Donesia Muhammad

Once you have everything ready to start
with a new web host, take the time to get to know the
web host setup.

Save Your Welcome
Letter

This is one of the most important
emails your new host sends you. The welcome letter.
This welcome letter usually contains very valuable
information to help you get started with your new web
host. It should contain information on:

• How to Access Your Emails
• How to Contact Support
• How and Where to Upload Your Files
• Your temporary web address until
  your domain name points to your site
• How to Change The DNS for your
  domain name to point to their name servers
• Billing information For Your
  Account
• How To Access Your Control Panel
  and any other extras that come with your account

Many people delete this welcome letter
then days later, run around looking for the same
information.  Keep this email in a safe place.

Go through Your New
Control Panel

Make sure you understand how to use the
control panel, and how to access other areas of your
web host.

Set Up Your
Email Accounts: When
you are in your control panel, set up the same email
addresses, autoresponders, forwarders, etc. that you
had on your old host so once the changes take effect,
you get the same emails as before.  Set up your
email accounts right away so you can start getting
your emails. Although
ICANN
( Internet Corporation For Assigned Names and Numbers)
says that it takes 72 hours for your domain to change
over, it may happen sooner, so be prepared and have
your accounts set up.

 If you use an email client
such as Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora, etc.
to retrieve your mail, make sure you know the mail
settings (which is usually found in your welcome
email) and add those to your email client.

Don’t wait until the last minute or you
may end up losing important emails.

Frontpage
Extensions: If you
use Frontpage to design your site, make sure
the Frontpage extensions are installed and avoid
pulling your hair out from day one.

Some of the most important information that you want
to find out with your new host is the paths to common
information such as:

• Full path to your html
  files,
• Full path to your cgi
  bin,
• Which version of PHP
  are they using
• Path to sendmail
• Path to perl
• New email settings for
  remote access such as retrieving emails through Outlook
  Express, Eudora, etc.

Quick Tip:
Take note of this information because you may have to
adjust this information in the scripts you are setting
up as the information may be different with your new
host.

Upload Your Files
Before The DNS Change

Usually in the welcome letter that you
are sent when you sign up for a new host, they tell
you the IP address of your site that you can use until
your domain name is pointing to your new site. You can
use that IP address to upload your website, so in case
your domain name points to your site in the middle of
the night or while you are away from your computer,
your customers can see your site instead of seeing a
blank page when they type in your web address.

Quick Tax Tip:

Every
time that you are billed for your web hosting
fees, either monthly, quarterly, yearly, etc. Save
those emails. These emails are proof on your taxes
of your business expenses. Always save every
receipt that you have for your business. You never
know when the IRS wants proof of your expenses.

Now you should be all set. Doesn’t seem
as hard  you expected. I wrote this tutorial to
help make it easier for you. The first time I moved to
a new web host, I tried to do it in one day and lost
all my information and the only back up of my site was
week’s old and I lost everything, all my databases,
scripts, etc. Now I know so you can make the change
more smoothly.

Changing Your Web
Host Tutorial
Written By Donesia Muhammad
Copyright ©2008 KDM
Publishing

Moving Databases and
Scripts

Moving your databases from one host to another can be
tricky if you don’t have the basic steps ready. This
is why it is so important not to cancel with your
original host until you have safely moved your
databases and scripts over to your new host and
everything is working okay.

With KDM Publishing, we give you
Cpanel
hosting platform so you can easily get into your
database area and back up your databases as well as
view and update your databases and scripts.

Step One:
To backup your database, you will need to use
phpMyAdmin which is usually located in the database
section of your website control panel. If you can’t
find it, contact your host.

When you have gotten into phpMyAdmin, find the
database you need to move and then once you click on
it, the list of tables in the database will be on the
screen.

Up top you will see some options, select "Export",
then you will see this screen

View dump (schema) of database

Select this option "Structure" and under the
"structures" section, click on "select all"
and make sure that sql is checked as well, go
down to the save file option, insert the database name
so you can remember the file name, and press go. The
file will be downloaded to your hard drive for
storage.

Moving the database
to your new host…….

Step Two:
If you want to upload your database, simply go to the
options up top and select "SQL". There you will
see the option for "location of the text file",
hit the browse button underneath this, locate your .sql
database file and click go.

Then wait while your database is being uploaded and
after that you should see all your database tables
appear as normal. If there is a problem, phpMyAdmin
will let you know and then start over, in case this
happens.

And that’s it, you’re done!

Using Software to Back Up Your Databases

Now of course if you want to make it simpler, you can
purchase software to make the transition easier. There
are a few

Navicat

Backing Up Your
Website Scripts

If you use any server side scripts on your site, then
you will have to move those scripts as well to your
new host. Always remember to install the new scripts
at your new host as soon as possible to anticipate any
problems. It is best to do this before you cancel with
your old host so everything can have a smooth
transition.
 

If you use any of these common scripts, you can find
additional information to easily back up these scripts
and keep your files intact for the move to your new
host

Word Press

Moveable Type

Article Dashboard

PHPBB

Mambo

Once that is all done, then you let
your old host know that you are canceling your account.

Next Step, Get to know your new Web Host

Backing Up Your Files

Always back up your files. Even if your
web host has backup capabilities, you always want to have
a fresh copy of your web site available on your computer.
I recommend a weekly backup, especially if you change your
content frequently.

You can use the same FTP program that
you used to upload your files to back up your files to
your computer. If you are using Frontpage or another web
design program that has it’s own FTP capabilities, please
obtain an

FTP program so you can back up the files
separately from your web design software.

This way you now have the latest and
most up to date file of your web site.

This is also a good time to check over
your site. Check out every page, look for dead links,
spelling errors, outdated information. You would be
surprised when you go through your site page by page, the
amount of errors you can find.

If you need to check for dead links on
your site, this site can help

So when you are ready to upload the file
to your new host,  you don’t have any outdated
information.

What
About My Emails?

While you are waiting for the DNS
changes to take effect, you will have some downtime on
receiving any of your emails. Any emails sent to your
email address may end up bouncing back to the recipient.
But there are some tips that can help you so you don’t
lose any important emails.

• First, make a list of the important
  emails that you get through each email address. For
  example, the emails you receive from Paypal,
  Clickbank or any Affiliate Programs that you are
  associated with. Also you may have personal family and
  friends that you are in touch with frequently as well.
  
• Note:
  There is no need to tell everyone how has ever had your
  email address such as newsletter subscriptions. Just
  those who you expect to receive emails from within the 3
  days time span.
• Contact those companies or
  individuals and explain that you are changing web hosts
  and that your emails may be down for up to 72 hours. Use
  any other email address that is not associated with that
  domain name and you can still get your important emails
  in the meantime.

Quick Tip:
If you happen to make the DNS
changes, and you still have some information from
your old host that you have not moved to your
computer, just look through your old welcome letter
from your old host for the ip address and FTP into
your site that way to grab the files.

Next Step, Backing up your databases and Scripts<

Understanding Domain
DNS Changes

Domain DNS changes sound complicated
but are very simple once you know these simple steps.

DNS (Domain Name
System) is a system that translates any domain
name from letters into a numerical IP address. 

When you move to a new web host, you
must make changes to your domain name to reflect the
new host. You are moving your existing domain name to
their name servers so when people type in your web
address, they are going straight to your new host
site. Your Domain Registrar (the company where you
purchased your domain ) should have step by step
instructions on how to change the DNS information.
This also applies to new domain names as well.

What Day Should I
Move My Domain Name?

That all depends on what day you get
the least amount of traffic. I normally do any DNS
changes on a Friday so usually by Monday, my changes
have taken effect and I am ready to go. But if you get
the most of your traffic over the weekend, you may
want to do the changes in the middle of the week. This
is up to you and your type of business.

How Long Does It
Take To Change My DNS ?

Once you make the changes to the
registrar that you purchased your domain name from,
your site can be down that same day. But it
does take typically from 24-72 hours for your
current domain name to point to your new hosting site.
Sometimes it can happen sooner than 24 hours but the
average time is 72 hours. That is what they will quote you in case there are any problems with your domain

Any DNS changes would also affect any
emails that you receive through your domain, so you
have to prepare yourself accordingly. This is why you
need to start backing up your site from your old host
now BEFORE you make the DNS changes or you may
not have access to any of your information.

Next Step:
Backing Up Your Files And
Saving Your Emails

Changing Your Web
Host Tutorial

What seems to be the hardest things
these days is how to change web hosts. You want to
make sure that you don’t lose files and important
information in the process.

Please read over each section so you
can ensure a smooth transition to any web host that you choose.

First Steps When
Moving Your Web Site

When you are ready to move your web
site to a new host, there are a few steps that you
must take to make sure your business has a smooth
transition.

Not only are you moving your website,
but you are moving your domain name as well. This can
take up to 72 hours to fully change over so you
want to make sure your customers are prepared.

Put A Notice On Your
Web Site To Announce That You Are Moving

Let your customers know either via
email or a notice on your site that there will be some
downtime with your business while you change hosts.
This way they know what to expect and you won’t get a
lot of what is happening with your site emails.

If customers have a question, provide
an alternate email address ( other than your
domain name email) that they can contact you. Remember
that when you move hosts, your email as well as your
site can be down for up to 72 hours, so you want to
make sure they have some way of contacting you.

Don’t Cancel With
Your Old Host Just Yet….

The biggest mistake people do when they
change hosts is they immediately tell their old host
that they are canceling their account and by the time
you send that email, your site is gone. That is bad
news for you because now you don’t have access to any
of your files, databases, scripts, email settings,
etc.

Quick Tip:
I
recommend that you plan at least a few
weeks ahead of time to move your files and
databases instead of trying to do it all in one
day.

You need to understand about changing your Domain Name
Server information and how it works so you don’t lose
your important files and emails.

Next Step:
Understanding Domain
DNS Changes

By Donesia Muhammad
Copyright 2005 KDMPublishing.com

I know you see it all the time on the Net these days, but you
still don’t know what the heck it is. RSS, RSS, what in the
world is RSS and what can it do for me?

RSS which is an acronym for Really Simple Syndication has also
stood for Rich Site Summary. Regardless, it is an XML based
form of delivering content to the masses. One of the main
reasons why it has become so popular is the fact that it is
free (reminds of the reason why MySQL and PHP is so popular as
well)

It makes it a very simple way to create a site with loads of
content without a huge knowledge of web design or html. And no,
you don’t have to set up huge partnerships with big content
sites, you can just grab their information via an RSS feed and
you are up and running. Content worthy of the search engines.
RSS has been around for a few years, but it just started
getting popular in the last couple of years. There have always
been ways to deliver fresh, new content to your visitors
through the use of javascripts, but RSS is much easier which is
why it is catching on like wildfire.

Don’t expect it to go anywhere anytime soon. RSS is here to
stay. Long ago, people have realized that content was king, but
getting to everyone was always the problem. Enter RSS
Read the rest of this entry →

Are there times when you just get fed up with your business? Either you are not making the money you expected or are frustrated at the amount of time and effort you put in with little results back (usually these happen at the same time) and you start to lose focus about your business. We all tend to be a bit unrealistic when starting a business, we have dreams of big houses, big cars, and then reality hits us…Hard

Don’t despair, I know you have heard this tons of times, but you have to keep at it and motivate yourself or you wont make it, plain and simple.

If this is your dream, then nothing will stop you.

I know it has been a long time since I posted to this blog. I have been so busy with school and the business which has expanded, I almost forgot about this blog. Maintaining more than one blog is not as easy as one thinks, especially when you have tent housand other things to do. But I am back, I am getting back into writing articles, seems as if I had nothing much to write about for a while but I am still here.

I have wanted to keep this just a blog to post my business articles but I figured since the domain is my name, I might as well stick some opinions in there as well. I also want to post new tidbits when I find them. Nothing on a set schedule becasue some weeks are better than the other, but when I find them I will post them.

For instance here is a great article I found on the Top 10 mistakes you can make when you run an Adwords Campaign
I dont see any reprint rights note so I just posted the link to it

So stay tuned for more information and links from me. Have a great day

By Donesia Muhammad

Over the past year alone, I have seen tons of new software and
tools come out to help article marketers. Article submitting
software, article creation software, private label articles,
and tons of ghostwriters to help get your articles flowing. But
I am still very old school when it comes to article marketing.

The best things that I use is the same thing I used over 15
years ago. Read the rest of this entry →