Howdy-do, TurnKey Lovers?

A couple of weeks ago, my co-worker, Joe Schoonbeck, came up with a brilliant idea for a post. He suggested we write up a quick “How-To” on some of the essentials you need to begin a hosting business. What a simple, yet profound idea. If I had a dime every time we received questions about how to set up hosting, I would be able to buy a triple with cheese and a large fry from Wendy’s. Enough of this talk about food; let’s get down to business.

Now, this list of ideas is by no means set in stone. These are just a few steps that I believe will give you a good foundation to build your business upon.

 
Step 1 – Decide and Buy

This may seem like a no-brainer, but it is important to determine which type of reseller account suits your needs. Unlike spandex, one size does not fit all. You see, at TurnKey Internet, we sell different types of reseller accounts: alpha, master, and WHM (web host manager).

Each reseller account has its pros and cons, but we’ll leave that for another article. For this entry into the TurnKey diary, let’s just keep it very high-level. Alpha accounts can resell Master accounts and WHM accounts, while Master accounts can only resell WHM accounts. Then, the poor, old WHM accounts can only resell cPanel accounts. This allows you to resell multiple accounts on your website.

Once you decide which account is best for you, purchase it.

Step 2 – Create

I had an intense, internal debate about step 2. Initially, I was thinking about skipping right to Step 3 (configuring your DNS), but it didn’t make sense to me to get into that if you have no site to share with the world.

You can take multiple steps in setting up your website, so I will be brief. You can use TurnKey’s website builder that is included in our reseller packages. Or, maybe you have a developer who creates fantastic websites in his/her sleep. The choices are limitless on this step.

Step 3 – Setup (Part I: Your DNS)

For the sake of this article, I’m going to assume you do not know what DNS is. I’m going to instead share how I teach what DNS (domain name system) is to our newbie engineers. You see, I compare DNS to a post office system. You have your streets and your addresses, which allow people to find your place of residence. That’s what DNS is, in a nut shell.

You have your website, and in order for others to see your masterpiece, you must first tell them where it is. You do this with your DNS. You have your DNS record, which contains your website’s IP address and your nameservers. Your IP address is essentially like the number on your mailbox. Your nameserver(s) would be the street(s) on which your house resides. You have to setup your DNS in order for others to visit your site.

Step 4 – Configure

Now that you have your site online and users purchasing hosting from you, they will inevitably need support. This could be with anything, from support for setting up your clients’ websites, to adding space to their account.

You will need some point of communication that you can use to speak with your clients. Our TurnKey reseller accounts each come with free helpdesk software included, which you can white label in your company’s name. This allows you to have a way for your customers to easily and efficiently submit tickets.

Step 5 – Setup (Part II: Extras)

When I say “setup extras”, these are items that can add increased functionality to your hosting company. While this step can be rather large, we will just stick to a few of the basics.

If you’re selling anything on your site, you will need to install an SSL certificate. This basically encrypts your users’ connections when they submit orders to your company. I would say this is just as important as your website. If you don’t happen to have an SSL certificate lying around, you can request a FREE SSL with your TurnKey reseller account. If you’re going to be accepting orders, you may need a billing system that can help keep those orders in line. Enter—one of our most popular free extras—a free WHMCS license.

 
Now, there are no exact steps, but these can give you a good foundation for beginning your hosting account career.

Until next time, Turnkey Lovers!

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Howdie do Turnkey Lovers,

Jeremy here again. This past week, one of my co-workers made an interesting comment to me. He said, and I quote, “One day when the internet runs out and we have no more IP’s, what will people do then?”. Now this lead me to an interesting set of questions. Is my co-worker right? Are we going to run out of the “internet”, will it just ‘stop’ workign since IP’s are becoming scarce and how will that affect hosting (SEO/cPanel/Reseller).

 

Well, in order to answer these questions, we must first look at what an IP even is and are their different types? Now, for most of you technies or self-proclaimed geeks, you are probably shaking your heads saying, that’s such a dumb question. Of course there are different type of IP’s and everyone knows what IP’s are. For this article though, let’s assume that you were from a distant planet who knew nothing about the internet. You and you’re family had decided to make your way down to this glorious planet for a vacation.

 

Upon arriving, you notice everyone is talking about social media, smart phones, computers, and tablets. You’re quite the inquisitive alien life-form and begin to wonder, “What do all of these things have in common?”.  Enter Google. You begin to search the internet as one of your new Earth friends, let’s call him Jeremy(no relation), informs you that you need to find a computer and Google Internet. Upon your search, you discover that the internet is essentially a cluster of computers connected together globally using something called a TCP/IP Protocol.

 

This protocol, as they call, it seems to be rather important. So important that I included the definition from Wikipedia below on it:

 

The Internet protocol suite is the set of <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_protocol> communications protocols used for the  <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet> Internet and similar networks, and generally the most popular <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_stack> protocol stack for <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide_area_network> wide area networks. It is commonly known as TCP/IP, because of its most important protocols: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmission_Control_Protocol> Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and  <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Protocol> Internet Protocol (IP), which were the first networking protocols defined in this standard.

 

Not to be the alien to leave information out, you decide to research further into the Internet Protocol (IP). Definition is below:

 

The Internet Protocol (IP) is the principal <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_protocol> communications protocol used for relaying  <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datagram> datagrams (also known as  <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_packet> network packets) across an  <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internetwork> internetwork using the <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Protocol_Suite> Internet Protocol Suite. Responsible for  <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Routing> routing packets across network boundaries, it is the primary protocol that establishes the  <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet> Internet.

 

Or in lamen terms, it’s an individual address that every computer, smart-phone or tablet uses to connect to the Internet. Ok, I think the alien role-playing has gone on long enough. Let’s bring this back to Earth. Now let’s say you read my previous article and learned a bit about cPanel/Reseller hosting. It’s probably safe to assume that you’re aware that when you purchase a reseller or cPanel account from Turnkey Internet at http://www.turnkeyinternet.net/ , you can receive a dedicated IP. Essentially, the address to which you can host your website.

 

That IP is from the IPv4 family or the Internet Protocol Version 4 family. Now if we reference the statement made by my co-worker made earlier in the article, you can safely assume there is a finite number of these type of IPs. 2^32IP address or around 4.29 Billion IP addresses. The 32 is essentially 32 bits or 192.xxx.xxx.xxx. That’s a rather large number, but so is the number of people joining the internet every day. Eventually, those IP’s will run out which will force a new IP family, IPv6. Now, I won’t bore you with the details about the differences between the two families, but there is one key difference, the number of IPs each family can produce. For IPv6, they can make 2^128 available address or 340,282,366,920,938,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. The 128 is essentially 128 bits or 192.xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx(I think you get the point).

 

So to answer my co-workers question, which I’m sure you already know the answer to about running out of IPs, we just switch to a new IP family and the Internet will live on. Now, for the win, how does this affect your Turnkey Internet cPanel/reseller packages?

 

Well to be honest, the effect will be pretty negible on the cPanel/reseller side of things. The biggest noticeable difference will come during the transition period of switching to IPv6 as DNS propagation will take a bit of time to respond to the new IP addresses. This could affect your sites load times during the transition period. Other than that, the main difference will be cost. IPv4 will and already is becoming a premium as these IP’s are being filled by potential new Turnkey Resellers as yourself. Only a few companies are offering the IPv4 IP’s at a low, competitive price such as Turnkey Internet. Which means, you need to get them while you can.  Those who for instance start a web site a year from now when there are no more IPv4 addresses left, will only have a new IPv6 address, making their web pages possibly slower to load because of how the Internet as a whole will be using dns and specialized proxy systems to ‘store/forward’ to connect IPv4 and IPv6 together (think of it as a 4 lane highway that connects 2 big cities together).  IPv4 and IPv6 connections between each other will be congested on that 4 lane highway at times – which is why it’s very important to try to get yourself hooked up with a good web site that includes IPv4 space (and a provider that supports IPv6 too!).  TurnKey of course has that already setup for you and has been a leader in this space offering both for some time.

 

Well that was quite a handful or is it mouth full? I’m not sure anymore.  The reality is – the Internet will continue, IPv4 address will run out (or already are out, depending on which provider you are with) – and IPv6 will be a transition behind the scenes that may be a little bumpy and congested for people, but will happen.

 

Until next time Turnkey Lovers  – Jeremy

 

 

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Having a website is a crucial part of any business today.  Figuring out where to start, who to go to, how long it will take and how much money needs to be spent are just a few of the important questions you need to ask first.  It’s not an easy task, but once your website is up and running, you have given yourself another outlet to increase sales and validate your company’s reputation.

There are many applications and resources available online to help make things easier in building a website.  The latest application (and our newest partner) is Microsoft’s WebMatrix application.  WebMatrix is a brand new web development tool from Microsoft that includes everything you need to build your website. From open source web applications, built-in web templates or just start writing code yourself WebMatrix is all-inclusive, simple and best of all free. Developing your company website has never been easier.

I for one am excited to play and learn more about what this new application offers.  All you have to do is download and install WebMatrix using the Microsoft Web Platform Installer. Then once WebMatrix is installed you just install the latest version of your favorite free web applications such as WordPress, Joomla!, DotNetNuke and Orchard.

Once that is up and running, WebMatrix provides all the tools and features needed in a single user interface.  You no longer have to switch between multiple applications just to complete a common web development task. WebMatrix simplifies tasks like editing your files, managing your database or modifying your server settings.  Then when you are ready to show the world your new website, just access the hosting gallery, select a provider (TurnKey Internet) and your site is guaranteed to run smoothly and publish directly from WebMatrix.

Who’s ready to try it?

 

 

 

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The TurnKey Business Server is the perfect hosting option for businesses looking to get started on the web with a minimum of effort and cost.  If your business doesn’t yet have a TurnKey Business Server, you can get more information on it and order one from this link: http://www.turnkeyinternet.net/smb.

Once you’ve created your account, the first thing you’ll want to do is get your web site online.  The TurnKey Business Server graphical interface provides a streamlined, point-and-click approach to accomplish this.

Step 1: Log-in to the TurnKey Business Server control panel
Using the information provided to you in email when you purchased the TurnKey Business Server, log-in with your username and password.

Step 2: Enter in Domain Name, Username & Password
Once logged in, you’ll be presented with a screen filled with various options organized as categorized boxed sections.  In the Websites & Domains section, click on Create Website.  This will take you to a screen that will prompt you for a domain name, IP address, username, and password.   The IP address you can leave as-is. For the domain name field, you’ll want to enter in the domain name you chose when creating your account, or an existing domain name you’re interested in using as your web host name.  In most cases, you’ll want to precede the name by “www.”  For example, if the site were bobsplumbing.com, you’d enter www.bobsplumbing.com.  Next, choose a username and password and enter them into their respective fields.  These will not be immediately necessary for creating your site, but you’ll need them later if you plan on uploading additional files to your site via FTP.

Step 3: Start the Site Editor
When you’re finished, click the OK button, and you’ll be taken to the Websites & Domains section of the TurnKey Business Server control panel, which is seen as a highlighted orange tab amonst several blue tabs across the top portion of the screen.  This section is where you can perform various tasks on this particular website, one of which is creating your actual web site with the Site Editor.  Click on this button, and you’ll see “Create your site” as the default highlighted option.  Click on the “Next” arrow at the bottom right corner, and the next screen will provide a large selection of beginning templates for your website.

Stay tuned for the next TurnKey Blog post as we explore the powerful TurnKey site editor!

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