Your LetsHost account offers great e-mail features as standard, with everything you need to set up and manage all of the e-mail addresses you’ll ever need.

E-mail from LetsHost is straightforward to set up, easy to use, and with a few simple maintenance steps management is a breeze.

Keeping your e-mail accounts healthy

• Keep an eye on space: check your e-mail accounts, regularly. If you have quotas set up for particular accounts, ensure that none of your mailboxes are full or approaching capacity. If they are download or delete mail to free up space.
• Clear up your “catch-all”: if you use a default address for undelivered mail on your domains (often dubbed a catch-all address) check it regularly for legitimate undelivered mail (miss-spelled e-mail addresses and the like) and delete any spam.

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When you’re choosing your web hosting there can be so many variables that it’s difficult to know where to start.

There’s storage to think about, monthly bandwidth, domain registration, e-mail, databases, online applications and scripts, website builders and much more.

Here at LetsHost we pride ourselves on having some of the best web hosting support in the business… but what about supporting people who aren’t yet LetsHost customers?

We decided it was time to take the pain out of choosing the perfect Irish web hosting plan.

Just click on the banner, answer a few simple questions about what you want from your Irish web hosting plan, fill in your contact details and one of our friendly team of web hosting experts will get in touch via your preferred contact method (phone or e-mail) for a chat.

They’ll talk you through everything, and once they have a clear idea of exactly what you need, they’ll advise you on the ideal hosting solution for your needs.

LetsHost offers a wide range of hosting and domain management solutions specifically tailored to deliver outstanding value and performance to Irish website owners. From shared hosting for home users and hobbyists to high-performance dedicated servers for large business clients and high-volume e-commerce systems, we have all your Irish hosting needs covered.

So click on the banner, and let us help you pick the ideal Irish hosting solution today!

We are pleased to announce the following software packages have been updated in our Fantastico software installer.

- Coppermine Photo Gallery: 1.4.26 -> 1.5.6
- Joomla 1.5: 1.5.17 -> 1.5.20
- Moodle: 1.9.8 -> 1.9.9
- Soholaunch Pro Edition: 4.9.3 r17 -> 4.9.3 r41
- TikiWiki: 4.1 -> 4.3
- WordPress: 2.9.2 -> 3.0
- Zen Cart: 1.3.9b -> 1.3.9d

These updated scripts are available immediately on all shared server accounts. You can install or update your current software installation from your control panel.

Fantastico, for those who have not used it, is a great tool that allows you to automatically install or update many of the most popular open source scripts.  For example, if you want a shopping cart on your website, you have the choice of many scripts, including osCommerce or Zen-Cart.  For blogs, we have Word Press, Drupal and many more.  Simply log in to your control panel, and select Fantastico.  You are then presented with the range of scripts available, and with a few click your software is fully installed and working.

Image by Tom Raftery via Flickr

• Do you know how many people are visiting your website every day?
• Do you know where they’re arriving from, what pages they’re landing on?
• Do you know how long they spend with you once they arrive, and which page they leave from?

The simple answer is yes, you do!

All of that data is being recorded for you automatically in your server log files, and is easily accessible using the free tools in your LetHost CPanel account.

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So, you’ve  unboxed your shiny new Apple iPhone, connected it to iTunes and synchronised your music contacts and other bits and bobs… now you’re wondering how you go about collecting your e-mail on your brand new iPhone.

Well, there might not be an app for that… just yet – but here’s a handy YouTube video courtesy of those lovely people at Wiley Publishing who created the iconic “For Dummies” series of books.

All of your LetsHost email accounts support both IMAP or POP access, and your server for both incoming and outgoing mail is mail.yourdomain.com (where “yourdomain” is a primary or add-on domain associated with your LetsHost Irish hosting account).

Your username is the e-mail address you want to access (replace the @ with a + if you have problems logging in), and your password is the one you specified when you created the e-mail address in cpanel.

You’ll find lots of information on setting up new e-mail accounts and e-mail settings for IMAP, POP and SMTP access in the LetsHost Support FAQ/Knowledgebase.

Want more iPhone tips and tricks? You’ll find iPhone for dummies over on Amazon.

Image by JasonBechtel via Flickr

If you’re shopping around for a new web host you may have noticed that not all web hosting packages are created equal.

Most hosting features are easy to compare and contrast, but there’s one crucial factor that a lot of people overlook. Speed!

Why do you need a fast web host?

Although the overall performance of your website depends on a lot of different factors, your choice of hosting partner has a significant role to play.

Server specification, the number of accounts sharing server resources and the capacity of your hosts network infrastructure will all have an impact on how quick and responsive your web pages feel… and that’s important.

Faster web pages could improve search rankings:

Google has been talking a lot recently about making the web faster. Check out this Google video for some background on how and why the world’s leading search engine believes a faster web is a better web for everyone:

As part of their initiative to promote a faster web experience for their users, prominent Googlers like Matt Cutts have indicated that site speed could become a factor in search rankings in 2010.

Historically, we haven’t had to use it in our search rankings, but a lot of people within Google think that the web should be fast. It should be a good experience, and so it’s sort of fair to say that if you’re a fast site, maybe you should get a little bit of a bonus. If you really have an awfully slow site, then maybe users don’t want that as much.

Google’s Matt Cuts talks site speed with WebPro News in December 2009.

Faster web pages improve user experience and conversion

Once people find your site it’s a “no brainer” that more responsive web pages are much easier for them to navigate.

Web users are an impatient bunch. They won’t wait around for your content to load;  instead of twiddling their thumbs they’ll use their index finger to click through to a competitor’s site.

Improving the performance of your web pages (and the speed of your web host is a part of that) will help you to retain more of your site visitors for longer, and ultimately convert a higher proportion of them into subscribers, firm prospects and paying customers.

LetsHost takes hosting performance seriously

Here at Letshost we understand how important hosting performance is to your online business. That’s why we invest in the very latest web server technology and state-of-the-art hosting infrastructure.

We believe we strike the ideal balance between cost and performance for our hosting customers – check out our Irish web hosting options today to see how we can help your online business to thrive.

Image via Wikipedia

Here at LetsHost we’re always keen to hear from our Web Hosting customers.

We work hard to offer one of the best web hosting deals in Ireland, with a great blend of features, space and bandwidth at what we consider to be great value. But more than that, we strive to make the experience of hosting your website with us an enjoyable and productive one.

We want to hear from you

Your feedback is very important to us. It helps us to fine tune our service to fit your needs.

We love to hear your success stories: how well your website is doing, and how your LetsHost hosting account is helping you to get great online results for your business. But equally we want to know where you think we could do things a bit better, so that we can keep improving.

One of the main reason’s we started this blog, and the LetsHost Twitter Account was to listen to what you have to say, and to make information and advice about your hosting account that much more accessible.

On the blog we’re aiming to deliver valuable content on web hosting, web design, and online marketing that will help you make the most of your LetsHost hosting account. We’re picking article topics that we feel are relevant to you, but the whole point of a blog is that its a two-way-street. You can tell us what you think through its built in comment system.

What hosting and / or website related topics do you want to read about? Drop us a line with your suggestions / questions in the comments below, and we’ll address them in future posts. Let us know what you’d like to see happening on the blog.

We’re looking forward to your input.

Image via Wikipedia

Which hosting option should you choose for your new website?

With so many different web hosts and a seemingly endless variety of hosting packages to choose from it’s a veritable minefield for new webmasters.

Choosing the right web hosting company is the first, and perhaps the most crucial step, but once you know who you’re going to host your site (or sites) with, how do you pick the right hosting plan for your needs.

Types of hosting

Web hosting companies typically offer three different types of web hosting: shared hosting environments, virtual private servers, and dedicated servers.

Let’s take a look at each option in turn.

1. Shared Hosting

A shared hosting environment means that your hosting account will be sitting on the same server as, and sharing server resources with, several other hosting accounts (depending on the host these could number from a few dozen to several hundred sites on a single server).

This is by far the most common option and is usually more than adequate for a typical small business website, personal websites and blogs.

The LetsHost Complete Hosting Plan is a great example of a shared hosting solution with an excellent set of features, plenty of space and  a healthy bandwidth allowance.

2. Virtual Private Server (VPS)

A VPS, also known as a virtual dedicated server (VDS) is essentially a single physical machine that has been ’split’ into a number of virtual servers. Each user feels like they’re on their own dedicated server, but in fact they’re sharing the physical resources of a single machine.

Customers typically have complete administrative control over their own virtual server, offering more flexibility with software installation and set-up.

VPS hosting is suited to small to medium businesses with relatively high-traffic websites or that need to run web-based applications, and who need control and flexibility at an affordable price.

3. Dedicated server

Dedicated hosting solutions provide just that: a dedicated, high-powered server for your website(s), and only for your website(s).

You don’t share space or system resources with anybody else – and that gives you maximum power, flexibility and control… but it also means that you don’t share the cost either. Dedicated hosting is more expensive.

Dedicated servers are ideal for larger businesses and hosting large corporate websites with high levels of traffic and heavy server load. They may also offer the best solution for smaller web-based organisations that run very high traffic sites or that need to run resource hungry software on their server.

3b. Server co-location

Co-location is very similar to dedicated hosting, except that instead of the hosting company providing a pre-configured dedicated server for your website, you buy and configure your own server, which is then housed at the host’s facility.

This offers perhaps the ultimate in flexibility, because you have complete control not only over the software and setting on the server, but also over the hardware specification, operating system, software, security… everything.

Which hosting option you ultimately choose depends on your business, the type of website you’re going to be hosting and the levels of web traffic you anticipate. If you need help assessing your hosting needs contact LetsHost’s sales team, and we’ll be happy to offer our expert advice and guidance.

Image via Wikipedia

Choosing the right web hosting partner can be crucial to the success of your online business… but with so much choice in today’s Web Hosting market where do you start?

Right here, that’s where!

To help you make sense of the web hosting conundrum we’ve put together the LetsHost web host selection guide.

• Choose a host in the country where your primary target market lives: this is important, because search engines deliver local search results to users based on the geographical location of the server on which the web pages reside (which they can infer from the server ip address)
• Make sure the host is reliable: do they offer guaranteed uptime / levels of service? Many hosts publish live server statistics that demonstrate the reliability of their services. You should expect a service level approaching 100% from a high quality hosting service.
• What sort of support do they offer: make sure the hosting you choose includes efficient and effective support 24/7. If your website goes down you need to be confident you can call on your host for assistance whatever time of the day or night.
• Backup and disaster recovery: if the worst happens and the server goes belly up, what sort of disaster recovery options does the host have in place? Ideally your host should take several daily snapshots of your entire account / server, allowing them to restore it and get your site back up and running as quickly as possible should the worst happen.
• What do others think: find out what other customers think. Read testimonials, and search for discussions on webmaster forums relating to the hosts your considering. Are other people’s experiences good or bad? Post a few questions.
• Shop around: hosting is an incredibly competitive industry, so shop around for the best deal – but bear in mind that the cheapest option isn’t always the best choice.

We believe that LetsHost offers the best balance of hosting features, reliability, support and value for money available in Ireland today. But don’t take our word for it… apply the checklist above and decide for yourself.

Dot IE (.ie) is the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Ireland, and having one can benefit your Irish online business in a number of ways… but first, a bit of background.

What is a TLD

A TLD, or Top-Level Domain, is basically the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System that assigns human-readable addresses to specific resources on the internet.

Back in the formative years of computer networking individual computers were recognised by a unique number. Computers still use these complex number patterns to uniquely identify specific resources on the internet (they’re called IP addresses). But while computers have no problem with complex numeric addresses, as the internet grew people needed a much easier and more meaningful way to memorise locations on the network. The result is the Domain Name System that we know and love today.

In practice the TLD is the last portion of a fully qualified domain name like www.letshost.ie (where the TLD is .ie). Top level domains typically come in two “flavours” today — the generic or category level TLDs, which consist of three or more letters and include the popular .com, .net and .org domains; and country specific domains that typically (but with a few notable exceptions) consist of the two-letter ISO country code for that country.

Why choose a .ie domain for your business?

If you’re an Irish business, a business selling into Ireland or targeting a largely Irish audience, having a .ie domain makes sense for a number of reasons:

• Trust: it’s a small word, but one that’s invaluable to your online business. In common with many ccTLDs the IEDR, Ireland’s Domain Registry, requires individuals and business entities to meet certain criteria confirming their eligibility before they are allowed to register a .ie domain. Anyone from anywhere can pick up a generic .com, .net or .org, but there’s a widespread perception among Irish internet users that a .ie domain is somehow more intrinsically trustworthy.
• Instant local identity: any Irish internet user seeing a .ie domain immediately recognises that this is a business operating in Ireland, and knows instantly that the products, services or information outlined on the website are likely to be relevant to their particular needs. That can have a very positive impact on things like the number of people clicking through to your site from search engine results pages (SERPs), and helps to ensure that the traffic you do get is more targeted (i.e. interested in Irish products and services).
• Improved local search visibility: a .ie ccTLD will help search engines to determine that your site is Irish, and is likely to be of interest to internet users looking for Irish content. It is one of the factors that search engines use to deliver more relevant local search results to their customers, lending more weight to .ie pages in Irish search results, which again drives more targeted search engine traffic to your website.

As an approved .ie reseller, LetsHost can manage all of your .ie domain needs. Coupled with one of the most comprehensive, feature-rich and reliable hosting solutions in Ireland today, we offer the perfect package for all your Irish domain registration and hosting needs.