Switching your site to Obama Hosts servers

SWITCHING FROM YOUR CURRENT HOSTING PROVIDER TO Obama Hosts CAN BE DONE IN THREE EASY STEPS:

1. Choose a web hosting plan

Review the page containing the information about our web hosting plans and features. Once you select a plan and place your order you will receive detailed information by email, including Control Panel address, login details and further information.

2. Update your domain name records

After placing your order, you will need to modify the NS records of your domain name. Go to your registrar's web site and set our NS settings for your domain name. In case you do not have an account with your registrar, simply contact their support team and they will update the settings for you. You will find the NS settings for your domain name inside our Control Panel. Once you log in, click "Domains," and at the bottom of the table you will find the DNS settings for your domain name.

Once you have saved your new NS entry, it will take approximately 24 hours for the change to come into effect. Afterwards, your domain name will be 'pointing' to our servers, and you will be able to access your site with a web browser.

3. Upload your website

You can start working on your site and upload all your files immediately after you have placed the order. You will be provided with a temporary URL, which you can start working with. This way you are guaranteed that when switching to us your website will not face any downtime and all your scripts and databases will be running properly by the time the NS update is completed.

If you experience any problems transferring your site, please let us know and we will assist you.

IMPORTANT: Please keep in mind that the necessary DNS changes are domain owners' responsibility and that we cannot perform the domain transfer automatically.

Information about offered TLDs

What do TLD and SLD of a domain name stand for:

A domain name consists of two basic parts: TLD and SLD. TLD stands for "top-level domain" and represents the last part of a domain name in an Internet address. SLD is the abbreviation for "second-level domain" and identifies the part of the domain name that you personally invent and that precedes the TLD. For instance, in the domain name ‘my-best-domain.com’, the TLD is ’.com’ and the SLD is ‘my-best-domain’.

What you can expect from our TLD offerings:

We are offering a variety of domain name TLDs with our web hosting packages belonging to two categories – generic TLDs, including the most popular TLDs, such as .com .net .org, etc.; and specific or country code TLDs, such as .ca, .co.uk, .eu, .com.tw and many more. Some of our TLDs may be offered at a discounted price, so check for our promotions regularly to get your .com, .net, .org, .biz, .us, or .info domain at a very reasonable value. All the TLDs that we offer can be purchased at sign up or later on through the web hosting Control Panel.

What you should keep in mind when choosing your domain name’s TLD:

When choosing your TLD, you should consider the fact that most of the domain extensions, mostly country code TLDs, have particular requirements and restrictions. You can find comprehensive information about the management features and requirements of each TLD in the table below. You should also pay attention to the notes present for some of the domain names, and more particularly, to the special registration conditions applicable to some of them.

FEATURES EXPLANATION:

Registrar-Lock – enables the domain owner to lock his/her domain name to avoid unauthorized, or incidental changes to the domain name.

Transfer – refers to the act of changing the current domain registrar with another. Upon successful completion of the transfer, the new registrar adds 1 year to the domain’s registration period. The domain transfer fee is equal to the one for the domain registration. In some cases, an EPP authorization key, which must be obtained from the current registrar, is required.

Edit WHOIS – allows you to edit the publicly exhibited WHOIS information about the domain name.

ID Protect – allows you to protect the publicly accessible WHOIS information by replacing it with a fictitious one.

Registration Period – the various TLDs can be registered for different periods.

Single registration/transfer – relates to the price for 1 year of registration/transfer of a given TLD when purchased together with a web hosting plan. One year is the minimum registration period for most of the TLDs. This period is 2 years for the TLDs marked with "*".

Notes – reveals the special requirements for some TLDs and the dedicated Registration Agreements that must also be abided by in addition to the general Registration Agreement.

Our Domain Manager gives you the opportunity to exercise full control over your domains through the following free options available with all packages:

• Full Whois Control
• Full DNS Control
• Create Your Own DNS like:
dns1/ns1.my-best-domain.com
dns2/ns2.my-best-domain.com
• Custom Records Control:
A, AAAA, MX, CNAME, NS, SRV, TXT Records
• Domain Locking & EPP Key
• Unlimited Parked Domains
• Domain Registrar Change
• Status Alerts

www.ObamaHosts.com

htaccess Code Generator

We are happy to announce that software, called .htaccess Generator, is available in the Web Hosting Control Panel. Its purpose is to allow you to create many widely used .htaccess file features.

Where is the .htaccess Generator?
You can find the .htaccess Generator in the new Elefante Administration Tools section in the Web Tools menu. The new section includes also the Hotlink Protection and IP Blocking tools that have been taken from the Elefante Marketing Tools section. If you want to create .htaccess files you can also go to the desired location using the Control panel's File Manager and click the .htaccess button that is available there.

Where is the .htaccess Generator located?
We have developed this tool taking into account your need to create .htaccess files and the fact that these files are sometimes not functioning properly due to incorrect parameters. The new generator will create the files properly so that there will be no need for you to contact our Technical Support team with regard to problems of such kind. Of course, we are always ready to help if problems with malfunctioning .htaccess files hosted on our servers appear.

What features have been made available in the .htaccess Generator?
The features have been grouped in the following six sections depending on their purpose:

default index page

additional MIME types

authentication - allows IP and password authentication

mod_rewrite - allows host authentication, wrong URLs redirection to another web server, language-based redirection and blocking sites by referrer

custom error documents - allows the setting up of custom Error 400, 401, 403, 404 and 500 pages, as well as document redirection to a new URL

other options - allows the enabling of Server Side Includes (SSI), hotlinking protection and PHP inclusion in HTML files

How can you apply the generated .htaccess code?
As soon as the form has been completed and submitted, the .htaccess code is generated. For your convenience, the code is being displayed in a text box so that you may choose whether to add it to an existing .htaccess file, or to have the file created in the selected location.

URL redirect tool

New service is available in our customers' Web Hosing Control Panel - URL Redirection! It allows customers to set up a redirection of any desired URL hosted on our servers to another URL - hosted with us or on a remote server. The new functionality has been incorporated in the former 'Password Protected Areas' section of the Control Panel, presently named - URL Protect & Redirect.

Both beginners and advanced users can take advantage of the new functionality. The 'URL Redirect' tool has a regular redirection option and a more advanced one (allowing redirection of chosen items only - from a given URL - matching defined criteria).

The service is very easy to set up. Customers need to choose first the type of redirection: regular - Redirect Directive, or defined - RedirectMatch Directive, then select a domain or a sub domain hosted with us from the dropdown available and enter the correct directory path (URL) of the web folder that is to be redirected. Very important part of the service is choosing a HTTP Status code - more information about the different codes follows below and is also included in the 'Help' section. After the customer has selected the desired URL path to be redirected and its HTTP status code, he/or she needs to type in the URL which the web folder will be redirected to and submit the form. If the customer has chosen to use the 'RedirectMatch' service, he/or she will need to fill in one more field - 'Regular Expression'. This is exactly the place where the customer will have to define the specific conditions that must be matched for the redirection to be performed - the so called 'regular expressions'. For example, the customer can specify that only files with .gif extension from the selected URL (web folder) should be redirected to the new URL. More details on how to enter the specifications can be found in the attached tooltip.

HTTP Status Codes

Customers should be very precise when selecting an HTTP status code for their URL redirection. Status codes explain the type and purpose of the URL redirection and also perform SEO function, that is - optimize the redirected URL for all search engines. The possible to set HTTP response status codes are - 301, 302, 303, 410:

Permanent redirection: 301 - The requested URL has been assigned a new permanent URL and any future references to this resource should use one of the returned URLs. When a URL returns a 301 redirect, it means that the owner of the link asks users to use the new address, which they've been redirected to.

Temporary redirection: 302 - The requested URL resides temporarily under a different URL. When a URL returns a 302 redirect, it means that the owner of the link asks users to continue to use the original address as the redirect might be modified at some time later.

See Other redirection: 303 - The response to the requested URL can be found under a different URL and SHOULD be retrieved using a GET method on that resource. When a URL returns a 303 redirect, it means that the owner of this link redirects the user to another page which is not a substitute of the originally requested page. This method is very popular when you redirect a visitor to a 'Thank you' page after filling in a page.

Gone status code: 410 - The requested URL is no longer available on the server and no forwarding address is known. When a URL returns a 410 redirect, it means that the requested page does not exist anymore.

SiteStudio Web Site Design Tool

To the attention of all our present and prospective customers! The SiteStudio website design tool, included as a FREE bonus in all our web hosting packages, has been updated to its latest version released - SiteStudio 1.8. The update will come into effect on all our servers in the next two days. The transit to the new version for all our existing customers, using this site building software, will be hassle-free, preserving all their current settings. Updates to customer websites, created with SiteStudio, will be possible by switching to any of the new 80 website templates available in SiteStudio v.1.8.

The basic set of features in SiteStudio v.1.8 includes the following:

• Easy to use: You do not need to know anything about web design or programming, or how to cope with programs such as FTP or Telnet.
• Content and Layout Files - Stored Separately: Very flexible feature! The content is stored separately from the web design files. This way, you can change whenever you want any detail of your layout, without having to re-enter any part of the content.
• Customizable color schemes: You have a number of beautiful ready-to-use color themes available. However, if you feel like having a more personally customized layout, you can change all colors up to your preferences using a point-and-click color picker or typing in the colors as hex numbers.
• Layout templates: SiteStudio currently offers to the users 21 personal website templates and 69 Small Business website templates.
• On-the-fly image generation: Now you can have also professional-looking graphics! Each time you decide to change some color combination, the necessary image is automatically created. No need to bother any more with complex programs, such as Photoshop.
• Uploading Images: With the Image Uploader included in SiteStudio, you can upload images from your online account without ever having to leave your browser. Create now online photo albums, insert images into the page logo, or incorporate images anywhere in the page content or layout!
• A variety of different pages: In a simple step-by-step process you can develop a variety of template-driven pages.
• One-click Publishing Button: You can publish your website with one easy mouse-click! Later on, after making any updates to the website, again one easy click on the 'Publish' button will make all your website changes go live again.
• Saving of Information: All your information is saved the moment you enter it. You can log out whenever you need, then come back again later on to continue your work on the website and start from the point where you left previously.
• Flexible setup: SiteStudio can be easily configured to operate with all your current software programs. You can set it up also to utilize user information from your current user base.
• Advanced control: For advanced users, SiteStudio allows changing of the buttons on the website.
• Advanced full screen text/HTML Rich Editor: Windows users only - rich browser-based text editor for Internet Explorer included. You can easily use formatting, styles, tables, bullets and more in your work on the website, and/or copy and paste the most complex tables from a web browser or from any Office application.
• Easy integration of e-shops: For a personal website - you can incorporate an Amazon.com web store. For a business website - you can easily integrate a shopping cart functionality that includes everything - from secure payment gateway to a merchant account issued by One-Stop Merchant Services.
• SiteStudio Admin Panel: SiteStudio comes with its own admin control panel.

SiteStudio is also provided now with a new address (URL), which changes the login procedure for all existing users. To log in SiteStudio, customers will need to go to the 'SiteStudio' section in their Web Hosting Control Panels.

We hope that many clients of ours, who want to create websites themselves, but do not possess the necessary technical skills, will take advantage of our FREE newly updated user-friendly site building software- SiteStudio v.1.8.

Email working again

We are glad to inform you that Spamhaus has removed us from their blacklist and all email problems related to this issue have been resolved.

Some of our mail servers were blacklisted at Spamhaus. As a result some of the messages sent by our customers were not delivered to the recipient(s). We are currently working on improvements to our mailing system, which will resolve the problems addressed by Spamhaus and once we have completed these modifications, we expect our mail servers to be delisted. As soon as this happens there will be no further problems with outgoing email. We will post a news item once this problem has been resolved.

PHP6 now available

It us our pleasure to inform you that, as of today, support of PHP v6 is available on all servers in our web hosting network.

This is a brand new version of PHP that still needs to be stabilized online. Therefore, the version is still recommended utterly for test purposes and experimental use. We are introducing the new version in our system earlier in advance, as there are already lots of users interested in developing and maintaining dynamic web sites through PHP v6 enabled software. We would like to advice you, however, to restrain from relying fully only on this version until PHP v6 is officially confirmed as a stable release.

Considering the global software world's trend of moving towards language and cultural sensitivity, the most outstanding feature in PHP v6 - the Unicode support - comes as a timely response! For all of you interested in implementing the new PHP support, please, switch to the new version from the 'PHP settings' section in your Web Hosting Control Panel, or simply by running your files with the extension of ".php6".

Obama Hosts Web Hosting and Domain Names

Top 7 Reasons Why You Need a Personal Website

Having a website of your own equals entering into an invaluable communication environment. There are at least 7 reasons why it is highly advisable for you to be present online:

1. Represents your personal profile

A website can be your virtual portrait, showing off your personal self to the world on a 24/7 basis. Among the most popular ways of presenting your personality online is keeping a webblog (otherwise known as online diary) or a photo gallery, where your friends can stay up-to-date with your daily living.

2. Spreads your voice across the world

A website can be your global “tribune” where you are able to share your knowledge, experience and enthusiasm with people who have common interests, but with whom you might not otherwise have crossed paths. A very popular idea-voicing tool is the discussion board, better known as “forum”. You can also have a guestbook on your site, where people can discuss your postings.

3. Lets you be in touch with people at a distance

A website can be a meeting place for making new acquaintances with people of different religion, nationality and age, as well as for keeping in touch with friends who may be on the other side of the world. Thanks to the almost unlimited online communication possibilities you can conduct one-to-one conversations with many different people directly from your website.

4. Broadens disabled people’s interaction with the world

A website empowers people with limited access, due to handicap or illness, to broaden their communication with others. A website can be a physically disabled person’s door to the dynamic world, allowing him/her to bridge over the difficulties of having a “different” everyday life. It can even be their office, where they can present and deliver certain home-made products/services directly from their living room.

5. Creates a web skill development environment

A website can introduce you to the secrets of www. The contemporary web design technologies have brought the art of creating a website just a few clicks away from the inexperienced user. Thanks to the popular WYSWYG (what you see is what you get) web design tools, absolutely everyone (irrespective of age or education degree) can build their own web page without any previous experience.

6. Makes extra profit for you with minimum investment on your part

A website can make residual profit for you, while you are sleeping or enjoying your free time. Thanks to the up-to-date techniques for bringing traffic to your website, you can earn easy money by simply having visitors click on certain product/service promos or links that are relevant to your site content pages (e.g. Google Adsense/Adwords ad solutions) without any initial investment.

7. Makes you a member of the biggest community of the world

A website is a must-have personal attribute nowadays, just like mobile phones and computers are. The fast developing technologies have converted having a website from a whim into a modern necessity. As of today, almost everyone has a web site, whereas twice as many people are expected to be having their own personal space in the global World Wide Web cosmos in the near future. Be forward-thinking, join this trend now.

Obama Hosts Web Sites and Domain Names

Having a website nowadays is no longer a whim, it is a necessity, and we are here to help you join the biggest community in the world, Internet, with just a few clicks. Our web hosting services ensure a quick and easy online start for your personal or business website. You get a user-friendly Control Panel, many service guarantees, and a basket full of FREE web presents. We lay stress on both pre-sale and after-sale customer service and work for you round-the-clock.

Our packages come with 1-click installations of popular free cms, blog, forum, e-commerce, gallery tools such as Joomla, Wordpress, phpBB, osCommerce, Coppermine that will make the set-up of your website as easy as a breeze. Three versions of PHP (PHP 4/5/6) and the latest stable versions of MySQL and PostgreSQL are supported as well.

The Internet presence has become a necessity nowadays for all of us. Whether you are a company or individual, you need your own place in the WWW, so that your personal or business profile becomes globally accessible. To step online, you first need to choose a domain name - the "title-address" of your website, to let your friends or business partners easily find you in the vastness of the web space.

Choose a domain name for your personal or business website and have your unique web address allocated in the ever-expanding global Internet network. Simply think of a name that will best convey to your visitors the idea of your website and choose its best matching domain extension from our big variety of
TLDs offered! If you already own a registered domain name, simply transfer it to us or host it as an existing domain.

Choosing a domain name is very important for your online uniqueness. To get a good name for your web site you should set up an Internet address, otherwise known as registering a domain name. With our web hosting plans, you can choose among a wide range of domain extensions. Pick one that is well descriptive of your website's main subject. A well-formulated word combination - easy to memorize and spell, will maximizes the value of your online presence and help you maintain a good ranking in all search engines.

Getting a web hosting plan is the second important step on the track of laying the grounds for your successful web presence. Our shared hosting packages ensure a high-quality and user-friendly working environment via a multi-functional and multi-lingual Web Hosting Control Panel. The quality of the performance is guaranteed by our top-class servers, located in our UK and USA Data Centers, and our 365/24/7 customer support.

Now choose a hosting plan for your domain name to ensure sufficient web space and resources for your website. Check out our offerings and grab the plan that best suits your personal/business requirements in terms of characteristic/special features and volume quotas. Take our powerful marketing and web content tools, coming as free extras with each hosting package, and create your own unique World Wide Web area.

Complete Hosting Solutions

We offer full-featured web hosting and domain name services and FREE marketing and web content tools designed for both individuals and businesses. Through a user-friendly interface you have total control over your website without needing to possess any technical skills. Depending on your particular online demands, you can choose between a variety of carefully set-up hosting
packages supporting three versions of PHP (PHP 4/5/6) and the latest stable releases of MySQL and PostgreSQL.

American Or European Data Center?

You can choose between two state-of-the-art data centers located on two different continents - Peer 1 in California, USA; and BlueSquare – close to London, UK. Both data centers work with the latest hardware and software technologies to ensure maximum stability of the performance and security of the hosted data. As soon as you decide on a web hosting package, you will have the option to select the data center where your websites will be accommodated. Your choice should normally be based on your physical location.

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