Dotty Sites

So I’ve talked on and on about nameservers… but I’ve never said what they are.

First, let’s figure out what your nameservers are currently set to… learn how here by using whois. This tells you the nameserver you are currently using.

Check mine out:

The nameserver tells the world where to look for your content. You want your nameservers to be the nameservers of your webhost. If you registered your domain with your webhost then you probably don’t have to do anything else (easy peasy), this is the case, for example, if you bought hosting from go daddy and did your registration with them.

BUT I register with goDaddy and I host with webhostingpad. Webhostingpad actually gives you one domain for free (so you could register and host with them as well) but otherwise their domains are a bit pricier (like $14/year or something) and when you have a dozen or more domains it all adds up.

SO, I need to make sure the domains at goDaddy have the nameservers pointing to webhostingpad. If you want to do this too I suggest reading all of it before jumping in. Not that you’re going to make a mistake but the best way to explain it isn’t the best way to do it.

Changing the nameservers on your registrar is easy — some registrars will just ask that you email’em. Others will let you change it yourself. GoDaddy has it on your domain manager.

I happen to know that the nameservers for webhostingpad are ns1.webhostingpad.com and ns2.webhostingpad.com but you can look this up in your registrars help pages it should be pretty easy to find.

NOTE: if you already have email set up, be sure to change your MX records at your destination host before changing nameservers. More on this later!

See it’s right there in the bottom left! Prettttty cool.

You’ll also see that my DNS Manager no longer exists at GoDaddy. Don’t be alarmed — that’s just because now you’re hosting elsewhere. You’ll use the DNS Manager at your host (this is where you’ll change MX records to forward your email).

Next (or actually before), be sure your webhost knows your coming. If you have set up your hosting account with the domain you want to use you won’t need the addon domain. (On CPanel it will show in the “stats” pain as your “main domain), you’re already ready to go. You’ll just use your main public_html directory for content.

Otherwise, log onto your account with your webhost. If you’re using cpanel (like with webhostingpad) you’ll look for something called “addon domains.”

Here you’ll add your new domain and create a new directory for you to put all of the crap you want the world to see when they visit your domain!

So now that your webhost has a spot for your stuff, and your registrar is pointing to that webhost … you’re all set… for now.

Okay friends, so maybe I’ve been making this a little too complicated. It is definitely not strictly necessary to host your own site. You can let the big guys do it for you… heck it might even help you catch a few extra followers. The two biggies are blogger (by Google) and wordpress. Both of them allow all of the customization, themes, plugins, widgets and more that I talk about around here, they just handle the hosting for you.

Even better than not having to deal with your own web hosting — these fabulous friends don’t leave you in a bind either.

Both WordPress and Blogger provide excellent help and support for the new blogger: http://en.support.wordpress.com/ and http://www.google.com/support/blogger/?hl=en&rd=1

And they offer the ability to use your own domain name with their blog. That means all of that stuff about domain registration is still super useful! I’m going to go through this part for both Blogger and WordPress- I’m sweet like that.

So first things first, head on over to the websites and sign up. With Blogger if you already have a google account/gmail account it will simply sync up with that. But I prefer WordPress which will make you do the standard sign-up dance. It’s not too painful though.

WordPress
Start by getting to the domain part of your account dashboardy thing, navigate by visiting your account, then right beneath “dashboard” in the left navigation menu you’ll see Upgrades, and in that menu you’ll find Domains. Or for a shortcut: this:https://YOURUSERNAME.wordpress.com/wp-admin/paid-upgrades.php?page=domains.

The page should look a little something like this:

From here, type in your domain. Hopefully you’ve already purchased one from my friends over at GoDaddy.com or another domain registrar. We talked about that a bit ago here. Anyway so, type that baby in there and unless you’re clairvoyant or have already read the instructions you’ll end up here:

Which is perfectly fine because it has fancy schmancy instructions on how to do this right. First the two numbers up at the top there that it gave us “currently the nameservers for this domain appear to be:” are where the nameservers are currently pointing — you can check this yourself by checking out whois records (we talked about that here). But obviously that’s not where you want them to point. You’ll need to go to your domain registrar and have them changed.

One thing I like about webhostingpad — I’m super lazy, and all I have to do to change the nameservers of my domains is shoot them an email (from the email address associated with my account) and tell them the domain and the new nameservers. Pretty sweet. But it’s pretty easy with GoDaddy as well … and I’ve never tried emailing them, it might work? But here is godaddy’s tutorial.

So all you’ve got to do is change those pesky nameservers to ns1.wordpress.com, ns2.wordpress.com, and ns3.wordpress.com. We can talk later about why there are multiples or you can check out this wikipedia article if you’re curious. As always, I’m happy to answer questions

You’ll also see at the top wordpress gives you the option to register a domain. You can do that too! Everybody loves registering domains. But me, I’ll stick with GoDaddy.

Let’s now take a look at Blogger:

Google want’s to set this up a little differently. They want you to change your CNAME records (wikipedia article about CNAME). I think this will let us bypass all of the fun stuff we needed to do to get google apps up and running for custom email. However, we’ll worry about that later. For now if you’ve already got a domain you’ll follow these instructions to change the CNAME records to what google expects them to be (here google helps godaddy users). And just like wordpress, blogger will be happy to be your registrar. On the settings page for your blog, you’ll see a publishing tab, and a link for “custom domain” — yep you’re in the right place.

But, because you guys are all fancy schamcy and bought your own domain you’re going to need to switch to advanced settings and follow all of those instructions about CNAME changes.

That’s it! Ha. I make it sound like it was easy.

When it comes to web hosting there are a lot of choices (no really, maybe countless). In general, I’ve been happy with the ones I’ve tried. I’ve also had my own server — but honestly, that is definitely more trouble than it is worth. Currently I’m with WebHostingPad. I pay around $100 for 4 years of their service (which is super cheap), and that includes one domain registration (~$10 /year value). When I first started with them, they were one of the highest rated for one of the lowest prices. I’m happy with them but it’s always good to shop around.

You can just google compare web hosting (or something). You’ll find TONS of sites (the sites make money for each customer that signs up for web hosting using a link from their site), most of them have accurate information. For example. I got some overall ideas about prices and services from these sites, then I did some more pointed research to learn more about the one I thought I wanted to choose. (Check consumer reports, find some message boards/blogs with opinions).

Things to think about:

• Space / bandwidth constraints
  There are so many unlimited/unlimited companies and plans that I just stuck with unlimited
• MS Windows / linux servers
  If you need to install certain software or run websites that need a windows server this could be a big make/break for you… my server is Linux though for what I do it really doesn’t matter
• Software
  Are they using Linux or Windows servers (or does it not matter to you), what database installations are available to you, what management services do they provide — godaddy uses their own but has great support, webhostingpad uses cpanel which is pretty common and has good support online.
• Installation services
  Though installing most things (blogging software, CMS, message board software, etc… ) is pretty easy it’s super nice if they have automatic installers for sorts of things to save you the trouble
• Customer Service
• Cost
  Unfortunately this is not a “you get what you pay for” sort of situation. Hosting companies know that this is all very confusing. They also know that people find it valuable to have a web host and don’t really have any clue how much it would cost to provide such a service. The best remedy against this is comparison shopping and asking a lot of questions. Don’t be surprised if you find a comparable service for a drastically different price

We’ll talk more about hosting soon — but I wanted to get started.

If you give a mouse a cookie — or a moose a muffin — or a friend a website, she’ll want a custom email address to go with it.

Lucky for me (and I suppose for you), this is actually not as tricky as it may seem. As a matter of fact, with a little practice, you can set it up in less time than it takes to make a good batch of chocolate chip cookies. First, you’ll need access to your domain’s MX records. You should have access to these through your hosting service (for me WebHostingPad, or maybe GoDaddy). I really should get around to talking about hosting services — that will be next.

Some of the hosting services you will encounter will have their own email hosting service, which is great. They will usually have a web-mail portal, a pop and/or imap service blahdeblahdeblah. Personally though, I stick with Gmail. Email by Google. It is *awesome*. It is quick, easy, powerful, cheap (free), and it does laundry on second Thursdays. Okay maybe not, but it is awesome. To get started you’ll want to sign up for Google apps.

I took a little screen shot here – this is where you start. Easy peasy. You’ll see here that google can also be a domain registrar for ya. (They do webhosting too as a mater of fact but it’s rather limited). They actually register you with a different registrar- I bought one through google once that was registered through GoDaddy and another from some other company. If all you want is custom email – it’s a great option, if you want more, it’s not a bad way to go but you can find cheaper. Also, Google creates an account with the domain registrar for you, and that can be a bit annoying.

ANYWAY — you’re the domain administrator and you’ve typed in your domain. The next couple of pages are your pretty standard account creation stuff…Wow this really is easy!

That is until you saw this:

Don’t panic. We can do this. The first one is definitely the easiest. Bust out notepad, make the file, put the file in the root directory. Wait! Crap. We haven’t talked about web hosting yet. Okay, try the second option… Between GoDaddy support and Google we are golden: info on CNAME records. I’ve done this both ways — they are both quick and easy, but I’m definitely more fond of the first approach.

You’re really almost done. You can use most of the functionality of Google apps now (and I’m sure we’ll talk more about that functionality). You’ll also be offered a setup guide – it’s pretty great, but take it with a grain of salt. If you don’t want/need something move on, it will always be available to you. There is more in this guide than anyone will ever need

But back to email, to get the email service to work — you’ll need to hook up your domain’s incoming email to google’s email service. This is done through MX records. I couldn’t have screenshot better myself so here are google’s directions for GoDaddy. I’m also currently setting this up so here are the directions I’m using for cPanel (what WebHostingPad uses). The cPanel instructions aren’t exactly explicit but here are some great general directions. If you find yourself having any sort of confusion just shoot me an email or leave a comment, we’ll get you sorted out.

Once that’s done you’re done!
Hopefully soon I’ll tell you about some of the great things google apps and gmail can do (because there’s some really neat stuff).

Until then — try out my awesome new email sarah@dottysites.com (I set it up while writing up this post).

Access your own accounts with these addresses:
Google apps:  http://www.google.com/a/yourdomain.com
Google mail: http://mail.google.com/a/yourdomain.com

PS: I definitely have a thing for Gmail– and my bias definitely shows. With a little digging you’ll find lots of other email services support custom domains (Yahoo’s paid email for example). Setting them up is very similar. My examples will use gmail and google apps – in the words of my mentor “be brave” — with computers you can always undo or start over. You can always move your email.

So we already talked about how to register a domain. However, because it’s so easy a lot of the people I help have already gotten their domain registered and need to control it themselves. They need a Domain Transfer.

A domain transfer is much more complicated than simply registering. This is in order to protect the owner of the domain name.

The absolute easiest way to transfer a domain is to make sure that your email address is registered as the administrative contact. I was told that changing other contact information can prevent the domain from being transferred for 60 days (love the GoDaddy support people), but I can’t find anything on the net to verify that. Me? I played it safe and only changed the administrative contact.

Next, you should start the transfer process. Most domain registrars will charge you some amount for the transfer and give you one year of registration. GoDaddy.com gave me the transfer + the year for $6.99 (cheaper than a 1 year renewal). Then the emails start flying!

First, you (or the administrative contact) will get an email requesting the transfer, it will have contain the Transaction ID and Security Code. These two codes will be used to authorize the transfer. Next (or you could have done it before), you need to request the domain transfer authorization from your current registrar (whoever that might be). Using these (3) codes you’ll be able to authorize the transfer. Following the authorization, you’ll get an email to confirm (mine came two days later). If you do not confirm/deny the transfer it will happen automatically after five days.

Whewpfh.That definitely, DEFINITELY, needs a flow chart — but this post is already weeks over due.

Once the transfer is complete you’ll have full control of the domain name, can host it – forward it – park it – you name it.

Whois?

It’s a question you sometimes ask about others and sometimes ask about yourself. The good news is the whois record can tell you a lot about a domain. When it was registered, who it is registered to, where it’s being hosted and more.

You might want to check the whois record of your own site to verify that your contact information is up to date, or check when your registration expires.

You can just google “whois” and get a variety of whois search engines but I like network solution’s search. GoDaddy also has one, but it requires you to enter a captcha and I’m not fond of it’s interface. Regardless, they all give you the same information.

Here is the whois record for wikipedia.com

Registrant:
   Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
   P.O. Box 78350
   San Francisco, California 94107-8350
   United States

   Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
   Domain Name: WIKIPEDIA.COM
      Created on: 12-Jan-01
      Expires on: 10-Jan-15
      Last Updated on: 01-Mar-06

   Administrative Contact:
      Admin, DNS  dns-admin@wikimedia.org
      Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
      P.O. Box 78350
      San Francisco, California 94107-8350
      United States
      4158396885      Fax -- 4158820495

   Technical Contact:
      Admin, DNS  dns-admin@wikimedia.org
      Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
      P.O. Box 78350
      San Francisco, California 94107-8350
      United States
      4158396885      Fax -- 4158820495

   Domain servers in listed order:
      NS0.WIKIMEDIA.ORG
      NS1.WIKIMEDIA.ORG
      NS2.WIKIMEDIA.ORG

As you can see, we’ve got contact information, registrar (GoDaddy), registration date (January 12, 2001), expiration date (January 10, 2015), domain servers, and more.

Be sure to check your whois page to make sure you contact emails are up to date and that your domain isn’t expiring any time soon!

I always took it for granted that stuff some how gets on the web. Then when I wanted to put stuff on the web I started wondering…

With a website there are two mysterious parts. There is the domain which is the actual address (www.dottysites.com) and then there is the content which is served by a web host. Let’s start with the domain.

This is the fun part where you go and check a zillion www.this.that and see what’s available. To check availability and buy the one you want, you’ll use a domain registrar. I’m particularly fond of GoDaddy.

I don’t get the Nascar thing, but whatever. The prices are reasonable, the tools are easy to use, and the customer support is great. It’s also a great site to check if various .coms are available. I’m a huge fan. It doesn’t really matter which domain registration company you use, most are very similar. You should expect to pay around ten bucks for a .com and less for other extensions (.net, .org, .us etc).

We’ll be talking about web hosting next, and GoDaddy does that too (though it’s a bit pricy). For now, find that perfect domain and REGISTER it.