Here is what we have lined up for you this month:

Lunar News – November 2009

What big news is going on in the month of November?  From web hosting plan savings, to how you can stay up to date with everything we publish; there is a little something for everybody.  Get up to date with the latest web hosting news to come out of the Lunarpages headquarters.

DeepTrawl Lunarpages Edition

A few issues back, we introduced you to the great web site error checker, DeepTrawl.  Well, now we are happy to announce that we are giving to you the full featured DeepTrawl Lunarpages Edition, totally free of charge!

How to Setup Anti-Spam Controls in LPCP

We have spoken before about the great features that come included with the new LPCP control panel.  This time around, we are going to share with you how to easy it is to set up your anti-spam controls so you can keep the unsolicited e-mails out of your inbox, for good.

Getting More Visitors with Google AdWords

Lunarpages has teamed up with Google AdWords to give all first time advertisers an easy way to get their web sites out there to the public.  Depending on the hosting plan you have, you could be eligible for up to $100 worth of free Google AdWords credit. We are here to help you get your Google AdWords advertising account started off on the right foot.

Getting Started with HTML

In an effort to help webmasters of every skill level, we have put together one of the most comprehensive guides to getting started with HTML.  Created exclusively for Lunarpages customers in mind, we have put together a six part tutorial series that will educate you about the hyper text markup language.

Lunar Picks – What Gadget Are You Thankful For?

It is November, which means that Thanksgiving is right around the corner.  To put a geeky spin on this favorite holiday of ours, we decided to ask the Lunarpages crew what their favorite gadgets are, and why are they thankful for them.

Setup Your Own “Share on Facebook” Button

One of the most popular social networks out there, by a big margin, is Facebook.  You can now easily jump onto this social bandwagon by adding a “Share on Facebook” button to your own web site layout.  This way, people can instantly share your web site with all their friends, family members and followers.

How to Password Protect Your Hosted Folders

Password protection is a good way to keep people out of a folder, or let a select group of people in.  To give you more control and functionality, we recently added this feature to our LPCP powered hosting accounts.  In this guide, we will walk you through the steps you need to take to password protect your own folders.

3 Fool Proof Ways to Advertise Any Web Site

Driving traffic to your web site is not always an easy thing to do.  One of the most popular questions we get asked is, “how can I get more web site visitors?”  This month, we have come up with three excellent and cost effective ways to get your web site known to the public at large.

View Your Page in Multiple Browsers Online!

With the help of Adobe’s BrowserLab, you can check to see how your web site looks on several different browsers  and operating systems, virtually.  This tool provides you a quick and easy way to check out your domain without having to install numerous browsers.

Over 20 Links for Statistical Stats

You can not mention web sites without mentioning statistics.  Many of us webmasters love checking our web site traffic every day.  This month, in our look at the best links from around the Web, we are focusing on the 20 best links for statistical and analytical statistics.

That is it for this month’s edition of the Lunarpages Newsletter.  We hope you enjoy this collection of articles, tutorials, tips and more we have created especially for you, the Lunarpages clients and customers.  We always enjoy hearing your feedback, so please feel free to leave a comment or send your opinions to affiliate@lunarpages.com.

Related Hosting Newsletter Articles:

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Save $72 on Your Next Business Hosting Plan Purchase

The perfect hosting plan for any e-commerce or business web site just got that much better.  For a limited time, we have lowered the Business hosting plan price to just $18.95 per month.  That is a savings of $72 if you sign up for a new Business hosting plan today, for 24 months. The Business hosting plan comes with a plethora of features.  Some of those include, a free dedicated ip, a free dedicated SSL certificate, access to your very own TremenDesk account, and so much more.  If you have been hesitant to grab a new Business hosting plan till the price is right, this is the time to act.

We are lowering our price to help put some more holiday cash in your pocket.

Have You Grabbed your 3 Month Free Trial to Keepit Yet?

Just about all Lunarpages customers have access to Keepit, the ultimate desktop backup solution.  As a Lunarpages member, you get a free unlimited trial for three months to see if you enjoy how effortless, simple and automatic the service is.  With many people migrating to Windows 7, now might be the best time to try it out.  You can simply backup your files to Keepit, install Windows 7 and then put your files back in place.  For more information on Keepit, be sure to check out our special offer page, and this tutorial which has much more information about this great offsite backup solution.

Grab a Quicksite for Just $9.95!

For a limited time only, Lunarpages has dropped the price of the Quicksite hosting plan to $9.95 per month, if you sign up for 12 months.

Quicksite allows you to take your website live in under 2 hours, with free setup, a grade A webpage editor and so much more.  Also worth mentioning is the fact that you have over 500 unique templates to choose from.  This is a terrific bonus to an already fantastic hosting plan.  Get your $60 off your next Quicksite hosting plan purchase today!

Introducing the New Dedicated i7 Servers

Lunarpages is not only a leader in the shared and VPS hosting world, they are also a juggernaut when it comes to dedicated hosting servers too.  The newest member to the dedicated hosting plan family is the new i7 Dedicated hosting plan.

• 7 Reasons to Love the New Intel Core i7 Dedicated Hosting Plan

Stay Up to Date with All the Hosting Help, News, Tutorials and MORE!

Subscribe today to our RSS feeds for free or get daily tips delivered to your inbox via e-mail (won’t cost you a thing!):

Lunartics Blog get updates delivered to… Your Google Reader Get RSS Updates via E-mail Your My Yahoo! Homepage Your My AOL Homepage The Bloglines Feed Reader Your Netvibes Start Page Your Pageflakes Start Page

Lunarpages Newsletter get updates delivered to… Your Google Reader Get RSS Updates via E-mail Your My Yahoo! Homepage Your My AOL Homepage The Bloglines Feed Reader Your Netvibes Start Page Your Pageflakes Start Page

Hope you enjoy these extra tips, tutorials and articles we share with you day after day, week after week.

Powered by Lunarpages Contest Winner!

Last month, in an effort to give back to our great community, Lunarpages decided to give away a free year of web hosting.  With over 200+ people adding the spiffy “Powered by Lunarpages” banners to their own web site – we could only pick one person to get the prize.  The web site that is winning the free year of web hosting is saxamo.com.  On behalf of the entire Lunarpages crew I want to congratulate them on the win, and thank everybody else for spreading the word.  Keep an eye out for even greater Lunarpages contest, surprises and deals coming soon!

That is it for this month’s roundup of news, web hosting deals offer and more.

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Here are just a few things that Deep Trawl will do:

• searches for dead links, 404 errors, and other common website errors
• finds missing images or invalid images
• highlights invalid xhtml and html coding errors
• seeks out spelling mistakes & undesirable user postings
• shows missing SEO user defined problems
• finds out of date and/or slow loading content

Don’t take our word for it, here is what the DeepTrawl authors had to say about their fantastic program and this new partnership with the Lunarpages community.

We are very pleased to be able to offer DeepTrawl free to you. DeepTrawl Lunarpages Edition can scan any website hosted with Lunarpages for many different types of errors such as broken links, bad spelling and invalid xhtml. DeepTrawl Lunarpages Edition is only limited to trawling sites hosted by Lunarpages, otherwise it’s identical to our top priced product which we sell for $599. The Lunarpages Edition will even provide you with a discount coupon for 30% off all the products we sell; please feel free to hand this to your friends and colleagues.

By downloading the DeepTrawl Lunarpages Edition you can make sure your site is in great shape now and in the future.

Want to see what it looks like in action?

DeepTrawl Lunarpages Edition Screenshots:

Once you start things up, you will see the welcoming splash screen first:

This is what the program looks like in action:

Here, are some sample results we found after scanning the Lunartics web site:

How Can I Get DeepTrawl Lunarpages Edition?

This is a special offer we wanted to make sure everybody get to enjoy. With that said, all you need to do is login to your Customer Account Page, click on the “Specials” Tab, then click the banner that says, “Click here for your $700 Free Bonus!”.  On the next screen, scroll down till you find the DeepTrawl section, and click the download link that matches your operating system of choice.  (DeepTrawl Lunarpages Edition supports both Windows and Mac OSX!)

Troubleshooting Tips

There are a few things to remember when using this awesome program:

• Your domain name must have “lunar” in the nameservers it uses.
• It is only for Lunarpages customers.
• If you have issues using www.yourdomain.com, try using just yourdomain.com (dropping the “www”).
• If you redirect to yourdomain.com/home.php or another page on your domain, try using that full path if you have any issues running the scan.
  

We hope you enjoy this new web maintenance tool.  This is just one more example and reason why with Lunarpages, solutions reside here with us.

Related Hosting Newsletter Articles:

• Lunarpages November Newsletter
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• Over 20 Links for Statistical Stats

Step one would be to login to your LPCP for your hosting plan, and select the E-Mail Accounts link under E-mail sidebar menu category.

Next, locate the e-mail address you wish to configure, and click on the AntiSpam link that lines up with that account in question. You can configure each account individually.

Now you will see the first screen of three when it comes to configuring your anti-spam settings in LPCP. Here you can setup the basic configurations for SpamAssassin.

• Required Score – Set the number of hits required before a mail is considered spam. “n.nn” can be an integer or a real number. 5.0 is the default setting, and is  aggressive; it would be suitable for a single-user setup, but if you’re an ISP installing SpamAssassin, you should probably set the default to be more conservative, like 8.0 or 10.0.

• Rewrite Subject – Text added to the Subject: line of mails that are  considered spam. _HITS_ in the tag will be replace with the calculated score for this message. _REQD_ will be replaced with the threshold.

The second configuration screen allows you to whitelist certain e-mail addresses. This is a good place to add e-mail addresses of friends and family members, so you can be sure when they send you something it will never be filtered out or labeled as spam by mistake.

The third configuration screen allows you to blacklist certain e-mail addresses. Add e-mail accounts here from people or places you never want to receive e-mail from. For example, if somebody@somedomain.com is harassing you via e-mail, you could list his e-mail address here – and his messages would no longer go through.

Once you are done, you can repeat these steps for each e-mail account you have created under your hosting plan so you can take care of any spam e-mail problems you might be having.

Bonus: Check out more tutorials, guides and more on the web hosting wiki!

For those of you who use cPanel, and want to do the same – you can follow the advice in this tutorial.

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Are you new to web-mastering, or marketing yourself out there, and you need a kick in the right direction?  Lunarpages has partnered up with Google AdWords to offer all you first time advertisers a way to get your web site seen, and for you to get more web site visitors.

What are Google AdWords? Google AdWords is advertising that runs alongside or above Google.com search results, allowing you to reach potential customers in real time as they are searching for your products and services!

It is expensive though, right?

Not at all!  If you are a Lunarpages client, you get instant access to at least $25 credit.  That is more than enough to get your feet wet with the Google AdWords experience.  There is no need to be an advertising expert, because Google makes the advertising experience very easy.

Here are some of the features you will see no where else:

• Reach Potential Customers at the Moment they Express Interest in Your Product
• Stay in Constant Control of Your Marketing Budget
• Receive up to $100 in Free Google AdWords Credits!
• Target Advertisements Across the US or in Your Own Neighborhood
• Optimize Your Ads with Real-Time Reporting
• Pay Only When Potential Customers Click Your Ads
• Gain New Channels for Marketing, New Business Acquisition, and Consumer Branding

Ready to get started?  Lunarpages clients can find the Google AdWords offer in their customer account page.  If you are not a Lunarpages client yet, be sure to check out this page for more information:

• Get Free Google AdWords at Lunarpages Web Hosting!

Depending on the hosting plan you choose or host with, you could be eligible for up to $100 in free Google AdWords credit.

Get Started Today!

This offer is perfect for anybody who has never gotten a Google AdWords account before.  Remember, this special promotion can only be used with NEW Google AdWords accounts.

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Tutorial #1 – Basics of HTML

Hyper Text Markup Language, or as you know it HTML, is the markup language for most web pages on the Internet. Now, it is not exactly a language like English or Spanish, which we communicate with orally. A markup language is a system for editing text in a way that changes how the text looks or how you interact with it. Where you use funny looking code to make one section of text look different from the other, the code in question is not seen by the end user. The server the web page is coming from, and the user’s browser come together to help mesh it together as something that is seen as visually appealing to the end user.

Tutorial #2 – Parts of a Web Page, Explained

Before you learn how to create your own web page, you need to learn what all the parts of the web site do, and what they are there for. We covered some of these in the Basics of HTML tutorial, but I am going to mention those again and a few more you need for a basic HTML web page. All web pages are written with a mix of content and code, and you must learn how to mix these elements correctly for your web site to come out looking correctly.

Tutorial #3 – Web Site Navigation

The navigation section of your web site is one of the most important factors to a web site. Why? The navigation is what allows you to move from one section of the web site to the next, linking web pages to web pages, and in all making a web site work. Here I hope to explain why web site navigation is important, along with a few other key factors you should remember when creating your web site.

Tutorial #4 – Body Tag Modifiers

There are several HTML tags that can act as modifiers to how the web page looks visually. First, let us re-visit the body tags. The body tags are there to tell the browser what part of the document is going to be visible to the end user when viewing the web page. This is marked up in your HTML code by putting a <body> where your web page’s content begins and a </body> tags where it ends.

Tutorial #5 – HTML Formatting Tags

When it comes to formatting a web page using HTML code, you can think of it (kind of) in the same way you would look at formatting a document formatted by a word processor. You have your headlines to show you where one section starts and stops. You have your paragraphs to break up blocks of text, and you have line breaks to show where there should be a new line started. Now I am going to show you how to get some of these things done using HTML.

Tutorial #6 – More HTML Formatting Tags

We have already covered some basic HTML tags you will use when writing your web page code. Here are a few more that you might find come in handy, when designing your own web page.

That is it for this tutorial round up – hope it is something you can all enjoy and get a lot of use out of.  If there is another series of tutorials you would like to see – let us know in the comments.  There is nothing I like more than making sure you all know what to do with your hosting account, after you get it.

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Here are some of the favorite gadgets from our trusty Lunar Crew:

Daniel – “Daniel – My new EeePC.  It is small and I can run Linux on it.”

Greg – “The Tiagra A, because it turns an angler into a human wench!  I never go to Cabo without it!”

Renee – “My cell phone, because it let me stay in touch with my family and my best friend.”

Katie – My laptop, because I can take it with me for work, on vacation or anywhere else!”

Joe - “I am thankful for my computer, and the Internet that brought me to meet the coolest company ever! ”

Monty - “My cell phone.  Thanks to it, I can never get lost again.”

Roy – “The gadget that I am VERY thankful for is my TiVo. I am able to watch all episodes of Cheer’s, 2 & 1/2 Men, Sports and all the late night shows when I want.  Thank you TiVo gods.”

MichaelT – “I would have to go with the USB Flash Drive followed closely by the wireless mouse.”

Aon – “It’s a little bit difficult to own a nice PC because not much space available to place it in my house. My HP Laptop is great. I can use it on small desk. It also comes in handy to play games, work on projects, listen music and watch movies.”

Katrina – “3G wireless and my air card, it lets me work (and play) from almost anywhere.”

Orlando – “My iPhone, because I don’t have to carry my iPod and my laptop and there is an app for everything!”

Ben – “I am grateful for my stereo system because I love slappin’ da bass.”

Shawn – “Isn’t it obvious – its the spork. I don’t know where I would be without my trusty spork. I can stab my peas, or I can scoop them up… Oh, the wonders.”

Tommy – “My second monitor. Without it, I would never be able to view the 20+ windows/applications I have opened.”

Randy – “My favorite gadget would have to be my camera because I love taking pics to capture those moments in time not to mention catching people off guard so I can upload the pics online to embarrass them later MUHAHAHAHAHA! ”

Flora – “My MP3 player, because it’s compact and portable – enables me to listen to music wherever I go.”

Deb – “My cell phone is my favorite gadget because it’s my business lifeline.  It does everything except the dishes, and I hear the new model is supposed to take care of those!”

Mitch – “My Nintendo DS, cause I can get my Mario-fix anywhere I go”

KrisA – “iPhone – Because it is the combination of what I need ( GPS / Games / Community / Internet / Alarm Clock / Radio / Stock ) .”

So now that you know our picks, what are some of your own gadgets you are thankful for having?  Do you love your portable gaming device?  What about your GPS in your car, or perhaps your own cell phone of choice?  Leave a comment and let us know what gadget just makes your life better.

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The first thing you will want to do is point your browser towards the Facebook widgets page for the share button. Next, select the style of button you want – the button type or just the link.

Now, because we want to use the coolest one – let us continue to customize the button one (the one to your left, in the two pictures above).  Now you can select to include the counter (which tells you how many people shared this page)  and if you want the counter to be to the side (as seen above) or on top, like this:

Pretty nifty, right?  Now, all you have to do is copy and paste the code they give you into your web site layout.  When a user shares your content, they look at your page to find a relevant title and image, and media if you specify it. You should add <meta> tags to your page to help them find this information.

For more help on how to get it tweaked up or customized even more, check out the Facebook Share documentation.  Also, do not forget to meet up with all the Lunarpages clients, fans and staff on the Lunarpages Facebook group!

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First, you will want to click on the Password Protect Directories menu link, under Your Site in the LPCP control panel.

Next, you should see all the folders you have created within your public_html folder. Navigate through the folders by clicking on the folder icon, and once you find the one you want to protect, click on the lock icon next to the folder icon.

This takes you to the password protection options for that specific folder that you selected to password protect. Now, you have several text boxes options and other things you must setup to password protect the folder in question.

How to Setup the Password Protection

Here is what you need to know when setting up your password protected folder:

• Activate Password Protection: By checking this check mark box, you are activating password protection for this specific folder.
• Resource Name: Whatever message to type here will display as the title for the password login box, when somebody tries to login to that directory.

Once you are done, click on the button labeled, “Save”.

In this section, you can add or remove users. Each login you create here will give that specific user name and password combination access to the folder you are protecting. You will need to fill out the following:

• User Name: the user name they will user to sign on
• Password: the password they will use to get access
• Confirm Password: the same password, typed again

Once you are done, click the button labeled, “Add authorized user”. Now that user will have access to your password protected folder.

Please Note: Before testing make sure to upload or create an index file in the folder. If you do not have an index file, you will receive a forbidden error when logging into the folder.

Now you see how easy it is to setup password protection using LPCP in your own hosting account.  For those of you who use cPanel, and want to do the same – you can follow the advice in this tutorial. For many more tips, walkthroughs and guides be sure to check out our fantastic web hosting wiki.

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When somebody asks me how to get their web site, “out there” there are several different routes you can go.  Depending on the type of web site you run or operate, the rules might be a little different, however I have three fool proof ways you can get it done.

Word of Mouth

You have a friend, that tells a friend, then that friend tells two more friends, so on and so forth.  That would be your word of mouth advertising in a nutshell.  It is possibly the best form of marketing you can do. Just tell your friends, family members and neighbors to check out your site and be sure to tell them why it would be helpful to them, or somebody they might know.

Like-Minded Web Sites

Go out and find other web sites like your own, and see if you can exchange links and audiences.  For example, if you have a blog about being a pet lover, you might contact a pet store’s web site and ask if they can link to you, if you do a few blog posts for them.  Always make sure you try to give something back to those other people or like-minded web sites that support your own.

Advertising Services

The last fool proof way of getting your name out there is to use a service like Google AdWords to advertise your web site to the masses.  You don’t have to have a million dollar budget to get started.  Actually, Google AdWords makes it pretty simple to setup a budget to help you get the most bang for your buck.  Of course, every Lunarpages client gets a way to try Google AdWords and Facebook Ads for free, so you have no reason not to try it out.

What other ways have you found to be good to help a new web site get off the ground?  I have listed some of my favorite fool proof ways here, but there are many more.  Be sure to list your favorite method in the comments.

Related Hosting Newsletter Articles:

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While hardcore designers may rather test the real browsers in real running environments, this tool provides you a quick and easy way to check out your domain without having to install numerous browsers.  It does it all from the Web.  Right now you can test in:

• Firefox 2.0 – Windows XP or OS X
• Firefox 3.0 – Windows XP or OS X
• Internet Explorer 6.0 – Windows XP
• Internet Explorer 7.0 – Windows XP
• Internet Explorer 8.0 – Windows XP
• Safari 3.0 – OS X
• Safari 4.0 OS X

Another cool feature is the Onion Skin view, which will lay one browser preview over on top of another one, to give you a real side by side comparison between the two, to help you fix and glitches there might be.

So sign up and give it a shot at browserlab.adobe.com.

Bonus: Looking for an alternative? Check out BrowserShots.org!

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Nine times out of ten, one hundred percent of the time, I can promise you’ll find at least one jewel you never knew about before in this pile of analytical links.  Each is ready to help you dive deeper and measure out how your web site is being viewed, consumed and used in a number of different ways.

• Google Analytics
  By far, one of the most in-depth free web site statistic tools out there today.
• Quantcast.com
  Open Internet Ratings Service!
• Compete.com
  follow traffic trends about of your site in comparison with other sites from all around the Web.
• WebsiteGrader.com
  Website Grader is a free SEO tool that measures the marketing effectiveness of a website.
• GoStats.com
  a great web site stats and hit counter!

• SEO Rush
  SEOrush is a one touch resource which provides you a FREE SEO report for your URL or a competitors URL.
• whos.amung.us
  Widgets to know who’s on your site and where they came from.
• SiteMeter.com
  web site statistics and counter, all in one!
• PostRank Analytics
  Track Your Social Engagement!
• SerpRush.com
  SERPrush is a free SERP checker which will enable you to check your search engine position in Google, Yahoo and MSN for the .COM and UK versions.
• TubeMogul.com
  Online Video Tracking and Analytics
• TweetStats
  In ur Tweets, Graphin’ Your Stats!
• Abouthisite.com
  Gather simple domain information about any web site out there.
• Mint
  Mint is an extensible web site analytics program.
• RankBuzz.com
  a domain name/web site popularity ranking tool.
• Clicky.com
  Real time web analytics!
• Feed Analysis
  get more stats on your FeedBurner powered feed.
• Online Charts Builder
  An online chart builder, based on the Google Charts API.
• SurveyGizmo.com
  online survey software!
• W3Counter.com
  Web site analytics, real time web stats and web counter.
• WhoisBucket.com
  WhoisBucket is a tool for performing whois lookups and provides you with additional domain information.

There you have it, over twenty links to help you track, sort and learn more about your web site your hosting here at Lunarpages.  If you know of another, please feel free to leave it in the comments and share with the rest of us stat lovin’ fools.

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