Blogging, Social Media

How To Properly Handle Web Errors

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Every once in a while a search engine will index a page and that page may go away. When someone clicks on the link from the search engine and no efforts have been taken to handle the “Page not found” error visitors will hit the back button and move on. There is a way to customize the errors using a file called .htaccess. Within the file one simply adds these lines:

ErrorDocument 400 /error.php?400
ErrorDocument 403 /error.php?403
ErrorDocument 404 /error.php?404
ErrorDocument 500 /error.php?500


What that does is any web errors that are encountered are automatically sent to a page on your site called error.php . This file can be any valid file on your site or even to another site. Chances are great now that your error is properly handled that your visitor will not hit their back button and leave your site. One problem solved! More info on apache http status codes.

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Upcoming Server Upgrade

On Tuesday April 1, 2008 the Portal Planet server will be upgraded to the latest stable version of the control panel, hsphere. Upgrade times usually begin around 8:00 EST and last for 2-3 hours. Please be aware that during this period certain services such as database, mail, web, control panel will go up and down. This is normal during the upgrade process. Please contact Portal Planet with any questions regarding this scheduled update.

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How to Not Allow Directory Listings

Some web hosts allow a directories contents to be displayed if there is no index file contained within that directory. This could cause a serious problem if that directory contained any sort of sensitive materials. If your hosting account is on a Unix or Linux server this problem is fairly easy to eliminate using a file called .htaccess. On my Windows PC I create a
new text document called htaccess.txt and within that file I put the following line:

Options -Indexes

That tells the webserver not to allow directory listings. I then upload the htaccess.txt file into the root folder for my domain and go in through a web based file browser or shell and rename the file to .htaccess . Windows will not let a file not have a name and just an extension so this is the simplest way to do it.

Some webmasters will also create an index page for every directory but if there are alot of directories this could take time. Using the htaccess file protects every directory in the site.

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Upcoming server maintenance schedule

These are usually performed in the morning.

Monday, February 18, 2008
Monday, March 3, 2008
Monday, March 17, 2008
Monday, March 31, 2008

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What happened on Saturday December 22

Early in the morning on Saturday December 22 the server locked up and had to have the power cycled. Everything came back up ok but after the reboot the site was slow to respond. What happened was the DNS service did not start properly. This effected the e-mails and also any e-commerce sites running or sites that use a database to store their data. Sites were brought back on line as quickly as possible and I apologize for the downtime.

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NKY Web Hosting Uptime: Excellent

Check out this awesome PDF file I created from this web hosting uptime report. What does it reveal? It shows that Portal Planet has 99.99% uptime with many months having zero downtime. Use this link to view the NKY web hosting uptime report for Portal Planet (PDF).

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Multi-domain Webmaster Hosting

Portal Planet is proud to offer three new hosting plans geared towards webmasters, or those who have multiple domains to host. Webmasters can host up to 20 domains for only $25.00 per month! Webmasters looking for advanced features or with more domains can use the Webmaster 2 package that includes up to 45 domain names plus mySQL database access for only $35.00 per month. There is also a Webmaster 3 plan that includes SSL capability for online stores. For more information or to sign up please use the Portal Planet Web Hosting Wizard. For more information please use this page to contact Portal Planet.

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Control Scan and Portal Planet Partner to Provide Greater Internet Security

ATLANTA, GA. and FLORENCE, KY ” ControlScan, the internet”s first and only B2B third-party identity theft certification service, and Portal Planet today announced a partnership aimed at educating consumers to more easily recognize consumer friendly and safe e-commerce sites. The partnership illustrates ControlScan and Portal Planet”s continued commitment to battling online thieves.

“Online identity theft remains the number one concern among consumers contacting the Federal Trade Commission,” says ControlScan President & CEO Richard Stanton. “The best protection against this crime is knowledge and caution. ControlScan”s ID THEFT PROTECTION third-party certification helps alleviate the threat and provides for a safe e-business environment.”

(more…)

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The hosting sale continues!

Wow! January flew by! To celebrate being on my own I decided that one month is not enough. I am raising the price for hosting by $2.00 and making a February hosting sale! More info here: http://www.portalplanet.net/february-2006-hosting-sale.html

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