Web Hosting Blog | Lunarpages Lunartics

Get Your Joomla Hosting on at Lunarpages

Mitch — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:54:21 +0000

The award winning content management system, which enables you to build web sites and powerful online applications is more than welcome at Lunarpages. Joomla is all that, and so much more. For people looking for an easy to use and powerful script to manage their digital empire, Joomla is a good way to go.

At Lunarpages, you have three ways you can get this script installed. It comes standard with cPanel’s Fantastico, LPCP’s WebApps collection or you could manually install the script too.

Extensions & Themes – Like some of the other scripts we have mentioned, it comes ready to support a number of extensions that will build upon an already solid script. You can browse through some of the best at extensions.joomla.org. At the time of writing this, they have over 3,537 to choose from. A simple search for “Joomla themes” in Google will give you many choices for slick designs you can use to get your own web site up and running.

Need Joomla Help? You can always turn towards our wonderful web hosting wiki for Joomla help, as well as our user forums. Here are a couple of more places to look for support:

Want to give it a shot? OpenSourceCMS has a great demo hosted, that will let you play with the Joomla interface, without needing to install it.

November is Lunarpages Script Month!

Keep watching the Lunartics blog all throughout the month on November for even more third party script suggestions, tutorials, tips and more. You can also get tons of information and details about just a handful of the third party scripts we support on the web hosting wiki. We also have a special forum dedicated to third party script discussions over at the Lunarforums. Subscribe today to the Lunartics RSS feed for instant updates when we release a new script suggestion!

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Save $60 on Quicksite Hosting

Mitch — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:48:44 +0000

Here to help you save some cash (because the holidays are coming up quick!) Lunarpages has done it again with another fantastic offer. For a limited time only, you can grab your own Quicksite hosting plan for only $9.95 per month, if you sign up for the 12 month billing term. Just think about it, you could get that web site you’ve always wanted in under two hours with the Quicksite hosting plan.

A Unique Web Hosting Experience – Not only do we provide you with the web hosting, we also provide you with the tools. The Quicksite hosting plan comes with a top of the line, online web page editor. This tool can only be found at Lunarpages, and will allow you to create, edit or add to your web site anywhere, and at anytime.

We have discussed before, how the three step publishing process works, but just in case you need more information check out our guide about it here.

Here are a few more interesting links:

So if you have been hesitant to check out the Quicksite hosting plan before, you’ll have no worries now. You get to save $60! You could practically get another hosting plan with those savings. It’s a limited time offer, so act fast!

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Vanilla Web Forum Hosting at Lunarpages

Mitch — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:29:26 +0000

Lunarpages fully supports the lightweight and simple Vanilla forum script. What is Vanilla? It is an open-source, standards-compliant, multi-lingual, fully extensible discussion forum for the Web.

While it is not supported via the cPanel’s Fantastico or LPCP’s WebApps manager, the script is simple enough for anybody to download, setup and install in minutes. For more help on the install process, check out this quick guide I wrote up for the Lunarpages web hosting wiki.

Addons Galore – One of Vanilla’s big strengths is the fact that is supports a number of awesome addons to extend the script even further. Via their addon page, you can check out a number of themes, plugins and applications available for your own Vanilla message board installation.

Browse Through the Most Popular Addons for Vanilla!

Want to take the script out for a test drive? Check out the demo features on OpenSourceCMS to take a look at both the front end and the back end of this fantastic forum script.

For more Vanilla support and help – be sure to check out:

Vanilla Help, Tutorials and More on the Web Hosting Wiki

November is Lunarpages Script Month!

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Save $72 on Business Hosting at Lunarpages

Mitch — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:25:21 +0000

For a limited time only, we are dropping the price for our e-commerce enabled juggernaut of a web hosting plan, the Business hosting plan, to $18.95 per month, if you sign up for a new 24 month plan. How much money will that save you? It cuts the price, and save you $72 – automatically.

The Business web hosting plan is the perfect hosting plan for any business or e-commerce web site out there today. Not only does it come with unlimited storage and unlimited bandwidth, it also provides to you features you will get with no other web host out there today.

What are these special Lunarpages features?

You can register 3 domain names for free
You get a Free Dedicated SSL Certificate
You have access to a free Dedicated IP Address
Instant Access to a Personalized TremenDesk Help Desk

These are Lunarpages originals, as far as special offers go – and no other web host out there today, can provide you the same.

To lean more about the Business web hosting plan, be sure to check out the official Lunarpages web site page about the plan, and if you have any questions – our sales specialist are available around the clock to answer your concerns. Just e-mail them at sales@lunarpages.com.

Your business and e-commerce hosting solutions reside here, with Lunarpages.

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Get bbPress Hosting at Lunarpages

Mitch — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:37:12 +0000

Yesterday, we took a look at WordPress, so today I figured we would check out it’s message board (and less popular) brother from another mother, bbPress. Forum software can often be slow, bloated and filled with holes – however bbPress is the total opposite. It is focused around being easy to use, speedy, and compliant with all the web standards.

Just Like WordPress, for Message Boards…

The install process is pretty straight forward for anybody who has ever installed a basic script before. You download, you configure, you install on your hosting account. Just like WordPress, it too comes with a number of plugins to extend the functionality and performance.

Here are just a handful of tutorials to help you get stated with bbPress:

You can find more bbPress help on our web hosting wiki.

Want to try it out before you install? Go try out the demo hosted over on OpenSourceCMS. They’ll let you play with both the front end and the back end of the message board script.

Overall, if you are familiar with WordPress, and you are looking for a way to add forums to your web site hosted with Lunrapages, bbPress is worth checking out. It might not be as feature rich as some of the other forum scripts out there, however it definitely gets the job done.

November is Lunarpages Script Month!

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WordPress Hosting at Lunarpages

Mitch — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:22:19 +0000

All this month, on the Lunartics blog, we are going to be highlighting some of our favorite third party scripts. From image galleries to message boards, there will be a little something for everybody. To get things started, I thought I would discuss with you why WordPress is my absolute favorite blogging script.

WordPress truly is a state-of-the-art publishing platform that is easy enough for anybody to use. It focuses on aesthetics, web standards and real usability. Also, since it is totally free to use, that makes it even better.

WordPress is Easy to Install

At Lunarpages, you can easily install WordPress via cPanel or the LPCP control panels, so that gives you instant access. If you would rather install the script yourself, you can do that too using WordPress’s world famous five minute install.

The Extras for WordPress are Awesome

As far as extras go, you can not overlook the WordPress plugins and WordPress themes.

Plugins – You can bring up how great WordPress is, without mentioning the slew of plugins that have been developed for it. You can easily install plugins from the WordPress administrator interface (after you have it installed) or browse though all the plugins available at WordPress Plugins Directory.

Themes – There are many themes you can choose from too. The world greatest designers have really given it their all to provide you some great looking designs. You can browse though many of them at the WordPress Theme Directory, or even build your own theme to use.

For more assistance and help with WordPress, be sure to check out our web hosting wiki page dedicated to this great blogging script.

WordPress Help, Tutorials and Tips on the Web Hosting Wiki!

Also, try the WordPress demo over at OpenSourceCMS to play with the administrator interface.

November is Lunarpages Script Month!

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How to Get Started with an Affiliate Plan

Mitch — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:25:42 +0000

Everybody likes to get paid cold hard cash for giving their opinion on who the greatest web host out there really is, right? The Lunarpages affiliate plan will pay you big bucks, just for referring new clients over to Lunarpages.

Need some help to get you started? Here are six great tutorials that cover just about every aspect of the Lunarpages Affiliate program.

What is the Affiliate Program?

Working as a referral service, the Lunarpages affiliate plan will award you with cash, just for spreading the word about Lunarpages web hosting to your friends, family, clients and coworkers…

Direct Affiliate Traffic to Specific URLs

Through our money making affiliate plan, anyone can send new clients to Lunarpages, and get paid for their efforts. However, many affiliate plan members want to be able to point their unique affiliate links to specific pages inside of Lunarpages.com…

How to Create an Affiliate Advertising Campaign

An affiliate advertising campaign can be a great way to track how successful an affiliate link, a banner page, or a specific page is performing for your affiliate plan. The Lunarpages affiliate plan fully supports campaign tracking…

Payments for Lunarpages Affiliates

Once you have reached the minimum commission limit (or have gone over it) each Lunarpages affiliate plan member will be issued a check send to the address we have on record for your affiliate plan…

Qualified Affiliate Plan Commissions

Each time a new customer signs up through your Lunarpages affiliate plan link, you are awarded a commission for the sale through our web hosting affiliate program. However, some might have questions about the commission process, so I wanted to explain it fully to you here…

Tax Forms for Affiliate Plan Users

Once you sign up for the Lunarpages affiliate plan, you will need to send us the needed tax documentation before we can send payment to you…

Need some extra holiday cash? Referring your friends, family members or business partners is an excellent way to get the job done. For more help with the Lunarpages affiliate program, and how to get started, check out the Lunarpages Affiliate Program web site.

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Keep Your WordPress Plugins Up To Date

Mitch — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:53:24 +0000

Keeping your plugins up to date is one of the most important things you can do after you have installed WordPress. For security reasons, and reasons of functionality you always want to make sure you are running the latest and greatest version of each – and here is how you can get it done quickly, through the WordPress administrator interface.

First thing, go to the Plugins page from within the WordPress admin interface.

Next, find the plugins that need to be updated. As you can see from the picture above, we only have one. On the Manage Plugins page, scroll down till you find the one that is highlighted, like this:

Click the, “upgrade automatically” link to upgrade the plugin from within WordPress. Your WordPress install then should upgrade the plugin in question, once complete – it’ll ask you to return to the plugin page. You are done. Now your plugin is updated.

How many plugins should you install? In most cases, I would suggest you keep your plugin number under ten. Also, you should check for updates early and often, because when plugins are updated they are often giving you new features, or updating security issues.

For more WordPress help, be sure to check out the web hosting wiki!

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Free Flash Template Designs from Lunarpages

Mitch — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:29:33 +0000

Want to get a free flash design template with your next web hosting plan? The team over at Flash Template Designs and Lunarpages have teamed up to deliver you an out of this world deal.

If you use the coupon code FTD30 when you purchase a 12 or 24 month NEW hosting plan with Lunarpages and get a $30 discount on your web hosting. What type of template will you get? You can browse around the Flash Template Design web site to get an idea of the type of free flash layouts you will have to choose from. How do you get started?

Simply click here to purchase your web hosting, use the coupon code FTD30 when you purchase a 12 or 24 month Lunarpages Hosting plan.
After your account is active with Lunarpages for 30 days, email them (select the “info” category) and quote the domain name on the new account we are hosting for you.
They will email you your download link for the template of your choice (Up to $60 value) for FREE!

This is by far one of the best web hosting deals you can get your hands on.

Please Note: This promotion is only for NEW 12+ month Lunarpages web hosting plans and excludes Email, Domain and Starter Plans.

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Kings and Queens of the Hosting Cosmos!

Mitch — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:12:03 +0000

The Lunarpages community extends much further than this one blog. Sure, the Lunartics blog highlights an important part of the network, however it is only one cog in the machine that is the Lunarpages community.

So what are the other parts of the Lunarpages community of sites? We have:

Lunarforums.com – Our social stomping grounds where you can get to meet other Lunarpages clients, and share your stories and ask questions that might be troubling you. It is both kid friendly, and mother approved.
Lunarpages Web Hosting Newsletter – Check out the archives of our monthly client newsletter, which is always packed full of helpful tutorials, useful tips and other interesting aspects of the web hosting world.
Lunarpages Web Hosting Wiki – Over 300+ guides and tutorials on every aspect of Lunarpages, web development, and account management.

Last, but not least – we can not forget our social profiles on the Web.

The Lunarpages Community? The Lunarmunity? The Kings and Queens of the Cosmos? You take your pick. One thing though that can be said for sure is that Lunarpages has one of the best communities out there to date, by far.

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Free, Customizable Flash Image Viewer

Mitch — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:54:57 +0000

Need a simple flash gallery tool? Look no further than SimpleViewer. It can take any bundle of online photos and make it into a gallery that somebody could spend hours upon hours browsing through.

This free online script will allow you to have a beautiful flash-powered image gallery in no time at all. This is a great free script for any photographers who wish to highlight their own pictures, or artists who want to show off their most recent creations.

Here are some of the features:

Intelligent image pre-loading.
Intuitive image navigation
Lightweight (17k).
Customizable interface – Set text color, frame color and width, navigation position.
Resizable interface – Interface scales to fit browser window.
Cross platform – Windows/Macintosh/Linux (requires Flash 8 or higher).

Check out some of the examples here:

Hi-Res Example – Full-browser, no captions.
Lo-Res Example – Full-browser, captions, background image.
Small Format Example - Embedded in HTML page.

Want to give it a shot? You can learn more about this great free script over at SimpleViewer.net. It is free to use, and if you like it – you could always purchase the pro version for a few more perks and services.

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Save Bandwidth, Shrink That Style Sheet!

Mitch — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:51:28 +0000

Depending on how many notes or messy modifications you make to your cascading style sheets, you might be about due for a little compression. By shrinking you external CSS files, you can save the bandwidth it takes to download them, each time somebody visits your web site.

Now how much optimization should you do? Well, the CSS files should be small enough to load quickly, however readable enough to where you know what does what where, and why. You have to balance size with readability.

Here are my three favorite online tools to help optimize and shrink my CSS files:

By using any of these three solutions, you can reduce the CSS code size and make your web pages load faster. They all allow you to choose from multiple degrees of compression, and they are all very quick too.

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Measure a Domain’s SEO Juice Levels

Mitch — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:59:18 +0000

There are a lot of tools out there to help you see how well you are doing via the search engines out there, but few do it as completely as RankBuzz. This online tool not only gives you your Google PageRank, but also provides your Alexa rank, thumbnail, whois information, index pages, social links, on site information and even how much your web site is worth.

Each section of the web page review will also give you advice or feedback on how well you are doing. For example, blog.lunarpages.com has a Google PageRank of 6 – so they told me:

Your pagerank is going great! But we’re sure there is some room for improvement. Why not try and get some higher pagerank backlinks?

So as you can see, it does a good job at trying to help you too.

This is definitely a nice site to keep bookmarked, so that you can keep tabs on how well (or not so well) your domain is doing out there on the Web. You can check it out at RankBuzz.com.

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Simple 3 Step Web Site Publishing

Mitch — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:57:08 +0000

It has been a while since we had a look at the LPQuicksite hosting plan, so I thought I would show you how you can get your website built in 2 hours or less with our fantastic publishing tools. A lot of you might think the simple three step process is more of a sales slogan than a way of how things are done, and that could not be any further from the truth. Let me show you the three steps it takes to get your web site up and running with the fantastic LPQuicksite hosting plan.

It all starts here. Once you login, you are given a very simple menu that gives you the three steps so you can simply get the job done. Step number one, is to choose from one of the 500+ templates we provide. Step number two, is to edit your web site content, and decide what you want to have displayed there. Step three, and the final step, is to simply publish. No tool out there makes it easier.

Start things off by choosing the web site design you wish to use. As mentioned before, we offer well over 500 different ones to choose from. You can also search through them by keyword, or by categories.

Edit your content. This is the step where all the magic happens, and your web site really starts to come together. Click on, “Manage Pages” setup your first page, and save it. Publishing the pages are as simple of an act as working with any word processor program out there today. We give you a fully functional WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) interface to design each page to meet your needs.

Publish your web site. You are done, and by publishing – you can push the changes you have made out there to the “live” version of your web site on the Web. Now your clients, visitors, family members and whomever else might be browsing your site can see your perfectly managed and well organized content.

Do you see how simple that was? Making things simpler is far from just a slogan with Lunarpages, it is a way of life. If you want to try out the demo of LPQuicksite yourself, you can do so here. With Lunarpages, even your quick and simple web site publishing solutions reside here.

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Another Way to Embed Twitter Content

Mitch — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:02:33 +0000

I have shown you in the past how to promote yourself with a twitter search widget, but now I have found another solution to get the same task done. If you are a user of HootSuite, you can now create embeddable columns that you can then take from your HootSuite account and embed via your own web site.

This tutorial from their web site explains the basics on how to get it done:

I have given thought to creating a Twitter landing page here on the Lunartics blog, so (as an example) this would be a great way to feature content from @lunarpages, or show who’s talking about Lunarpages, or… well, the possibilities are really endless.

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Find Domain Name Typos Faster

Mitch — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 11:23:36 +0000

People often say it is a good idea to register domain name typos. Why? Well, when somebody accidently types in the wrong domain name, you want to make sure they still get to your web site at large. For example, did you know Google has Gooogle.com registered?

To help you find some of the domain names to register we have ErrorNow. To use this domain name error search tool, all you need to do is type in your domain name, hit the TAB key and then hit the button labeled, “Make Error” when it is available. Once you do, you’ll get a number of different options like this:

There are just some of the results I got when I searched for my own domain name, mitchkeeler.com.

For now only 2 types of errors are caught:

Errors made by forgot to type a character
Errors made by press a nearby character

Once you have made a list of some that you would like to register – you can leave the ErrorNow site, login to your Customer Account Page at Lunarpages, and register them to use with the web site you have with us. So the next type somebody accidently types in the wrong domain name, you can easily send them to the right web site, your web site.

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Decorate your Twitter or Facebook Icon with Lunarpages

Mitch — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 11:06:56 +0000

Want to show your support for Lunarpages on Twitter or Facebook? You can add the ultra-cool Lunarpages globe to your profile picture right now, at Twibbon.com.

What is Twibbon.com all about? It is a free service that allows you to overlay small images or “Twibbons” on your profile image to show support for something you believe in. We all believe in Lunarpages for our web hosting needs, right? Then this is the perfect way to show it. Thanks goes out to those already supporting us (yes, I am not too good for a shameless plug) @teechabc, @aslnrox, @LarryMarshall, @twthosting, @djholstein, @denisealicea, @buzoganylaszlo, @DarsMoonGazer, @tartarux and more. If you do support us, be sure to leave your Twitter or Facebook handle in the comments!

Also remember you can always follow @lunarpages for more web hosting goodness.

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Hosting News for October

Mitch — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 16:02:35 +0000

The October edition of the Lunarpages customer newsletter has been released, and is chalked full of web hosting goodness. If you have not checked it out yet – here are just a few things you are missing out on:

Don’t be the last one to check it out! Use the links above to browse through this most recent gathering of tutorials, tips, guides, news and more wrapped up for you and presented by your buddies at Lunarpages. We are all about the treats, and none of the tricks this October.

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Grab a Number of Cool Google Gadgets

Mitch — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:56:06 +0000

The gadget team over at Google have made it really easy to grab any number of tools they have featured there and display them on your web site. At the time of writing this, they have over 175,000 little boxes of information to share with your own visitors.

To get started with adding your own, first visit the Google Gadgets page. You can either try searching for the one that fits your needs, or browse through the various categories.

For example, if we wanted to add Bejeweled to our web page, you could visit this link, and then click the “Add to your webpage” button. You can then select the title for the box, the width and height, and then the border for it. Once you are happy with your edits, hit the button labeled “Get the Code” to get the right code to use.

Copy the code from that web site, and paste it into your web site. You are done! Now you have a very cool gadget that could add form and functionality to your web site’s overall experience for a user.

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Translate Your Pages to Any Language

Mitch — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 12:53:30 +0000

Did you notice we added a new translation button to the Lunarpages web hosting wiki yesterday? Now our wonderful international audience can gain access to all the wonderful tips, tutorials and information the wiki has to offer.

How can you add this same functionality to your own web site? The magic starts on the Google Translate page. Make sure you navigate to the “Tools” tab, and select the language your web page is in.

Next, select the languages you want to offer translation to. Since Lunarpages has happy hosting customer all around the world, I selected the “All Languages” option. Now, all you have to do is copy and paste the code from the Google Translate web site onto your own web site.

Now anybody will be able to quickly translate your pages to their own native tongue, opening up a whole new international audience to your web site. For another alternative, in button form – also check out, ConveyThis.com.