Archive for May, 2010



New Installer Available for PHP CGI/FastCGI

May 21st, 2010

Posted by Ian

Many of today’s scripts have become incredibly feature rich and the limitations of PHP ”safemode” can cause issues with functionality in some areas. It is for this reason that we released our PHP CGI installer – to get around the various issues our customers have experienced in this regard. PHP running under CGI is a much more secure environment as it runs the scripts as your user instead of under the webserver’s user. This means that files created or uploaded via your scripts are owned by yourself and therefore do not cause issues.

While we have had this installer available for several years and have seen a great deal of usage, we have decided to make a new style of script installer available. This installer is a point and click system and we hope you will find it much easier to use.

The new installer for this can be found at http://installers.34sp.com/phpfastcgi.

Here is a run down of the procedure:

Firstly you need to login to 34SP.com:

Login Screen

Once you have logged into this screen you will be presented with a drop down box which will list all of your active hosting with 34SP.com on which you can use the installers. This will cover any personal, business hosting, professional hosting and reseller web hosting accounts as can be seen in the image below:

Service Listings

Should your hosting package have any subdomains attached to it they will automatically be listed once you proceed to the next step, where you can choose the main domain (first entry) or one of the subdomains of the account. Unlike the previous installer you no longer need to use unique ftp accounts on subdomains to be able to use the php installer.

Subdomains

Once you have chosen your domain/subdomain to install on you will be taken to a screen to choose the version of PHP and type of CGI that you wish to use. The differences are explained on this page, for the majority of installations we recommend that you use PHP 5.2.x and phpfastcgi. On the vast majority of servers if you choose php5.2.x then ZendOptimizer and IonCube will be activated for you automatically where as previously you would have needed to contact us to have these features manually enabled.

PHP Screen

The next page offers what we called “Advanced Options” in the old installer. You will see that a few more have been added in response to customer requests, and one additional item at the top which will automatically activate the PHP installation on your domain without the need for manual intervention, as was previously required.

Advanced Options

Once you have selected any options, you are taken to a simple agreement page. On this page a test of the connection is made to the server. If you see a message displayed as shown in the next screen shot, please open up a login to your account page on 34SP.com and enable the FTP service for the day (temporary) before proceeding.

Agreement

Once the terms have been agreed too, you will see a quick summary of the options you have chosen. Please carefully check these over and if you are happy with them click the install icon, or click the link at the bottom to go back to the start of the installation script.

Summary

At this stage the installation will start adding the support files to your hosting account.

Installing

Once completed there will be a link to test the installation with. On clicking this if you do not get the message shown in the next screenshot please contact us with full details so we can look into why the installation has not been successful. If you chose not to activate the PHP installation it will also output the lines of code that you need to add to your .htaccess file to enable this.

Finished

We hope you find this new style script installation much easier to use and in time we will be replacing other scripts in a similar fashion. Please do let us know any comments that you have on this system or if there are any other areas where you feel there is room for even greater improvement with our website hosting services. As always, contact us through our 34SP.com support channels with any questions or comments.

Website Hosting Support at 34SP.com

May 13th, 2010

Posted by keith

Firstly, I would like to say “Thank you!” to all of our clients, whether you are running standard website hosting, reseller hosting or even dedicated servers. We appreciate the feedback you provide us and welcome all our new clients to the 34SP.com family. We really appreciate your views and opinions and these help us to continue to provide outstanding levels of support to you.

Today, I would like to tell you the best ways in which to get the best support we can offer. We provide four main channels of support – all customised to provide the best support for a given instance. But before you use any particular support channel, it is always best to check: http://status.34sp.com. If we have any known issues we will post them here and keep this updated every hour or as and when things develop. Of course, if you have an issue and it is not listed feel free to drop us an email or a live chat (if email is the issue), we can then get right on it for you.

The first place you should turn to for help is the 34SP.com Knowledge Base located at: http://support.34sp.com. I am always updating and creating new tutorials and FAQ’s to help give you all the information you need to get the most out of our services. As I said before, we really appreciate your feedback. If you feel something is missing or something would be useful please do let me know. Just drop an email to support@34sp.com with KB suggestion in the subject and I will happily review this for you. You should be able to get started and find the most commonly asked questions and issues for business hosting accounts, reseller web hosting accounts, personal accounts, professional hosting and VPS with an assortment of more general topics to help get you on your way. If you cannot find a topic simply use the search box.

Although it is not an official channel of support, please do check out our forums located at: http://forums.34sp.com. It is here that many of our customers offer up suggestions and advice based on their experience and members of our team also post answers and suggestions here to. We believe in community here at 34SP.com and we want you to will feel a part of our community from the start.

Should you not be able to find the answer in our knowledge base or our forum, we have our second channel of support and the most effective way to get a quick resolve to your questions or issues.
You can also always drop an email to: support@34sp.com – with the details of your domain name and the nature of the issue or question you have. One email to: support@34sp.com is all you need to do to get quick efficient support. You will receive an auto-reply from our system issuing you a ticket reference number. This is your case identification number and you can quote it to any of our team for an update on your issue.

You can also raise a support ticket via our support portal located at: http://support.34sp.com/Main/frmNewTicket.aspx. Choose support from the department list if you need support with your services or are having a technical issue or choose accounts if your issues is related to renewals or payments or general account issues or would like us to send out account information such as user-names. You can check your ticket using our support portal as well by clicking on ‘view tickets’. This system is great if you are ever having issues with your email.

Our third support channel is live chats. These are for quick enquires, be it sales or support. Such as “Could you resend me my login details?” or “My site is off-line could you tell me what’s wrong?”. If the issue is something we cannot fix quickly we will ask you to email at: support@34sp.com or raise a ticket for you.

If you are experiencing errors on your site, issues with a script you have installed, or issues receiving or sending emails these should all be emailed to: support@34sp.com. Our live chat is there to help you get information quickly or check on an existing case. We cannot carry our advanced diagnostics or repairs via our live chat channel.

Our fourth and final support channel is our telephone line. Like live chats we cannot diagnose and repair issues while you wait via this channel. We can however, raise you a support ticket in much the same was as emailing us or using the support portal, and one of our engineers will contact you as soon as possible. You will always be greeted by one of our enthusiastic and skilled team who are always happy to hear from you.

So to summarise: If you have an issue such as errors on a page or email issues the quickest way to get the resolved it to raise a support ticket via the support portal or emailing: support@34sp.com.

For quick help such as “Can you resend me my login details?” or “How much does it cost to upgrade to Professional Hosting?” or “Can I ask about your other hosting services?” – we look forward to hearing from you on our live chat channel.

If you need to talk to someone or just want to say hello in person, give us a call and we can advise you or raise a ticket for you if required.

I hope this guide helps you to get the most out of your services with 34SP.com. Whichever channel you use, I am certain you will be impressed by our friendly and knowledgeable team.