What type of web hosting services do you provide?

We specialize in Virtual Web Hosting which means that the domain name you have registered to represent your online presence will have a address, or "home", on our servers, and therefore can be reached by anyone on the internet.

What if I don't already have a domain name?

If you do not already have a domain name, we can handle the registration of that for you. You can use our online search utility to verify whether the name you are thinking of obtaining is available or not.

How do I know how much disk space I'll need?

20-30Mb of disk space is often adequate for most standard web sites, we include 20Mb for our Premiere Service Bronze Plan, which is the lowest level plan available. You should be able to store approximately 1,024 20k files.

Keep in mind that sound and image files will use more space than a text file. If you find that you need additional disk space to accommodate a growing site, you can purchase more space in 10Mb blocks at a cost of 50¢ per 1Mb/mth.

Why don't you offer 'unlimited bandwidth'?

The simple answer is "because there's no such thing". Any provider who pretends to offer "unlimited bandwidth" either has no concern for the performance of their network and servers, or is lying to their customers about how much traffic they'll really allow a site to have.

Our traffic allowances are much higher than most providers, but the reason they exist at all is simply to protect the availability and quality of our service for all customers. We also provide a cost-effective option for higher traffic levels if it should ever become necessary for your site, such as our value-priced Advanced Developer Gold Plan. Other providers, trapped by their ill-advised "unlimited bandwidth" policy, cannot provide any options when faced with a high-traffic site, and will most likely kick such sites off of their systems instead.

How will I know if I go over the traffic allowance for my account?

If you go over your traffic allowance, this will be reflected on your next bill. Should you choose to order our Full Log Analysis and Statistics option, you will be able to monitor the daily data transfer yourself. The Full Log Analysis and Statistics service is free, with a $25 setup fee.

Can I access my domain name without the "www"?

Yes, you will be able to access your domain name with or without using the "www" in front of the name. For example, you can reach this site either by www.stdiotech.com or stdiotech.com.

Will I have unlimited access to update my web pages?

All of our accounts offer 24-hour/day access for you to be able to update your web pages if you wish. The Premiere Service Plans have access through our Easy Access Site Management interface, all other hosting plans offer FTP, Telnet and the more secure SSH.

Can I resell space within my own account?

You may maintain multiple sites within your account, and may attach multiple domains to an account, but you must be maintaining these sites yourself, and not sharing the password with any third party.

Do you provide Microsoft FrontPage support?

We fully support Microsoft's FrontPage for creating and managing web content. We offer free installation of the server-side extensions for any of the Advanced Developer Hosting Plans.

Do you run Cold Fusion or Active Server Pages?

No. These are both products specific to Microsoft's Windows NT platform, which we do not use. Although versions are gradually becoming available for a very limited set of Unix platforms, no suitable version is available to us at this time.

We do offer a number of powerful alternatives that provide similar functionality, however. Dynamic Web content can be produced through the use of PHP (version 4.0.3pl1), or through embedded or direct CGI calls to scripts written in C, Perl, or Python (we support all of the above). Similarly, we support MySQL as a database backend for your Web site. This powerful SQL implementation is particularly well-integrated with PHP and Perl. All of these solutions can be developed starting with our Premiere Service Gold Plan.

Do you have any plans to offer hosting on Windows NT?

At this time, no. We are pursuing certain projects which may lead to the integration of Windows NT hosting into our suite of services, but there are no details available at this time.

Do you support RealAudio or RealVideo?

Yes and no. We do not at this time offer streaming servers to our customers, due primarily to lack of interest. Running a proper streaming service requires a significant investment in hardware and software; providers who are using a standard server license to sell streams to their customers are usually violating their license agreement.

However, all Real files can be served directly through the Web server, and in most cases, reliability, performance, and functionality is similar to what the streaming server provides. This is known as "byte-serving", and is indeed supported by our servers at no extra charge.

Can I upgrade my account at a later date?

Certainly. The charge for upgrading is merely the difference in setup fees between the old plan and the new plan. You are issued a pro-rated refund for unused time under the old plan, and billed for a new period at the new plan's rate.

Can I downgrade my account, and is there a fee?

Yes, you may, and there is no setup fee for downgrading your account.

Can I have multiple e-mail addresses?

Yes. Email to any address within your domain will come to your account's mailbox, where our standard mail processing options can act on it. This means that you can receive mail as sales@example.com, webmaster@example.com, personal@example.com, and so forth.

How much mail can I store on the system?

There is a courtesy limit of one megabyte in all mailboxes. Additional usage is billed $2/mth for each one megabyte increment, in extreme cases. Please note also that any mail message larger than three megabytes will be refused by our servers; files of this size should be transferred via FTP.

What databases do you support for use with my Web site?

The SQL implementation we support is the powerful MySQL, which runs on a dedicated pool of specially configured database servers. These can be accessed via Perl and PHP for Web integration.

Can I host an online store?

Yes. Please contact a Stdiotech representative for more information and to discuss the best options for you.

Can I host an adult-oriented site at Stdiotech?

In short, no. Technical concerns about maintaining the quality of our service for our entire customer base have led us to establish a policy against adult-oriented sites. These sites generate a unique pattern of access that is, unfortunately, almost wholly incompatible with general-purpose Web hosting services. We have chosen to focus on our general-purpose hosting services, rather than pursue any special arrangements to support adult-oriented sites.

There are many adult-oriented providers out there, however, so you should have no trouble finding a host for such a site. Be prepared to pay quite a bit for a successful site, however.

Can I run a chat server, an IRC client or bot, a public counter or
statistics system, or a banner exchange with a Stdiotech account?

No. These are all against our policies. These policies are carefully designed to protect and enhance the performance and reliability of our service. Systems that use advanced features of our accounts such as CGI or autoresponders, and offer use of those features to external parties are the most significant problem of this type.

If you are interested in adding a chat service to your site, please let us know of your interest; we will consider adding a supported chat service if there is sufficient demand.

Can I have multiple logins to my account?

No. Under the normal Unix security model, each account corresponds to only one identity.

Can I resell portions of my account's space to others?

Please see above. You may maintain multiple sites within your account, and may attach multiple domains to an account, but you must be maintaining these sites yourself, and not sharing the password with any third party.

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