Tag Archives: Web hosting

Leading web hosting company adds 24/7 telephone support and improves response times for all web hosting clients.

Houston, TX (PRESS RELEASE) Sept. 27, 2010 – JaguarPC, a leading VPS hosting, cPanel hosting, and dedicated hosting company, announced today a stronger customer support and response team with more support staff and increased availability 24/7 telephone support and sales. The increased telephone support is accompanied by a more streamlined workflow system for support technicians, making response times to client questions and requests even faster.

“At JaguarPC, we constantly upgrade our hardware and services and since comprehensive support is one of our top priorities, we want to extend our telephone support and sales to 24/7 access for all JaguarPC web hosting clients,” says Greg Landis, Founder and CEO at JaguarPC. “Our support staff is always available to help customers with any questions they have and to advise and troubleshoot issues quickly and thoroughly.”

In addition to 24/7 phone support and sales, JaguarPC’s improved support system includes more support staff for faster response times. JaguarPC also provides users with a monitoring system called Fastcat. With Fastcat, customers set their own monitoring from their dashboard and preset what actions they want staff to take when alerted by the monitoring system.

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Friday 25th June 2010
JaguarPC
P.O. Box 1108
Fulshear, TX 77441
http://www.jaguarpc.com
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Hello,
Howdy loyal clients! It’s been a long time since I’ve sent a newsletter out. A trend I’m breaking right now with this first in a long series of ongoing updates. First let me say thank you to everyone who has helped us make our 11th year in business an exciting one. Summer is here and its time to turn up the heat. Ok enough silliness, lets get on with the updates.

Many of you may have noticed already there’s been some major pushed in our software, training, and personnel aimed at providing an improved customer experience in service and support. We are pleased to announce Jim Sowell, long time JaguarPC manager and former CSM has been promoted to Director of Support. His role is to manage the support services, quality, and senior level management over other support manager roles. In short if you ever have a problem don’t be afraid to contact him: jim@jaguarpc.com and in our forums JPC-Jim .

We have also made a great deal of advances to our client dashboard and while you won’t notice them all, there are several hundred, here are some of the more notable:

– Clients can view the health status of servers including history – Client now have access to an elaborate Support Center containing Tutorials, Guides, Knowledge base, FAQs, useful Downloads, and access to other useful information and areas including Community Forums. Visit the Dashboard https://secure.jaguarpc.com/clients/

• - Clients can reply to ticket updates and notification via emails


• - New ticket escalation processes


• - Clients can create multiple users (up to 5) with access controls.


• - New ticket rating and feedback system


• - New ticket search features


• - Integrated rewards points and ordering


• - Many order form improvements including order tracking


• - Clients can download invoices in PDF format


• - Pay invoices using other sources than card on file


• - Rewards points and affiliate stats improvements


• - New private messaging system


• - Important emails saved in Alerts


• - Ability to add notes to accounts, logins, directions, etc


• - Monitoring improvements include uptime reports and logs


• - Ability for dedicated and VPS clients to add monitoring with instructions, Free to all


• - New Site of the month service open


• - Manage private name servers


• - Third tier brand-able end user support system integrated. End user support not available yet.


• - Automating all orders, API improvements


• - Many others including some bug fixes

Ok there’s a lot more to go over but I don’t want this to turn into a book. Half of the readers have probably already stopped reading, yea I’m looking at you . J/K

Two important notes before I go. We have updated our TOS in a major way, the AUP and SLA have been combined into the TOS. http://www.jaguarpc.com/about/policy-tos.php

Over the years ICANN and Verisign have increased the costs of domain names several times. We have absorbed these costs for the last 10years and not passed the costs on to our clients. Unfortunately the latest increase announced all over the web will need to be passed on. This price increase affects TLD’s such as .com, .net, .org, .us, .info, .biz and .name . The prices for these domain names will change from $9.95/year to $12.95/year effective immediately.

Please join us in our community forums!
http://www.jaguarpc.com/forums/

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Did you know?
JaguarPC pays out thousands of dollars worth of referral credits each month and tens of thousands of extra rewards points. Start referring friends, family, co-workers, and your own site visitors by starting your own referral campaign right inside the client dashboard.
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Login to the client dashboard for account updates, pay invoices, contact support, manage your account, or to contact us :

https://secure.jaguarpc.com/clients/
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Regards,
Greg L. – CEO
JaguarPC
http://www.jaguarpc.com

JaguarPC, an industry-leading provider of end-to-end web hosting services, today announced that the web site building software tool RVSiteBuilder Pro will be available with all shared and reseller hosting packages.

RVSiteBuilder Pro is a hosted web site building software application that features an intuitive WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) user interface and a large library of ready-made templates that allow users to create a professional looking web site in literally minutes. A wide selection of themes allow users to create a web site for almost any purpose, whether it be a blog, photo gallery or a web presence for a small business.

RVSiteBuilder Pro enables users to build much more than plain vanilla web sites. Several new features can be conveniently integrated into a web site through a point and click interface, including photos albums, hit counters, guest books, blogs and FAQ guides. There is also a supply of free media such as commonly used banners, buttons and icons, along with a library of images.

“JaguarPC is always looking for a way to add value to our hosting offerings,” stated Greg Landis, CEO of JaguarPC. “RVSiteBuilder Pro is an easy-to-use software application that anybody without technical experience can use to build an attractive, professional looking web site. This is the essence of value and we are providing it free to our shared and reseller hosting customers. It is further proof that JaguarPC is committed to enabling customers to realize their full potential on the Internet.”

RVSiteBuilder Pro recently released an updated version of its software (version 3.0), adding an updated navigation system, a new blogging application, database capabilities and improvements to the Ajax-enabled user interface. A total of 16 new templates have been added to the library in this newest release. RVSiteBuilder Pro has a library of 646 templates.

For more advanced users, there is an online Flash editor and users can also download templates, customize them and then re-upload them for future use.

RVSiteBuilder Pro supports all major web browsers and operating systems. It is available in multiple languages, allowing customers around the world to build a web site in the language they are most comfortable with. Languages supported include English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Brazilian-Portuguese, Finnish, Norwegian, Turkish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian and Slovak.

These days every business is trying to be as green as possible, but what about going green in web hosting companies? It seems almost oxymoronic that a data processing business would be able to go green. After all, it takes a lot of power to keep all those servers, PC’s and associated equipment humming along at max capacity. It would almost seem impossible. Unlike other businesses that use less energy, web hosting businesses can’t really use solar or wind power yet. Or, if they do it only accounts for a small portion of energy use.

So, how does a company go about going green in web hosting? Well, the truth is there are many creative ways for a data processing company to be green and they are all quite simple, inexpensive and can save lots of money and the environment when put in place. First of all bigger is not always better. Keeping your facility as simple as possible does a lot to keep costs down and protect the environment around you. Ask yourself, does my web hosting business really have to have an ornate entryway or waiting area? Most likely the answer is no.

Many Data Centers use additional gas or electricity to heat and cool the non-data portions of their facilities. However we’re implementing heat pumps that utilize the heat from the data center to heat the offices and generator quarters in the winter and utilize the data centers highly resourceful cooling towers to provide cooling to the offices in the summer. This not only saves us money on burning gas or electricity to heat the space, but is more environmentally friendly. Our use of well water for the cooling towers also provides geothermal heat removal since all the water being input to the towers is from the earth at a constant 55 degrees Fahrenheit which removes BTU’s from the water and the building naturally. This gives us natural BTU removal through geothermal cooling but it also gives us a big savings in water replacement and reduces the amount of electricity needed to allocate city water over long distances and the harmful chemicals used in its treatment for drinking purification, as well conserves potable water in the city’s watershed.

Going green in web hosting businesses is as easy as using some common sense. For instance it is well known that newer machines are more efficient. So, take some of that money you would have used for dressing up your facility and replace your servers and PC’s. Then make sure you have a good solid replacement program put in place so you can keep your facility efficient by replacing machines when newer models come out. What about those old machines? Why, recycle them of course. We recycle all of our cardboard, metals and our old computers. Nothing goes to landfills except non recyclable garbage. We’re serious about our commitment to the environment. As a customer, you can be sure that we’re doing our best to be the least wasteful, most energy efficient Web Hosting Company.

One other thing to consider when going green in web hosting businesses is the manner in which you cool down equipment. Take a good look at your cooling systems and make sure you are using the most efficient equipment in the best possible manner. You can save a lot of energy and a lot of money by just making some minor adjustments. Packaging materials are a real bane to the environment so come up with a program for reducing your use of packing materials. You will find it is easier than you may think. Can a web hosting business go green? You bet it can! It’s been proven.

There are millions of domains already registered, and more than one person has anticipated purchasing that perfect domain name, only to find that someone has already beaten them to the punch. Out of luck? Maybe, but maybe not.

If a domain is already registered, and you want to purchase it, you can always approach the owner by looking up the information in the WHOIS database. The best way to contact a registrant is through e-mail. If they decline to sell the domain, there’s not much you can do, provided that they keep the registration of the domain current.

However, if they allow their domain to lapse, services such as Snapnames may allow you to purchase it once it goes through the process. There is a grace period after the domain registration expires. After a while, the domain is finally “dropped”, or deleted from the system, allowing anyone to grab it. Many companies automatically track soon-to-expire domain names, and automatically grab a popular domain within seconds of it becoming available again. There’s no guarantee as to who will get it; many companies and private people grab expired domains, and competition is fierce.

One other weapon in your arsenal is backordering. Several companies, including GoDaddy, offer this service. As the name suggests, it allows you to try to stake a claim to an expired domain. There is a fee involved, and there is no guarantee that any given company or person will successfully snap up an expired domain, as it’s literally a matter of seconds that’s involved. One thing that experienced “domainers” do is backorder through several companies, increasing the odds that they will successfully obtain the expired domain name.

The domain business is one of fierce competition; the more popular a domain, the more intense the proverbial wolves will fight for a domain the second that it’s dropped. Let this also serve as a word to the wise: don’t let your domains lapse, and keep them current, so that someone doesn’t snap up your domain. However, if there’s a domain that you have your eye on, backordering and “snap” services are just a few methods that you can try to obtain the domain name should the owner not wish to sell.

If you have a website, you may want to allow your users to interact with one another. A message board (also referred to as a “forum”) is a great idea! But which software to use? If you want to go the free route, there are several choices. Perhaps the most popular is PhpBB, which is powerful, but basic. It will allow you to have different categories, and subforums within those categories. You can also ban users, and allow access only to those who register.

Another free option is Simple Machines Forum, which is also a basic forum package. With it, you can set up categories and forums, and you also have the ability to easily censor words and links. It also offers strong user management and permissions administration. Among its many other features, it also allows you to ban users for as little or as long as you need.

Another choice is vBulletin, which is strictly pay software. There is no trial version, and the license is currently $100 a year, while an owned license is $180. With the leased version, you have access to all upgrades for that year. For the owned version, you have access to upgrades for a year, and if you want to continue to get those updates, you’d have to pay either $40, or $60, depending on when you purchase the extension.

vBulletin definitely gives you your money’s worth. You have powerful tools at your disposal, which includes the ability to moderate a new user’s posts until they satisfy certain criteria, which you can establish, based on posts, reputation, and days registered. You can also control which users can see which forums, and you can turn registration on and off at will, not to mention the fact that you can also manually moderate new users, to help weed out the trolls.

All of these packages are fine in their own right, and as for which one is right for you, that depends on your needs and budget. No matter which one you choose, you will need access to the SQL administration (easily found in Cpanel), and the ability to set up a new database, which is remarkably easy with Cpanel.

By setting up forums, you can add a whole new level of interactivity to your website, and that will keep visitors coming back for more.

One service that numerous registrars offer is “private registration” of your domain. What this means is that they substitute their contact information for yours. Of course, you still maintain ownership of the domain, but they act as a proxy for your domain.

But is it worth it? Many registrars charge for this service, after all.

One concern that many domain owners have is the publication of their home address and private phone number, all of which would be available to anyone who looked up their domain in the WHOIS database. The solution to this is simple: get a post office box, and purchase a voice mail number from a service such as Evoice, who offers voice mail numbers for as little as $4.95 a month.

With the problem of privacy resolved, you can then be assured that you, as the domain owner, get important information about your domain. While it is true that spammers love to harvest information for their evil deeds, you should also make yourself available should any legal issues arise regarding your domain. Simply create a separate e-mail address for the WHOIS database, and you will be sure to immediately know about any potential problems with your domain, allowing you to quickly resolve those problems, and avoiding the possibility of losing your domain because you didn’t respond.

Of course, if you run a website that is of a controversial nature, then you indeed may wish to consider private registration, but for the most part, private registration causes more problems than it solves.

Your website is important to you, and so is the uptime. If your website goes down for any reason, of course you want to know. But if you’re not sitting in front of the computer all the time, how do you know if your site goes down? With monitoring services, such as Alertra.

What this service does is it monitors your website by pinging it from different locations around the world. If a problem is encountered, you are notified by phone, SMS, e-mail, pager, or instant message, depending on your preference. If you have a shared account, by the time you’re alerted, we’re probably already fixing it. But if you have a dedicated server, a service such as Alertra can prove to be quite invaluable.

How much you pay per month depends upon how often you want your website pinged, and how many methods of notification you choose. But regardless of how you go about it, it’s a priceless service, because you can be notified of downtime very quickly, which in turn will allow for a quick resolution to the problem.

Alertra is not the only company to offer such a service; other companies such as SiteUpTime, and Uptrends are two of the many companies to offer this sort of service. When it comes to uptime, knowledge is power, and knowing when your site is down, whether it’s the server itself, DNS, or only e-mail, you probably would want to know right away. Companies such as Alertra give you that knowledge, and that peace of mind.

There are numerous TLDs out there, and now there’s the .tel TLD, which is being billed as “the new way to communicate”.

Basically, this TLD is available from numerous registrars, and it, according to the registrar’s website, “allows individuals and businesses alike to store and manage all their contact information and keywords directly in the DNS without the need to build, host or manage a website.”

The registrar offers the ability to conceal contact information, allowing domain owners to make that information available only to parties they choose, through “friend requests”.

Although this seems like a nice idea, it could be considered by many to be merely a novelty. Given that there are so many TLDs out there already, another yearly cost with little real advantage may not be considered to be wise by most. But regardless, it is a service that’s being offered, and the .tel TLD is available at registrars such as Dynadot, and Network Solutions, just to name a couple.

This new .tel TLD, by the way, is not to be confused with the .mobi TLD, which is intended for websites that are coded specifically for mobile devices.

You may have heard about VPS hosting. What is it, and why should you care?

If you need the power of a dedicated server, but can’t afford the price, there is an option. A “virtual” dedicated server uses software like Virtuozzo. A key advantage to a VPS is that it divides a dedicated server into several dedicated servers, by dividing resources such as disk space and RAM.

Virtualization is a great way to enjoy the power of a dedicated server without the cost. With Jaguar PC, you can have a VPS account for just under $20. And you still get all of the options you normally would. You can still choose your operating system (CentOS, Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora Core, or Suse), and your control panel software ( cPanel, Interworx, DirectAdmin, or Plesk).

You also get complete root access, which means that you have the exact same administrative access that you would on a dedicated server, so you retain complete control of your domain (or domains).

Just because the price is low, it doesn’t mean that the quality is. We only use the finest components to construct the servers, so you can rest assured that you’re still getting quality service at a fraction of the cost.

Given that you can still host multiple domains with a VPS, this choice is a perfect way to gauge your site’s traffic, and determine whether or not a dedicated server would be in your best interest. The options are endless with a VPS, and with our friendly and eager staff ready and available to help you on your way, choosing a VPS through Jaguar is the right move!