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Hard Disk Storage
A website is typically comprised of a number of text-oriented documents with images, stored on our systems for speedy and reliable distribution on the World Wide Web. Hard disk storage is the term used to indicate the quantity of space (in Mega Bytes) that is guaranteed to be available for you to use to store the various files your website. It is also used for records of visits to your site, compiled statistical data and any other files you may want to store on our server, such as backups of your important files.

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File Areas
File areas are folders on the server. Each web account is provided with one private file area and at least one public file area. The public file area is a folder called "public_html". Your website material will be stored in a subfolder named after the website, such as "www.example.com". For your convenience you will automatically be placed into this subfolder when uploading if you have only one website, although you may request to be placed above this level so that you can see both the public and private file areas. This is useful if you are a web-designer who wants to manage several sites from one account, or if you have private files you want to store on the server that you do not want the public to have web access to.

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Email Accounts
These are email accounts which can be used with your domain name.  They allow you to receive and read email via our easy web interface or with a number of popular mail clients.   While we do allow you to relay through provided servers using SMTP AUTH, we do recommend that in most cases you use the server of your Inernet Access Provider for sending mail. Many access providers today block outgoing email to all but their own SMTP servers.  Please visit our support page for more information on configuring your email.

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Unlimited updates via FTP, sftp, rsync or WebDAV
We allow you to update your site 24/7 using FTP, sftp*, or rsync*.  By request, we will also set up private WebDAV for you and/or a group of up to 5 other logins, complete with your own authorization realm.  For Windows users we recommend FileZilla which is free, powerful and simple to use.  It can be found at http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/
For Macintosh users we recommend Transmit which is also powerful and simple to use.  It can be found at www.panic.com/transmit

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CGI support and your own cgi-bin directory
CGI (common gateway interface) allows you to run scripts and  programs on our server to enhance your web pages.  These scripts are written in a languages such as Python or Perl, although C and C++ are also used frequently.  We have many API's available, particularly open-source ones, and will happily add components we don't have after auditing both the code and the license, contact the Operations administrator for details. CGI can be used to add advanced forms, shopping carts, counters, and many other features to your website.  Such applications must be uploaded to a special folder called "cgi-bin" in order for the system to recognize that they are to be executed and not served directly to clients.

*Secureshell protocols require shell access, available to dedicated hosting customers only.