Frequently Asked Questions

Below is a listing of questions randomly asked by those shopping for web services.
Be sure to address additional questions to hosting @ greaterservices.com

MOST COMMON ASKED:

Q:  How long does it take to transfer a domain?

A:  A new domain can be initiated and propagated through the entire Internet system in 24 to 48 hours.  A transfer from another hosting service or a "parked" domain from a registration service can be done quite quickly.

Q:  Can I transfer my domain to your service at any time?  If so, what does it cost?

A:  Yes, you can transfer anytime you choose.  There is no fee or cost to transfer your domain to Great Services' hosting.    You don't have to wait until the end of the year, the end of the month or middle of the month.  Anytime you so choose is when to transfer.

Q:  Can you develop a web site for me??  If so, what is the cost??

A:  Yes, we can develop a web site from a simple one page site to hundreds of pages with catalogs, shopping cart and massive services or somewhere in between those two. Click here for more details.  Once you have a domain name and we set up acct for you, you will have two free programs that will help you to develop you own web site should you choose to do so.

Q.  Do you provide my own personal CGI-bin and just what is CGI?

A.  Yes, you have your own CGI-bin.  CGI scripts (Common Gateway Interface) are used to provide things like counters, form responses (form mail), guest books, and many other website "helps".  Great Services gives you full CGI access for no extra charge!  You can write your own scripts, install someone else's or use one of our pre-installed CGI scripts at no extra charge.  You have your OWN CGI bin (folder). PLUS, now you have an additional Fantastico scripts as well.  There are over 40 different scripts to choose from including blogs, real estate, data bases and much more.

Q.  How can you be in Wisconsin and your hosting and servers be somewhere else? 

A. This is a good question.  It's imperative to be at the backbone to the Internet for the fastest, highest quality service.  Our business offices and administrative services function well from Wisconsin.  To have different locations is quite common.   Think of a radio or TV station.... the tower and transmitter are located in a different place from the administrative office.   With our servers at the "backbone" of the Internet, we appreciate the very best there is to offer.

Q.  Do you charge additional fees for hosting a secure web site?

A.  No! Great Services realizes many businesses need a secure, encrypted SSL (secure socket layer) for shopping carts, confidential form mail, etc.  The use of our certificate is provided at no charge.  You also may use your own personal certificate. This is available for around $69 and we can install for you at no extra charge.

Q.  Can I use a shopping cart?

A.  Yes.  We provide support for a couple of different shopping carts at no charge.  They can list, categorize and display your products, as well as, receive the order.  Many shopping carts are available from free to a few hundred dollars each.  All will work perfectly fine on our servers, including interfacing with credit card processors or gateways.  We would suggest NOT getting involved in a shopping cart that charges you a flat fee every month.  This can be very proprietary, expensive and just not necessary.

ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS:

Q:  What is your method of payment?

A:  Payment can be made with check or money order.   Paying by check requires paying on a quarterly, semiannually or annual basis.  We accept PayPal for our credit card processing.  It very safe, quick and used my millions of Internet users.   We have been with PayPal for over six years with never an incident of any kind.

Q:  Do you charge additional fees for using the my SQL database?

A:  No.  It is included with all hosting package.  You will have a minimum of five separate databases.  If you need more, that can be arranged.

Q:  What is a virtual domain?

A:  A virtual domain means having your own domain (http://www.yourname.com) without having to install expensive server hardware and software.  With a Virtual Domain, you utilize our server's storage space.  However, you are still professionally represented via your own personal Internet web address domain name  (www.yourname.com) and with your own personal e-mail address domain name (you@yourname.com, info@yourname.com, sales@yourname.com, etc.).

Q: What steps do I need to set-up a virtual domain at Great Services?

A:  It's easy to fill out the quick "on-line order form".  Once we have your information, we will assist you in transferring an existing domain or registering for a new domain to be placed on our servers.  We also register new domains and can renew existing Network Solutions domains.

Q:  How long does it take to get set up on your servers?

A:  We can have you on one of the fastest Internet access sites in the world in less than 24 hours.  In most cases, your account and server can be set up in a few hours.  After the account has been set up, an activation notice will be sent to you via e-mail including your user-ID, password, accessing information and your IP address.

Q. Who is Network Solutions?

A.  Network Solutions is an independent organization responsible for holding the registration and routing of Internet domain names.  Network Solutions used to be the only company registering domains but now there are many.  We can and do register names much less expensively than Network Solutions.

Q:  Do you offer dial up Internet access?   Are you an ISP (Internet Service Provider)?

A:  No, you will need local Internet access in order to maintain your website and retrieve e-mail addressed to your domain name or website.  A real basic minimal service is all that's needed.  Right now there are a number of totally FREE Internet Access providers.  Additionally, there are a number of $9 and $ 10 per month providers.

Q:  Does Great Services support Macintosh systems?

A.  Sure.  You can use the Fetch program to transfer files from your MAC to our system.  You can also use Telnet and the POP e-mail programs like Eudora, Claris E-mail and Netscape Mail.

Q. Who can I contact by phone or e-mail if further questions come up?

A.  We provide a nearly 100 page user guide which can be accessed from your Control Panel screen on the Internet.  Also, you may respond to our address: hosting@greaterservices.com

Q.  Are your servers connected 24 hours a day, 7 days a week?  If not, when and why are they disconnected?

A.  Yes, they are always connected and being monitored every second of every day.  Down time is possible on any companies server but with technicians monitoring 24 hours a day, it would be for only a few seconds or minutes and not hours or days.  We strive for and accomplish 99.7% "on-line" service.   Our Data Center is second to none with deisel engine power generators for power backup, armed security to ward off an intrusion and the most sophisticated monitoring in the world.

Q.  What web server do your servers run? 

A.  Apache UNIX with Red Hat Linux Operating System (most popular for reliability)

Q.  What do Auto responders do and are they included?  If so, how many?

A.  An autoresponder responds to an e-mail automatically.  You can assign a specific e-mail address to respond with the same information each time the server receives mail with that assigned e-mail address.  The reply is sent back automatically to the sender of the e-mail.  Auto responding is including free with your hosting.

Q.  What programs can be used to access e-mail?

A.  In addition to Internet web mail access, you will have use of all POP mail clients - any program (Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express, Eudora) which will download the files from our server onto your computer.  You can us mail user agents which run on our servers (such as pine), with a special configuration.

Q.  Can I access my domain address with or without the "www"?

A.  Yes, you will be able to access the domain address with or without the "www" in front of the domain name.  However, some browser don't recognize this function.  You should always use the "www" when pointing or referencing to your site.

Q.  What is an email alias and is it limited like POP accounts or unlimited?

A.  An e-mail alias means if you send mail to webmaster @ greaterservices.com, info@, sales@, applications@, etc., that address is alliased to whomever you choose to receive it.  It can be one person or multiple people.   However you need it  structured.  It is unlimited - so you can set-up as many as you need for no extra charge!  Limited e-mail is POP accounts like a separate e-mail account where someone needs a specific password to access their mail.  A business with 50 employees may want separate e-mail accounts for each employee....they will need over 50 POP accounts.  A business with a few employee and hundreds of e-mail alias's may still only need one or two POP accounts.

Q.  Do you have a database system? Cold Fusion?   mySQL?  Or what?

A.  We use mySQL  Always the most current and latest version.

Q.  Do you have FTP and FTP Anonymous access?

A.  Yes, we provide both FTP and FTP Anonymous access with all hosting accounts including the software needed to make the file transfers.

Q.  How often can I transfer or FTP my information to my server?

A.  You can update your pages as often as you like, 24 hours a day.

Q.  Do you have a private "chat" and "blog" service?

A.  Yes, you will have your choice of a couple different pre-installed chat programs, as well as, many different blog programs to choose from.  There is no extra charge for this.  Chat and Blog software may use a My SQL database and also may increase you "bandwidth" or data transfer usage.

Q.  What if I need or use more bandwidth or my site transfers more data than the allotted amount with my domain?

A.  Our packages come with specific amount of bandwidth.  Usage over this amount is charged at $10 per Gig (in 1 Gig increments) and paid prior to or at the time of usage.  We cannot bill this into another month.  

Q.  Is a shell account included?

A.  Yes, it is included.

Q.  Do you use Netscape's SSL technology?

A.  We use Apache-SSL which is several times more secure than Netscape SSL.

Q.  Can I run two Cron tasks to update pages daily?

A.  Yes

Q.  Are your virtual servers able to work with old and text-mode browsers such as Lynx or will users with those browsers not find our index.HTML when putting in only www.ourdomain.com.   In other words, are they truly virtual??

A.  They are truly virtual - you get your very own IP address on the web server.  They will work with Lynx and in every country around the world with standard Internet access.  This is important as many hosting company make you share the same IP address with many other companies.  We do not.  You are assigned your own special static or dedicated IP address.

Q.  How many client sites are put on each web server?  Do you move sites to different servers if a given server has a high load?   Is this monitored?

A.  Occasionally, a client may be moved according to demand.  This is not bad.  It helps to make ALL sites more efficient.  The change is seamless. We keep the peak CPU load below 15% on all machines.

Q.  I would like to know if you support VRML 1.0 and 2.0 mime types wrl and mus?

A.  We support the latest mime types.  You can set your own mime types with your .httaccess file.

Q.  Does each virtual server have its own log files?  We already have our own custom web stats apps.  So what we really need is the raw log files and not just summaries.

A.  Yes, you have your own log files.

Q.  Which languages are supported in CGI?

A.  Bourne, Shell, Perl, and Java are all supported and available. Pearl version 5.006001 is installed for all Pearl scripts.

Q.  What CGI scripts are pre-installed?

A.  The "CGI Center" has CGI Wrapper, Random HTML, GuestBook, Advanced GuestBook, Counter, Clock, CGI Mail, FormMail Clone, Entropy Search and Banner Entropy (changes can occur but you will see all available in your CPanel)

Q.  Can I set up forms for secure transmissions?

A.  Yes, unlike most web hosting services, a shared SSL or secured service is included and your "confidential" forms can be run on the secured side.  You may need to inform us to set this up for you.

Q.  How do I manage e-mail users (add/remove/update)?  How can I setup mail redirection for my users?

A.  To add or delete POP mail boxes, use the Mail Manager (in your on-line Control Panel).  You redirect mail by editing the address, un-forwarding to the POP box (which deletes it if that's the only reference to it) and forwarding to whatever email address you desire.

Q. Do you offer backward compatibility browser detection?

A.  Yes

Q.  Does Great Services offer SSI?

A.  SSI is on all of our servers.  You just need to be sure that you call your files with the proper extensions.

Q.  Can we set password protect areas with httaccess?

A. Yes, you establish your own password protected files or folders.

Q.  May I promote my Great Services hosted web site with bulk email?

A.  Spamming is in violation of our service agreement.  There are legal and ethical issues involved in mass mailing of unsolicited email.  Any user of our services who has sent a large number of unsolicited email will have their account closed within 24 hours without refund, recourse or any excuses.  It's a very serious offense.  DON'T DO IT !!

Q.  If I am unhappy with your services, how do I cancel?

A.  Simply send us an email or registered snail mail.  The cancellation will be acknowledged with a "Cancellation Control" number.  Without the "Cancellation Control" number, the account is still active and fees would continue to accrue.  Hosting fees need to be paid through current month of cancellation.  You are not committed to a long contract.

Q.  Do you host foreign domains?

A.  Yes, we host all types of domains foreign and domestic.  We do not host porn, gambling or casino sites.

Q.  Do Great Service's servers support IMAP?

A.  Our servers are not configured to be able to support IMAP.  IMAP is possible, however, for only the main username of  the account.  We cannot provide any support other than turning on your access to IMAP.   If you would like this, please let us know where you connect from and we will make an ftp connection to the server. We have to open a port for the location/s that you can connect to the server from.  Please remember, we do not offer any support services for IMAP.

Q.  How much does it cost to get set up with your services and how do I get started?

A  Our very competitive prices can be found HERE.  We welcome you to Great Services of America !!

Q.  Do I need to sign or initiate an agreement.

A. Yes, you must acknowledge our user agreement.  If you care to do that now, it can be found HERE.