Sometimes a software program will require registered globals turned on. OsCommerce uses registered globals and you will need to add a php.ini file to your folder directory. First you will need to create a file called php.ini. This is very simple to do as you can use any text editor to create the file. Open notepad and add the following at the top of the file
register_globals=on

Now save the file as php.ini and add it to your osCommerce directory. Do not forget to add it to your admin folder as well. Set the permissions on php.ini to 666. Make sure you do this for security reasons. To set the permissions you can login to cPanel and click the file manager icon. Next click the folder name to set permissions. Once you click the folder or file at the top right you will see a permissions links. To do these with ftp just right click on the file that you uploaded and choose properties.

Okay since most do not know what consist of a server running I will try to give you a few clues. The first thing that happens every night usually after 10:00 CST our backups start to process. Backups take server resources and this is why they are done off peak hours. We are no different than any other web hosts. They all have to perform backups of the servers at some point in time.

Most web hosts will only perform them weekly due to the heavy resources needed to grab all the backups on the systems. We do not do this as we would like to have backups daily just incase something should go wrong. So what does this mean to you and your web site? Usually the load will run anywhere from 1.00 up to 10.00 for a few seconds. 1.00 And under is excellent! 10.00 will cause your account to react slowly until the load goes back down to usually under 3.00. These are Dual Xeon servers so we do not use low end hardware.

We have to do backups at some point in time so we decide to do them while the majority of you and your web site visitors are snoozing. 90% of our customers reside in the U.S so this would be a perfect time to do the backups. Right now for an example we are performing backups on all servers. One server is under 1.00 and most are under 3.00. This is great but occasionally the load will spike.

Another item that uses a fair amount of resources is generating your statistics for the day. Again these are done at night when most of you are sleeping. Sometimes the statistics will run until 8:00 am in the morning depending on when they start. We have to run that cpanellog if you want statistics right? So if you are a night owl you may see some slow load times depending on the process that is running.

Now we will try to explain a few items that may cause a server to have a high load during the daytime hours. The first and most extreme problem we have is a client sending out a mass amount of emails during peak hours. It seems to be not fair that everyone should have to pay for one person’s mistake on sending 10,000 emails out. If you have a newsletter or anything that requires you to send out this many emails you do not belong in a shared hosting environment. You need to be on a dedicated server! We immediately suspend any web site that tries to send out mass amounts of emails during peak hours. Almost all web hosting companies run in a shared environment. This means you are sharing the server with other users. Dedicated means you are the only account on the server so what you do will not affect others. For dedicated servers you can expect to pay anywhere from $99 a month to as much as you want to spend. Do not put a web site on a shared hosting environment where you have an average of 1000 users on your web site at anytime. You need to go dedicated. We see way too many people try to put a high profile web site on shared web hosting trying to save money. It is not going to work and you will only make everyone else suffer. If you are going to send out more than 200 emails at one time have some respect for others that are on the same server and throttle your emails to a few every minute or wait to send them between the hours of 10PM and 6PM when most people are asleep.

The second item that can raise a high load on a server is people using scripts that are not configured properly. This will cause issues with your account and we will suspend the account until you fix the issue. We will disable the script or cron job and notify you to take action. Do not run any crons less than 15 minutes apart. There is no need for you to run any crons less than 15 minutes. Remember you are in a shared environment and not on a dedicated server. Crons that are configured wrong can have a huge affect on server load and cause issues for everyone. Make sure that any free script or paid script you use is not resource intensive. There are some scripts that are not meant to be in a shared environment.

The third item that can cause high server loads is a customer using an insecure PHP or CGI script and a hacker or someone out to do wrong gets in through the script installing a malicious script. It is very important that if you run the script on our servers then you are responsible to keep it up to date. The software we have installed recently should stop most of the insecure permissions and put a stop to most of this.

The fourth item that can cause your web site to load slowly is your ISP (Internet provider). We use one of the most reliable internet providers for our support staff and administration. Yes sometimes it may go down or for some odd reason be slow. Too many people seem to look at their web hosting company as the issue when the first place you should check is your ISP. Sometimes an ISP will have an issue and there is just nothing we can do to make your web site load faster. Your email can also be affected by your ISP. It does not matter whether you are using your domain to get your email or not. Always check your ISP’s network page before contacting support.

The fifth reason that the server load may be high is we are doing an emergency repair. Yes this happens during peak hours. Most of the time we try to do repairs late at night but if it is an emergency to keep the server from crashing we will do it immediately.

Servers are no different than your home computer. They crash and hardware will need to be replaced. Some people think that servers are these magical boxes that should never ever go down. Things break just like they break on your car or anything man made. You ever go without rebooting your computer at home for months and wonder why it is slow? Have you ever ran the defrag utility that comes with windows? Most people do not and this will cause slow load times on anything you do. Servers go down sometimes it seems for no reason at all. Your computer will all of a sudden freeze when something does not load correctly. Ever have a bad day at work? We all do and sometimes a server may have a bad week! Sometimes a server will run for months and even sometimes for years with nothing going wrong and then one week it just does not want to operate normal. But let me tell you something when a server is having issues wow will the people start to complain and some will even move to a new web host and right a bad review? What happen to the year of excellent service? Is a week with issues going to drive you somewhere else when your web host has always been there when you needed them and your web site has been up 24/7?

Most people will never write a good review they usually only write reviews when things go wrong. Personally I do not think this is fair to all the hard working people behind the scenes. Some of us put off outings with family and go days without sleep to make sure your web site is up and running. If there is ever an issue they will usually not sleep or go home until the problem is resolved. Web hosting has always received a bad rap when actually there should be more positive reviews written as we all deserve some good feedback. A good web host is hard to find now days as most of the companies are out to get your money and once you have paid you become a number. Next time you should always take s long relaxing breathe and communicate with your web host as if you have been with them for a period of time you should know that your web host is doing everything possible to get your web site up and running if a problem should arise. Web hosting is not an easy job as you are on call 24/7 and you never know when a server is going to go down in the middle of the night while most are sleeping. Your web host is up and working to get the server back online. Take a little time to read what has been posted here and remember that these are computers and people and both of them can make mistakes. Give your web host a pat on the back if the company is doing a good job and realize that this is the internet and anything can happen. It is the response time and communication you should always look at not the actual problem as it will more than likely be fixed.

Today’s tip of the day pertains to the 4th of July. When using fireworks, always use extreme caution to take every step necessary to remain safe. Make sure when lighting the fireworks in your hands with a punk that you do not throw the punk and still hold the lighted firework. Doing this will result in some fingers missing and an extremely dirty face. Have a great 4th everyone.

Many of you will use scripts and not know exactly how to keep them secure. If you use any formmail scripts in your CGI-BIN we will remove them before your account gets compromised. Always use email programs with PHP. If you are not using your CGI-BIN and you never plan to do so, you can set the permission to 000. You need to do this as soon as your account is up and operational. Setting the permission to 000 can be done by clicking your file manager icon in cPanel. Now you will need to click on the icon beside the public_html folder on your left. Locate the CGI-BIN folder and click the folder name not the icon beside it. After you click the CGI-BIN folder you will see at the top right a permission link. Click the permission link and set the permission to 000. You can enter it in without UN checking the box. Doing this will give you one more security tactic to keep your data safe.

It seems to be a major problem with spammers now attacking your comments section and leaving 100’s sometimes thousands of spam related comments. We have added numerous keywords for spammers to try and stop this. This is not just an issue with us but almost everyone who runs software with comments enabled. The best way to stop comment spamming is to disable comments until software makers can come up with a way to defeat the problem. There are numerous mods to help you with your software by visiting the software maker’s web site.

I know it is unfair for your visitors but unless you want to spend the day deleting thousands of spam comments it is best to just turn it off. Some programs you can not disable it so you need to require a visitor to always be registered and confirmed before they are allowed to post comments. This will probably fill up your waiting approvals but it will stop your comment spam.

Everyone hates spam and the authorities need to track these people down and give them a nice cell with a few rats. The more people end up in prison the less of a chance the spammers will take.

Getting your web site suspended for non payment or abuse can have a huge affect on your search rankings. Google will index your suspend page and if you are selling services or merchandise on the internet you run the risk of losing the sale. Sometimes it will take days or even weeks for your suspend page to be removed from the search engines. A Google update may be happening and you have a page rank of five.

The next time you look your page rank is gone or lower. Doing what we call “Host jumping” may also have a negative affect on your rankings. Some clients will jump to a new host the first sign of any issue. Not exactly knowing what they are doing? They tend to jump from web host to web host always thinking the grass is greener on the other side. They usually find out the hard way that every web hosts will have issues at some point in time. The search engines may index or try while you are moving to a new host and your web site is either down or not currently completed. Always think about what you are doing before you make a drastic mistake and lose your position in the major search engines. Pay your bills on time and abide by the web hosts terms of service to make sure your web site does not get indexed with a suspend page.