, but this does not happen that often. Most good main-stream robots will not do this. So is there a way to block just the bad robots? Kind of. You can only control robots that obey the robots.txt file. If that doesn’t work, you might also be able to block the IP address the robot is coming from (if they are coming from a single IP address).

What should I put in my robots.txt file?

This would depend on what you want to do.

If you would like to make sure all crawlers and spiders make their way in, insert this into your robots.txt file:

User-agent: *
Disallow:

If you want to keep the spiders and bots away from your content in a particular folder, use this:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /privatestuff

With "privatestuff" being the folder you wish to protect.

How can I check to see my robots.txt file has been created successfully?

It is easy to check if your have an account with Google Webmaster Tools. To analyze a site’s robots.txt file:

Sign into Google Webmaster Tools with your Google Account.
On the Dashboard, click the URL for the site you want.
Click Tools, and then click Analyze robots.txt.

How can I figure out where this robot or crawler came from?

You can find a good list of just about all the different robots out there here:

http://www.robotstxt.org/db.html

That would be a good list to check first, when you have a robot crawling your site, and you are unaware where it came from.

How do you know you are being visited by a robot?

He will mumble something about klatu verata nikto. No wait, that was my buddy Gort. Often the sign that your being visited by a robot is that in your server logs you see many documents have been retrieved in a very short period of time.

Hope that helps in your robot taming ways. If you have any other questions, feel free to ask away.

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A Clean Modern Font for Your Next Logo

Mitch — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 14:26:35 +0000

Looking for a modern looking font for your next design? Look no further than the Contemporary – Modern font. This wonderful creation (via MyFox on deviantART) is a great simple font face to use for anything from logos to ad text in your next graphic masterpiece.

This is font free for public or commercial work. If you use their font, be sure to link back to them though (or at least tell them thanks). You can pick it up over on the DeviantART web site.

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Make it Easier for Google Searchers to Find You!

Mitch — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:39:14 +0000

Have you setup your Google profile? A while back, Google started to show profiles in their search results, so if you want to make sure somebody is able to find you – it might be a good idea to set up or update your own Google profile.

To get started, go to Google’s create a profile page, and click on the create my profile button. From there, you can list your name, upload a photo, give a description about yourself, list your super powers (what, you don’t have super powers?), list your web site links and so much more. The above picture is an example of my own profile on Google.

Once you are done, it might take a while, but you should start showing up as a result at the bottom of your Google search for your own name. Here is mine, as another example:

So there you have it. That is one more easy way to make sure people find you and your web sites when searching via Google.

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Hundreds of Free Stock Photos for Your Web Sites

Mitch — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 14:13:30 +0000

Stock photography has always been a little scary for me. Mainly cause most of it you find out there, the people look so creepily happy. For the most part, they remind me of the kids in the Children of the Corn movies. Blank stares aside, I have found one great place to grab a few free stock photos – photoXpress.

If you are tired of paying for your stock photography, then this is the place for you. They have hundreds of free photos to choose from. The catch here is that you are only allowed one photo a day. If you want +4 daily downloads, all you have to do is become a fan of them on Facebook. The more information you give them, the more downloads you can get. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

So if you are in need of soem free stock photography, check out photoXpress.com.

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Web Hosting Newsletter Gets New RSS Feed!

Mitch — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:55:09 +0000

Be sure to go re-subscribe (or subscribe for the first time) to our new Lunarpages Newsletter feed. It has been recently changed, to make it a little more memorable – as well as so we can add some interesting new features to it in the upcoming weeks and months ahead. Here is the NEW RSS FEED ADDRESS:

http://feeds2.feedburner.com/lpnewsletter

To help you get the job done, here are a number of RSS feed chicklets you can click on to subscribe using your favorite method of choice (or to subscribe to multiple places, so you never miss a post).

Just one more Lunartastic thing to get excited about on this fantastic Friday morning.

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New VPS Hosting Beta Program

Mitch — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:26:19 +0000

We are currently gearing up to open Beta Testing for our new VPS using the power of Citrix Xen Virtualization!!! There is limited space available, so we will handle requests in first come first serve fashion. The Beta VPS will be free for the time of the beta.

Testers will have the option to choose what OS they would like to use, for free during the course of the Beta. These new Virtual Private Servers will have guaranteed 512MB Ram, 20GB Hard Disk and one IP address. These servers can be fully updated, and are completely independent of the host server’s OS and each other. With the nature of these Virtual Private Servers, the memory and hard drive CAN NOT be upgraded at this time.

We currently have the following Operating Systems Available for testing:

CentOS 4.7
CentOS 5.3
Windows 2003
Windows 2008 (Extremely Large OS, Takes up Almost 10GB alone)

While the VPS Servers themselves are free, if you require a control panel, they may not be. Below is a breakdown of control panels that are available.

Click here to apply or learn more information on the VPS hosting beta program!

We will have a special support desk open for any problems that may arise during the Beta that will address only issues related to the VPS function. If issues are caused by the control panel, or software related issues please use the dedicated desk. At this time there is no phone support for available.

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Submit Your Web Site to Microsoft Bing

Mitch — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 13:52:46 +0000

Want to know how you can get more information about how Microsoft’s new Bing search crawls your web sites? You could easily submit your domain name to their webmaster tools section. How do you do that? Let me show you.

First, you will want to go to the webmaster tools page, and login using your MSN login information. (Yes, even I forgot I had a Hotmail account!).

Once you login, here is what things look like:

As you can see you can easily add your e-mail address, web site address and sitemap address. Once you do that, you have several different ways you can verify your ownership of the web site you submit. Much like Google’s and Yahoo!’s webmaster tools, you can embed some code, or download a file to upload to your web site.

Once you get that done, then you should get a profile for your domain:

They provide a lot of good information that will give you details on how your domain is being crawled by Bing. You get your site status, crawl issues, backlinks, outbound links, a keyword tool and more. I also look forward to seeing what else they add here to catch up with Google’s webmaster tools service – as it is the current leader of the pack.

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June 2009 Site of the Month Submissions!

Mitch — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 16:59:03 +0000

Time to submit your web site in our Site of the Month contest over on the Lunarforums. June is well on it’s way – and it has been a light month for submissions, so if you have been reluctant to do it in the past – this might be your chance to make it into the final five that will be voted on.

Anybody hosting with Lunarpages is welcome to join in on the fun, as it is a easy thing to do. See this link for more details:

Submit Your Site to the Site of the Month Contest!

Good luck to all that enter!

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Make Your Pages More Tweet-ccessible

Mitch — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 11:50:44 +0000

Want to make your web page a little more accessible to Twitter users? You might look to add the re-tweeter from TweetMeme to your own web site layout. You (or your fans) can promote your web site using the TweetMeme button. It is a simple and easy way to integrate Twitter onto your blog and web site.

You have two different badges to choose from:

Once you pick the one you like most, you need to figure out how to get it working on your own web site, right? Check out this article for more help on getting that done:

Getting Started with the TweetMeme Button

They also have a WordPress plugin to install, which will automatically put the button on all your pages. Overall, I would say that this is a very stylish way to get people to re-tweet (aka share) your stories and posts from your web site to their own Twitter followers. Speaking of Twitter, be sure to follow @lunarpages for tons of web hosting fun.

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Resize Any Text Box

Mitch — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 11:00:10 +0000

I need of a way to resize a tiny text box that you want more room in to write?

Some web site’s comment forms or other text boxes on the web confine you to a little tiny space to get your writing done. However The Man in Blue has developed a great bookmarklet that will let you resize a textbox anywhere at any time. Go pick up the FormTextResizer, and save it to your bookmarks. Now, each time the bookmark is clicked, you can resize any text box on the page. Need to resize another text box? Click the bookmark again, and then resize again.

For the Greasemonkey fans out there, you might also want to check out this user script. It allows you to grow the size of text areas on most websites using the keyboard: while typing in a text area, press Ctrl-Enter to expand the text area vertically and Ctrl-Space to make it wider.

For the Firefox add-on lovers, there is TextArea Resizer & Mover.

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Bring Fancy Bullets to Windows Live Writer

Mitch — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 11:07:34 +0000

Are you tired of the old boring HTML bullets that may have come with your blog theme, or you want to make them a little more fancy, with a little less work? If you use Windows Live Writer to update your blog, there is a plugin to give you Fancy Bullets.

After you install this plugin, you will have up to 42 other bullets you can use in your blog postings. You can pick up the plugin on the Windows Live Gallery or via the official web site for the plugin.

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Five FAQs to Help You Make Some Money!

Mitch — Wed, 27 May 2009 12:00:41 +0000

Did you know that Lunarpages has an affiliate program? The Lunarpages affiliate plan is a referral service where Lunarpages will reward you with $65, just for spreading the word about Lunarpages web hosting, and getting your friends to sign up.

Many in the web development community get asked everyday where they should host, and we want to give back to you for recommending Lunarpages web hosting to others. With that in mind, I wanted to go over five frequently asked questions that will help you start earning money a little quick with this fantastic offer.

Do I have to host with Lunarpages to be apart of the Lunarpages affiliate plan?

No, not at all. We have affiliate program members that are and some that are not actively using one of our hosting plans. So hosting with us is not a requirement, however – we would always be happy to have you aboard!

How much does it cost to join the Lunarpages affiliate plan?

Not a dime! You can sign up right now, and get started referring your friends to Lunarpages today.

I think I lost my affiliate plan user name and password, how can I get them back?

Sure, you can always visit this page to get your login information resent. All you have to do is type in your e-mail address, and click on the “Get Lost Password” button. Also, please remember that if you host with us, you might have had an affiliate account already created for you, however you may have a different user name and password (in comparison with your hosting plan).

How much could somebody earn by referring a person to sign up for one of the Lunarpages dedicated hosting plans?

Many know we offer $65 for regular referrals, however not many know that we also offer referrals for dedicated hosting too! We offer a whopping $180 per dedicated server sale, so if you know folks who may be interested, let us know and we can assist.

How do you track commissions?

Every affiliate is provided with an Affiliate Tracking URL (or link) upon signup. This link has a cookie attached to it, which remembers your unique affiliate username. When a customer clicks your link, the cookie is stored in their browser and follows them all the way to the signup page. After they purchase hosting, your commission of $65 magically appears in your affiliate stats! This is an automatic and immediate process that tracks every single sale you make.

That should cover the basics. If you have any other questions, please feel free to drop in an e-mail to affiliate@lunarpages.com or give us a call at 877-586-2772 x4. We’d be more than happy to help you earn a little more of the green stuff, for sure.