Frequently Answered Questions
If you have questions that aren't answered on this
web site send them through the
Contact page.
Why is
Undercroft Network a better choice than my
current hosting company?
Undercroft
Network may or may not be the best fit for your
web site. If you have big plans and
endless finances, there are many better hosting
choices. Undercroft Network offers more
service than product with the price based on the
number of sites hosted. See
estimated cost. top
What are the
differences between Maintained and Hosted-Only web
sites?
A Maintained web site is designed,
published and maintained by Undercroft Network
with input from your organization. All writing and
research is done by your organization. This plan is
intended primarily for new sites and organizations that
do not have personnel available for web site
maintenance. At the present time no more than 16 web
sites will be hosted under this plan.
With a Hosted-Only plan all design and
maintenance is done by your organization with technical
support for hosting only. This plan gives you immediate
control of your site design, content and email accounts
through a control panel. This plan is recommended for
existing web sites and those organizations with time and
talent to maintain a web site. top
What other resources
are available for church-related web site creation and
maintenance?
Tony Whittaker, of Internet Evangelism Day, has provided
a link to a searchable list of Content Management
Systems (CMS) providers for church web site creation and
management. Click
here to visit it. top
What is Opt-in/Opt-out and why
is it required for Maintained web sites?
Opt-in or -out applies only to, and is required
for, email sent through Undercroft Network Maintained
sites but is recommended for all who send mass emails.
This gives recipients options to be on your mailing list
or be removed. During the Opt-in procedure
potential subscribers are asked to respond in a way that
proves that they sent the request and that they are
indeed a human and not a machine crawling the web to
spread SPAM or malware. It is an effort to decrease SPAM
complaints and preserve access to your audience.
After countless complaints from email recipients, many
ISP's have began blocking email they consider to be SPAM
and blocking or restricting their outgoing port to a
maximum number of emails or recipients. Read our
Acceptable-Email-Use Policy which applies to
newsletters and mass mailings sent through the
Undercroft Network mail server, not through an
internet service provider.
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What are the
advantages to sending Maintained web site email through
Undercroft Network?
- Basic authentication used by most normal SMTP
(outgoing) servers leaves them open to abuse by spammers
and scammers - this can cause them to be blacklisted
meaning your mail may not be delivered!
- We authenticate each login, validate email addresses
used to send mail, enforce quotas, virus scan mail sent
and use other methods to detect and stop potential abuse
making our service much more secure and reliable.
- If you try to send mail from a dialup or broadband
connection many ISP's block port 25 (used for sending
mail) and even if they do not, many other ISP's will
reject mail from you. Sending your email through
Undercroft Network can solve this!
top
Why is there a limit of 16
maintained web sites?
Presently all Undercroft Network
services are provided by one full-time volunteer. top
How much does web site hosting
cost?
Hosting is free for six months or until January 1, 2011
, whichever is earlier, with no setup fee or
contract. Estimated cost after that is $65.00 or less
per year depending on participation. As
Undercroft Network grows the price will drop. top
Is Undercroft
Network a money-making commercial venture?
Undercroft Network is
a money-saving private venture. All
labor is voluntary but committed. There is no hosting
charge for six months.
After that, regular rates based on the number
of sites hosted will apply.
top
Why
can't I transfer my web site if my domain name
is less than six months old?
This is
one of the rules of the agency that oversees
domain registration. A newly registered
domain can't be pointed to a new host for six
months and a registered domain older than six
months can't be transferred to a different host
more often than once every six months.
top
What's the
difference between hosting and domain
registration?
Undercroft Network
is a web-site host and as such,
stores your web site and provides pages on
demand to your viewers. Domain registration
is done by a domain registrar who provides a unique name for your web site and
points a surfer to your host. Undercroft
Network is not a domain registrar. For
Undercroft Network hosted sites, hosting
and domain registration are billed separately.
Some hosting companies will register your domain for
you through a separate domain registrar. In some
cases the hosting company makes it difficult or
impossible for you to transfer the domain name to a
different host.
top
Why does hosting
cost decrease when more sites are hosted?
Unlike the used car
salesman that loses money on every sale but
makes it up on volume, organizations hosted by
Undercroft Network share large capacity hardware
that has a fixed cost. The cost per web site will drop
when more sites are hosted. Because this is a
cost-plus-overhead operation with no salaries,
savings will be passed to clients.
top
What
advantages are there to using email addresses at
my web site instead of the one given to me by my
ISP?
There are
several advantages to using an email address at
your web site rather than the one supplied by
your ISP. These are just a few:
- Your address is portable or still good
when you change to a different ISP or when
they go out of business.
- You promote your organization instead of
AOL or hotmail with an address such as
tsmith@yourorganization.org
- You get all emails to your domain with a
mistyped name, in the “catchall” box
- You can create hundreds of email
addresses to separate messages and direct
them to the proper mail box, e.g.,
office@yourorganization.org,
news@yourorganization..org...
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How is my email
protected from SPAM?
For maintained sites, all email addresses
are encoded:
 , as shown
on the page, becomes:
<a href="mailto:webserv&
#97nt@underc&
#114oft.net">w&
#101bservant@&
#117ndercrof&
#116.net</a>
When the "@" is removed from the code, a web spider can't find an
address. This eliminates SPAM from automated address collectors.
top
What
changes will I have to make in my email program
to use addresses at my Maintained web site?
Your email
username will be in the format:
tsmith+yourorganization.org for the
address
tsmith@yourorganization.org
top
How can I
forward email messages in Thunderbird? They
keep coming back.
Our servers are
configured to block .eml attachments,
as they are often used by viruses. To
forward messages
from Thunderbird, do the following:
-
In Thunderbird, click on Tools -> Options
-
Click Composition then the "General" tab.
-
Change "Forward Messages" from "As attachments"
to "Inline".
After doing this, you will be able to forward messages
from your mail client. top
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