useforesite.com

“Free” Hosting

Posted by admin on February 4th, 2002 — Posted in Uncategorized

You have probably heard, at some point in your life, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” or this, “If it sounds too good to be true then it probably is.”  This page explains in detail why “Free” Hosting is not free.

   “Free” Hosting???

“Free” hosting services come with a substantial cost. If you are creating web pages as a sideline interest for personal or nonprofit reasons, one of these “Free” services may be what you want. On the other hand, if you truly want to position your company to take advantage of the internet as a serious marketing medium then these “Free” hosting companies are far from free.

Most “Free” hosting companies require that you place their banner add at the top most part of all your web pages. Seems like a small price to pay for a “Free” web site doesn’t it? It’s not. The first 400 pixels of your web site are the most important of the entire web site. It is your welcome mat and it either invites a web surfer to come inside and visit or to move on to another site. These “free” hosting company banners, which are the first thing any visitor will see, are graphically very large and so load slowly but when they finally do load they are designed to lure a web surfer to click on them. An act which will take your visitor (and potential customer) away.

If the visiting web surfer is not lured away by the banner, they will still be left with an annoyed feeling for having to wait so long for your pages to load and remember these banners are placed on every page of your web site. If you’re lucky, you now have a frustrated web surfer who decides to stay at your web site.

Your products or services are of some interest to them so they follow one of your links to another of your pages. Again, they encounter a slow loading but very attractive banner and this time are either enticed away by the banner or move on to another web site or at the very least are annoyed by the slow loading web page.

   I can live with that. You may say.

So the “Free” hosting service is still of interest to you even after reading the above. Let me present a couple simple questions.

1. Do you plan to take orders?
2. Do you want a guestbook?
3. Do you want to have interactive forms which a guest can submit?
4. Do you want to have autoresponders?
5. Do you want to monitor web surfers visits to your site?
6. Do you need SSI? (Yes! You do.)
7. Do you need site management features with password protection?
8. Do you need telnet access? (Yes! You do.)
9. Do you need FTP access? (Yes! You do.)
10. Do you want unlimited email accounts? (It helps)
11. Do you need technical support?
12. Do you need CGI bin access? (Yes! You do.)

Most if not all of these services are not available through a “Free” hosting company. In essence you can’t conduct business on the internet through one of these services. You can receive emails and try to do business that way but you’ll find that all the above mentioned conditions will effectively eliminate most if not all your potential customers so there will be no emails to speak of.

   Still think “Free” hosting is free?

When you are on a “Free” hosting company’s server you don’t have your own domain name i.e., http://www.yourcompany.com . What you get is a subdirectory within their domain name’s root directory i.e., http://www.FreeHosting.com/users/YourWebPage.html.   This is the most damaging feature yet mentioned.

Lycos is one of the largest search engines in existence. They prioritize or weight the search results. A heavier weighting is put on root pages or pages which are automatically called when an HTTP address or URL is selected. These root pages are given priority in a search query over subdirectory pages. This appears to be a decisive move on Lycos part to promote businesses on the internet and set home pages in the background. This is good for a business with proper web design strategies. Why give home pages the same relative importance as a company generating income and jobs?

When a web surfer performs a search query for your services or products they most likely will never find your web site if it’s buried inside someone else’s directories. This is one of the key reasons you should also avoid using an ISP’s (Internet Service Provider) “Free” 5mb of space to host your web site. If web surfers can’t find your company through a search query, what’s the use in advertising on the Internet.

   “Free” hosting with your own domain name.

What you could do is get your own domain name and use the “Free” hosting company’s server. Only problem with this is, it’ll cost you to place your own domain name on their servers. Usually it cost about $10 per month. So you can pay $10 per month for “Free” hosting and then you still need to answer all those questions above. Do they offer access to a CGI bin; Technical support; Telnet access; Shopping cart programs; how much web space do they offer for $10 and do you still have to place their banner on your pages?

  How do they do it?

How do companies provide web sites for free? Are they just really nice people who are taking a loss so they can offer you something for nothing? Perhaps they have so much money they need some method for tax write offs. How do they stay in business if they are not making money off their clients?

These are some actual quotes explaining the (good will) efforts of these “Free” hosting companies.

In an expanding effort to bring the Internet together as a community, we have decided to allow anybody that has Internet access to voice their opinions and express their views through a web page.

Our initiative is to encourage internet usage.

Nothing to buy! No strings attached!

We believe the Internet should be free for the public.

The following are just a few of the restrictions imposed by some of these good natured “Free” hosting sites.

Do not password protect any of your pages

No commercial pages promoting or describing any kind of business

No advertising banners of any kind apart from ours.

Am I allowed to put files on my site to download (like .zip,.exe, etc. files)?
No, we currently do not allow you to put those types of files on our server to download and we not plan to.

In exchange for web hosting, we require a banner on top of every HTML page.  We also require a two small thumbnail banners on the bottom of each page. 

Notice how small the above print became?

   So how do they make money?

Here’s another quote.

XYZcompany.com is sponsored by advertisers. By allowing advertisers’ banners to be displayed on your web page you are earning your web site!

They are sponsored by advertisers. Let me say that again so you don’t miss it, they are sponsored by advertisers. This is how they make their money. By having a group of customers (you) advertise for their sponsors. If you are trying to sell your services or products, is it in your best interest to encourage customers to go elsewhere?

  How else are they making money?

1. They do make money off their members. One method is described above, by having slow loading yet attractive banners in the first 400 pixels of your web page luring potential customers to their home site or to their sponsors web site where billable services are found.

2. Another method used to make money is to sell member’s personal information to advertising and marketing companies. This way your personal interests, views, web surfing habits and email address can be monitored for targeted sales and marketing ploys. Your personal membership information can and will be sold and distributed to others. This is why it’s free, so that information on large groups of people can be obtained and sold. One thing you won’t find at any of these “Free” hosting services is a “member privacy policy”.

Don’t be surprised if you begin receiving spam email after signing up as a member with one of these “Free” hosting companies.

   Our “member privacy policy”. It’s short, simple and it’s not in small print.

We will never sell or distribute any member information to an organization, group or advertising agency for any reason. When entrusting us with your confidential information regarding personal and business affairs, it’s your right to have your privacy maintained. We will not violate this trust.

   The bottom line.

The bottom line is, you get what you pay for but if you still think “Free” hosting is the way to go, click here to visit a web site which has links to about thirty “Free” hosting companies. You may want to bookmark our site before you go there. We offer a full range of features at reasonable prices. Visit our Hosting Packages page to see what we offer for your money.

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Hosting Features & Fees

Posted by admin on February 4th, 2002 — Posted in Uncategorized

Hosting Packages

Package One 25MB Domain Name [yourdomain.com] Yearly Payments: $25/month Quarterly Payments: $27/month One-Time Setup Fee: $59	Package Two 75MB Domain Name [yourdomain.com] Yearly Payments: $39/month Quarterly Payments: $44/month One-Time Setup Fee: $59
Package Three 125MB Domain Name [yourdomain.com] Yearly Payments: $49/month Quarterly Payments: $59/month One-Time Setup Fee: $0 – Waived	Package Four – No Internic Fees! 25MB Sub-Domain Name [yourname.useforesite.com] Yearly Payments: $19/month Quarterly Payments: $21/month One-Time Setup Fee: $25
Package Five 10MB SubDirectory Name [useforesite.com/yourname/] Yearly Payments: $15/month Quarterly Payments: $17/month One-Time Setup Fee: $20 [Note: No Front Page Extensions Avail. on #5!]	Credit Cards and US Checks Accepted!

 

Add-On Options

Credit Cards and US Checks Accepted!

Sorry, we do not host adult or hacker-oriented/warez sites!

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Home Page

Posted by admin on February 4th, 2002 — Posted in Uncategorized

The one stop for learning how to implement successful web site design strategies.
This site is best viewed with every browser at any resolution on all servers.
“UseForeSite” designed with foresight and you in mind. Enjoy

  Use Foresight

To create a successful web site, a clearly defined planned strategy must be mapped out and implemented. This site will provide the information and services you need for a successful design strategy.

Hosting Features and Fees

We offer full featured packages at very competitive prices, backed by very responsive and friendly support! Here’s a sample of what’s included:

Unlimited     traffic/hits CGI access SSL secure server use email autoresponders, aliases, forwarding mailing lists Real Audio/Video streaming

Free    FrontPage 98 extensions graphical site stats anonymous FTP server-side includes search engine submission shopping cart CGI

 And Lots More…

Also, a complete 30-day money-back guarantee. Plus, we serve your site using high-speed OC3c 155 megabit/sec pipes and intelligent routing using BGP, so your site is always responsive. [Don't settle for a T3!] For $29-34/month! Let’s see more details…

Our Services

Advertising and Miscellaneous

De-mystify the Internet

Tutorials and Free Scripts

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Frequently Asked Questions

Posted by admin on December 18th, 2001 — Posted in Uncategorized

Hosting Concerns

• Our Usage and Hosting Policies
• Details on hosting your site on our server
• Details on all the features and what they mean

Configuration Concerns

• How to get mail to redirect and setup auto- responders
• How to respond to forms without CGI!
• How to setup CGI scripts
• Setting up an MySQL database
• Setting up an access counter
• Setting up a mailing list
• How to create a clickable imagemap for your graphics
• Server-parsed HTML (server-side includes) and how to use it
• .htaccess – Restrict access, redirect hits, handle error documents, set mime types.
• Expiration, and forcing a browser to reload a page every time
• Other Notes About The Server

HYPER TEXT MARKUP LANGUAGE
(HTML)

Our Own HTML Tutorial
This tutorial will take through the proccess of creating your own web pages.

Our Own Color To Hex Charts
These color charts give you the hexadecimal values of the relative color.

The Bare Bones Guide to HTML
This lists practically all of the available tags in HTML 2.0, HTML 3.0, and the Netscape extensions.

Weblint
Like picking lint out of a clothesdryer (where did all that fluff come from?), Weblint will scrutinize your web pages to find any potential problems with the HTML you wrote.

Netscape’s extensions to HTML
This lists all of the new HTML tags recognized by Netscape Navigator (such as tables and colored text). Used well, they will make your Web pages really stand out.

How do they do that with HTML?
This site gives several tricks and tips for getting the most mileage out of your web pages.

Netscape Color Guide
This page lets you test various text and background color combinations for your web pages.

The Transparent/Interlaced GIF Resource Page
If you have any questions about “transparent GIFs”, this is the place to go.

Progressive JPEG sample images
Here is the only information I’ve been able to find so far on the web about Progressive JPEG’s. As I find more useful information I will add links to it here.

The Netscape Frames Tutorial
Charlton Rose has put together this completely terrific introduction to Netscape 2.0 frames.

WRITING CGI PROGRAMS

CGI Resources
A ton of information on prewritten CGI scripts, CGI tutorials, programmers, articles, and more!

CGI Script Documentation
A ton of CGI documentation, including the specs, tutorials, debugging, cookies, imagemaps, forms, security, server side includes, and tips/instructions/tutorials on most CGI languages like Perl, Applescript, C/C++, Tcl, and Visual Basic.

Perl CGI Script library
A ton of Perl CGI scripts from the CGI-Resource site. Why write your own when one is already written?

The Common Gateway Interface
NCSA provides much helpful information about CGI here (along with a good introduction to forms.)

Server-side includes
Also known as “parsed HTML”: what they are, how they work, how to use them.

Server Push
Here are documentation and examples of using “server push” to do simple animation or automatic minute-by-minute updates on your pages.

Using ISINDEX for server-side searches
This explains how to write a CGI script to perform simple text searches on your web server.

OTHER TUTORIALS/REFERENCES

Tutorials
Learn about tracert, ping, whois, uptime, telnet and more at our tutorials page.

HTML Tutorials
Our tutorial on HTML will show you all you need to know to create effective web pages.

SSI (Server Side Includes)
Use our tutorial on Server Side Includes in order to learn how to set up and use a SSI web page.

JavaScripts
We have a list of six very useful Javascripts and a tutorial for installing each. These scripts allow you to create web pages that have menu bars, links that change on mouseover events, scrolling marque in the browser lower bar, Mouseovers or image flips, frame destroyer and image dragging.

Mouseovers
Use our mouseover code generator page to generate mouseover scripts then copy and paste them into your pages.

Color To Hexadecimal Chart
This chart will give you wide variety of colors and their respective hexadecimal values for your web design project.

Telnet
Learn to use telnet to access your domain server

UNIX
Find a list of the more common UNIX commands on this page.

Bignosebird
This is a great site for the begining web site designer. This site will provide just about everything you need for a quality site.

NCSA HTTPd Tutorials
NCSA’s Tutorial pages offer help on Server-Side Includes, Imagemaps, Access Control and Authentication, and CGI configuration.

Webmonkey’s Teaching Tool
This link offers a “monkey see, monkey do” tutorial on HTML programming that’s pretty interesting. Webmonkey’s HTML Reference Page

Developer Shed’s Beginning MySQL
This link offers a brief step by step tutorial covering the basics of MySQL.

Developer Shed’s PHP3 Introduction
This link offers an intro to PHP and web database interfacing with MySQL.

Telnet/UNIX Command Tutorial
A nice introduction to the UNIX commands and how to use those commands when you telnet in.

UNIX help for Users
Helpful information for users of the UNIX operating system, developed at the University of Edinburgh.

Any additional help needed is available by emailing webmaster@useforesite.com

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General Marketing Strategies

Posted by admin on November 18th, 2001 — Posted in Uncategorized

This page will help you understand how marketing strategies are employed daily to help loosen your wallet and to subliminally encourage you to make purchasing decisions which are not your own. The Internet is the single most important marketing medium in history. Here on the internet, strategic successful marketing techniques also need to be employed. Let UseForeSite show you how.

Table of Contents

Procter & Gamble Raising Their Stake USA Today 08/16/98 Understanding the medium TV Advertising Magazine Promotion Department Stores

Restaurants Grocery Stores Internet Marketing If You Build It Hosting Service vrs ISP? Advertising Cost Comparison

  Procter & Gamble

  Raising Their Stake

Procter & Gamble, the self proclaimed largest advertiser on earth, is preparing to raise their stake in the internet marketing medium. Denis Beausejour, vise president of worldwide advertising at P&G says “The internet is the most important marketing medium in history”.

  USA Today 08/16/98

An article in USA Today newspaper continues to state that P&G first helped turn radio then TV into the two most powerful mediums. P&G which spends $3 billion a year on advertising hopes to do the same with the internet. Within 5 years they intend to increase their stake in the internet from 1% of their advertising budget to 80%.

---

  Understanding and using the medium

  I’m not a marketing specialist but the following information should be obvious to anyone who reads it. Every day we are bombarded with marketing tactics designed to loosen our wallets. They appeal to our egos, fears, insecurities, phobias, pains, pleasures etc.. You name it and there’s a product to fix it. 

  Human behavioral patterns as a group are studied so that merchants can capitalize on predictable habits and actions. All this study into the human psyche dictates the landscape of the constructed world around us, such as where escalators are placed in department stores or where products are displayed or when particular commercials are aired. 

  We are presented with toys and cartoons in the morning, skin care and household products during daytime soaps, beer and cars during Monday night football. “On Sale” cloths racks hinder our egress through department stores. Walkways and structures are designed to control our movements which influence our purchasing decisions. When we reply “No!”, we are ignored then a second and third attempt is made to manipulate our purchasing decision.

Like it or not, this is our world. Why? Because it works. If these techniques weren’t effective, they wouldn’t exist. They exist because as a group humans are very predictable creatures. The following are examples of effective advertising methods used to sell products to this predictable group.

Just as, in the general market place there are effective methods and techniques for advertising products, so too, there are effective methods and techniques for advertising products on the Internet.

   TV Advertising

   Magazine Promotion

   Department Stores

   Restaurants

   Grocery Stores

   Internet Marketing

Consider this!
The fact is, we are manipulated by advertiser’s every day in subtle ways, most often we are completely unaware of this manipulation. The more unaware of the manipulation, the more effective its influence.When it comes to advertising your business on the internet, it’s not enough to have a graphic designer make some fancy images and put them on a web page. A successful web site must, first and foremost; Attract people to it Load quickly Present quality content Be esthetically appealing Provide clear and easy to follow structure Incorporate products and services naturally
Fail at any one of these areas and the web site stands a very likely chance of doing the same.

If you build it (web site) they will come.  WRONG!

Hosting Service, Why?

   Advertising Cost Comparison

UseForeSite incorporates all the methods described throughout this entire web site.   For pricing packages check out our “Pricing Plan Packages” page.

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