Hosting Support

The following information applies to web sites hosted with us.


SERVER IP ADDRESS (NEW)

Mail Server Settings

Web Mail

Using your incoming server as an outgoing server

FTP Settings

Web Statistics

Feedback Forms


Mail Server Settings

In the following examples, yourdomain should be substituted with your domain name. 
Ie. www.yourdomain.com.au would become www.epsoft.com.au or www.fseries.info 

Incoming (POP3) Server mail.yourdomain.com.au
Username Your whole email address (ie robert@epsoft.com.au)
Password Your password
   
Outgoing (SMTP) Server Use your ISP's SMTP server or refer to:
  Using your incoming server as an outgoing server
Common SMTP servers Telstra Bigpond: mail.bigpond.com
  Optus:  mail.optusnet.com.au
  iPrimus: smtp.iprimus.com.au
  AT&T Global: smtp1.attglobal.net
  PowerUp: mail.powerup.com.au

The following example is using Microsoft Outlook 2000, Outlook XP and 2003 look slightly different but the basic settings are the same.

Select Accounts from the Outlook Tools menu.

Click Add to create a new account or select an existing account and click Properties

The user information is what recipients will see as the name and email address.

Using my ISP (Optus) for the SMTP Server

(See also Using your incoming server as an outgoing server )


Web Mail


You can also access your mail via webmail where you can change your password and set up auto responders.

Note, if you change your email password in webmail you will also have to change it in your email program (ie Outlook)

An auto responder is an email that is automatically generated and sent in reply to any email that you receive. This is useful if you are going away and cannot check your email. You can set up an auto responder advising senders that you are away. Don't forgot to turn off the auto-responder when you return!

Webmail is also handy for deleting junk mail or emails with large attachments so you don't download them to your PC. Remember to empty the deleted items box if you use webmail to delete messages.

Just point your browser to webmail.yourdomain.com.au and enter your email address & password

Logging in to webmail

Setting an auto responder message

Changing your email password


Using your incoming server as an outgoing server

Outgoing mail is usually sent via your ISP's server. If you don't know your SMTP server or if you use multiple ISP's you can use the incoming server as an outgoing server. This will send mail via your own server no matter which ISP you are connected to.

1. Enter mail.yourdomain.com.au for the Outgoing (SMTP) Server.
2. Tick the box labelled "My server requires authentication"
3. Click the Settings button and ensure the option "Use same settings as my incoming mail server" is selected. 
4. Finally, click the advanced tab and change the SMTP server port number from 25 to 26
Outgoing (SMTP) Server: mail.yourdomain.com.au
Outgoing (SMTP) Server Port: 26

The following example shows how I send email via my incoming server.

Using incoming server as an outgoing server

Outgoing Server Settings

Change Port from 25 to 26



FTP Settings

FTP Settings are required for uploading pages to your web site. If you need your FTP settings please email us


Web Statistics

You can obtain statistics about your web site traffic by visiting stats.yourdomain.com.au

Here you will find a wealth of information about your web site, number of visitors, pages most/least visited and much, much more.


Feedback Forms

You can create a feedback or "contact us" form on your web site where viewers can enter their details and the web site will send the information to your email address. This method may be preferable to publishing your email address on the web site where spammers can easily find it. The method requires some ASP scripting but don't panic if you're not a programmer, the following example should give you enough to get started.

First you need to create your form page:

Name

Email

Comments

Here is the code for this form, you can paste this into your existing page:

<form method="POST" action="example.asp">
<p align="center">Name <input type="text" name="Name" size="20"></p>
<p align="center">Email <input type="text" name="Email" size="20"></p>
<p align="center">Comments<br>
<textarea rows="2" name="Comments" cols="20"></textarea></p>
<p align="center">
<input type=
"submit" value="Submit" name="Submit">
<input type=
"reset" value="Reset" name="Reset"
>
</p>
</form>

You then need to create the ASP page to process the form and send the email:

example.asp

Comments

<HTML>
<%
if request.form("
Email")="" then
%>

You did not specify an email address, please go back and try again!
<%
ELSE

Dim oMail
Set oMail = server.CreateObject("MEMail.Message")
oMail.MailFrom = Request.Form("
Email")
oMail.MailFromDisplayName = Request.Form("
Name")
oMail.UserName = "username@domainname.com.au"
oMail.Password = "password"
oMail.ContentType = "text/html;"
oMail.MailTo = "youremailaddress@domainname.com.au"
oMail.Subject = "Web Feedback"
oMail.MessageBody = "<html><body><font face='Arial'>" & _
"Feedback from vistor to www.domainname.com.au<p>" & _
"Name: " & Request.Form("
Name") & "<br>" & _
"Email: " & Request.Form("
Email") & "<br>" & _
"Comments: " & Request.Form("
Comments") & "<br>"
"</font></body></html>"
oMail.SendMessage
%>
Thankyou, your message has been sent.
<%
END IF
%>

</HTML>



This line tests to see if the viewer has entered an email address





These lines set up the mail handler

The From address is the viewers email address "Email"
DisplayName is the viewers name "Name"
You must enter a valid email account on the server
Use your email address & password, only you will see it.

The MailTo address is where the email will be sent, i.e. you!
The Subject can be anything you like.
The MessageBody field is built up from all the fields passed
from the form separated with line breaks (<br>) tags.




Finally the message is sent.

You can add some text to let the viewer know that the email
has been sent. You can also add links to other pages on
your site so the viewer can continue browsing.

Copy the code from the above left into a new file and save it with an .asp extension. This filename must also be entered into the action property of the form code, 
i.e.
<form method="POST" action="example.asp">

Of course you can add many more fields into your form and modify the corresponding code in the processing script. However, if it gets too complicated, call or email us for help.


Server IP addresses

Everytime you check your mail or visit your web site, your computer looks up the domain name on a DNS (Domain Name Server). This resolves the domain name to the IP address of the host server. If you ever have problems accessing our servers you can try using the direct IP address rather than the domain name.

For example, my incoming mail server is mail.epsoft.com.au  If there was a DNS issue somewhere and I couldn't resolve that name, I could change my POP3 server to the IP address 221.133.206.114 which may fix the problem.

Note however that the IP address should only be used if you are experiencing problems. The IP address can change, albeit rarely. If you use the correct domain name it should always find the correct server via DNS regardless of it's IP address.

For your information, our server IP addresses are as follows:

ftp.epsoft.com.au 221.133.206.114
mail.epsoft.com.au 221.133.206.114
smtp.epsoft.com.au (use port 26) 221.133.206.114
www.epsoft.com.au 221.133.206.114
webmail.epsoft.com.au 221.133.206.115
stats.epsoft.com.au 221.133.206.116
ns1.epsoft.com.au 221.133.206.127
ns2.epsoft.com.au 221.133.206.128

Note that in each case we use epsoft.com.au. You can/should replace this with your own domain name.