A blog page is a web log of articles/ updates on a website. Visitors to a website can read the current blog entries, check out the latest posts, click on the Archives links to view a history of posted blog entries, and email blog entries to other people.
We will use this page to keep you abreast of breaking news, new websites coming online, customer specials, and whatever else pops into our brains!
Your Blog
If you are using a website system hosted by Precision Computing Arts / Fastwebdev, you too can blog. Simply add a new BLOG page via your website editor, and away you go!
Will your blog entries be indexed in search engines? The short answer is "Yes," but in some cases, it might take a while. The major search engines (Google, Yahoo, and Bing) will index your blog entries, usually in about two weeks or so, depending on how often the search engines visit your site. We did some (admittedly) unscientific tests with Blogspot and WordPress blogs, finding that some of those blogs appeared in Google indexes within a few days. However, in almost all cases — our "Cool Tools" blog, Blogspot, and WordPress alike — blog entries typically took much longer to appear in both Yahoo and Bing.
Who has the keys to your domain...and your web hosting account...and your PayPal account...and all the other online accounts that make your business tick?
As a business, personal, or non-profit website owner, if you didn't answer this question with a resounding "I DO!,"you are putting your website and possibly even your entire enterprise at risk.
Many companies such as domain registrars, website hosts, PayPal, banks, and others that are required to keep your sensitive online information safe WILL NOT COMMUNICATE with anyone other than the person who is listed as the main contact in their records. And they certainly will not release user name, password, and other account information to anyone other than the officially designated contact.
Knowing this to be true, consider what might happen in the following scenarios if you are not listed as the primary contact and you do not have a copy of your login information:
Your employee leaves the company.
You decide to switch web designers, or your designer retires or closes the business.
Your spouse divorces you.
Your relative turns untrustworthy.
You and your friend or business partner have a falling out.
Now further imagine that one of these common situations arises and you need to:
Change your account password or contact information.
Change your web hosting service.
Change your domain registrar.
Change your website designer or search engine optimization (SEO) company.
Access your PayPal account in order to add new payment buttons.
Ouch! You could be in a world of hurt, as one of our new customers discovered recently.
The bottom line is that YOUR contact information should be on ALL these accounts, and YOU should have a copy of all the login information for these accounts: that means URL addresses (e.g., paypal.com, namecheap.com, gmail.com, etc.), user names, and passwords. PLEASE do not rely on others to keep this essential information safe for you!
Tip: Here is one way to find out who is listed as the primary contact for your website's domain and to learn the nameservers for your website hosting account:
Type in your domain name (e.g., pcartsonline.com). Omit the www.
Check the domain whois record box.
Click GO. (Note: If you have changed the information recently, it may take about 24 hours to see the most recent changes.)
Oh, in case you are wondering, when Precision Computing Arts / Fastwebdev sets up an account for you, we never list our company as the registration, administrative, technical, or billing contact. We always list you — the company owner (or your designee) — and we always provide you with the complete login information for every account that we set up on your behalf. PLEASE STORE THIS INFORMATION IN A SAFE PLACE!
As our customer base grows, it's even more important that we track all support requests carefully, so that no customer requests fall through the cracks. The best way for us to do this is to ask that all support requests come via email. You can request support through our Contact page, or by using the email address you already have been using for support requests.
This doesn't mean we'll never talk with you! We love keeping the personal touch in our business. Often, a phone conversation or face-to-face meeting is the best way to achieve a great solution for you. Typically, we'll follow up voice conversations with an email message to confirm our understanding or to summarize work that we have done for you. But please do always make your initial requests in writing, via email.
Email Guidelines
The following guidelines will help us give you the best service possible via email.
Please be sure the Subject line clearly describes your request.
Should you need to make a new request, please send a new email with a new Subject line.
To help us track our email conversations with you, please always copy the original message in any reply that you send. Most email programs are already set up to do this. Some, such as AOL, are not. For AOL, simply select (highlight) the text before you click the Reply button.
If it is an emergency and you are on the road or do not have access to email, then by all means, call us. We'll always do our best to help you.
If you need help with any of this, just ask! We'll do our best to answer your questions.
We are incredibly grateful for our customers, long-time and brand new. Our long-time customers are our bread and butter, and we thank you for sticking with us, especially during these difficult economic times. To our new clients, welcome! We like to share new-client websites with everyone and hope you will enjoy visiting these sites. Below are links to our most recent creations.
New Leaf Renovation (Home Renovation Services and Home Remodeling. We provide home improvement, remodeling, and home renovation services throughout the Portland, Oregon metro area. We specialize in remodeling and renovating kitchens and bathrooms).
Kristen Moeller (Kristen Moeller is a highly respected coach, author, speaker and radio show host who holds a master’s degree in counseling and has more than 20 years experience in the field of personal development. Her Best-Selling book, “Waiting for Jack: Confessions of a Self-Help Junkie – How to Stop Waiting and Start Living Your Life” (Morgan James Publishing, April 2010) explores why we wait and look outside ourselves for answers.)
Coexist Celebration (New Thought and Ecumenical Spiritual Experiences. COEXIST creates a place to celebrate the deepest truth, that we are ONE HUMAN FAMILY. Whatever your spiritual practice or religious community, we promote acceptance among all races and religions.)
Celebration Church (A Christian church founded on the principle of honoring all faiths that teach love. Registered non-profit organization, with Music Ministry and weekly messages led by Reverend Barry Dennis.)
Coming soon...a website for Barry Dennis (author, minister, musician, speaker and spiritual leader of Celebration Church and Coexist Celebration, in the Portland, Oregon area).
Site Builder (aka Cool Tools) System Update: 4.17 is chock full of wonderful new features, summarized below.
Please let us know if you need our consulting help implementing any of these Cool Tools on your website. (Remember, these features are available only on the sites implemented with our Cool Tools system — officially named Site Builder. Not sure whether you're using a Cool Tools system? Simply contact us and we'll tell you.)
We are always looking to improve the quality of our services and your feedback is appreciated. If you have any ideas or suggestions, please let us know.
MOBILE WEB PAGES More and more internet users are using mobile devices such as the iPhone or Android. This release includes support for adding mobile optimized pages. You can create new pages that are designed to work on advanced mobile devices.
The mobile support is not for all mobile devices. It is designed to work with advanced mobile smartphones such as the iPhone and Android based devices that have full HTML support (we are not supporting WAP based phones).
BLOG ENHANCEMENTS
New customization options let you customize the styles, fonts, colors of many of the blog display elements. You also can customize how many blog posts are displayed on the first page. You can set the system to show all the posts from the last 7 days, last 30 days, or you can specify the number of posts to display. (We have customized some features of this blog to illustrate the latest and greatest.)
ECOMMERCE - REWARDS With the ecommerce rewards system enabled, you can give your customers discounts for shopping at your website. Customers will earn reward points for making purchases at your website. They can log in to their accounts and redeem the reward points for credit that can be used on future purchases. You can configure how points are converted, which products are included/excluded, and set specfic products to be worth more/less points.
FORM BUILDER DATA
The form builder now allows you to view your form data on your website. All data is saved in a forms database. To view form data, you can log in to your website, click the Form Data link under Administration > Reports/Info and select the form that you want to view.
The form data csv file also has been updated. The csv data file for newly submitted forms will contain the form data fields in the file header. This will make it much easier to use/import the file into other applications. The form data file also contains all data fields such as radio buttons and checkboxes. Each time you change the form field data structure, a new csv file is created.
SECURE FORMS (requires UPGRADE to Business Website or better)
With the secure forms upgrade you can use the form builder to collect form information over a secure https:// page. The data that is submitted is saved in your site admin. You can then login to your site to view the form data over a secure link.
When visitors browse to a page with a secure form they will be redirected to a https:// version of the page.
Form data is not sent in the form, but you will receive an email notification when a secuform has been sent.
You must log in to your website to view form data. To get started viewing data, go to the Admin page and choose Administration > Reports/Info > Form Data in the lefthand column. Or, edit the form, scroll down to the bottom SECURE FORM section, and click the link below Form Data.
The secure form cannot be used to collect credit card/billing information.
Application Database - AppDb (requires UPGRADE to Business Website or better) Use the AppDb feature to set up a searchable/sortable data table. You can define your own custom fields when setting up the data table. To create a new AppDb, go to the page list, create a new page, and click the AppDb page type. You may have up to 3 AppDbs per site. Click here for a sample application database.
SOCIAL NETWORKING You can add the social networking icons to the bottom of the product catalog detail pages. Social networking icons allow visitors to share the product page/information on their social networking pages (twitter, facebook...) To add the social networking icons to product detail pages, log in to your website, and then click Social Networking link under Site Editor > Settings on the left side of the page.
Google Buzz has been added to the list of social networking icons.
DESIGN
New groupbox styles
Advanced css menu settings (align right, margin/spacing, menu bar settings)
Animated text/css menus
Up to six groupbox styles available
MISCELLANEOUS UPDATES
Image tools: A slider on the main resize image page allows you to easily reduce the image size by moving the slider.
Footer styles: Advanced padding/border/margin settings allow you to enhance the footer styles area.
Image gallery/rotator: All image gallery/rotator modes support the image description display.
Product search: The product search from within the store manager allows you to change the product category/login after clicking on the edit link from the search.
Ecommerce order notes: Append to Notes button allows you to enter time stamped updates to the order notes area.
FIREFOX 3.6 FILE UPLOAD/DRAG DROP Firefox 3.6 supports the HTML5 enhanced multi file upload. When the advanced file upload option is enabled, you can use the Firefox 3.6 upload features. When you browse to select files to upload, you can select multiple files in the file open dialog box.
Drag/drop upload: A drop files box appears next to the file upload/browse button. To upload files via drag/drop, open a file/explorer window. Select the files you want to upload, click the files and drag the files to the "drop files" area in the browser window. The files will be uploaded to your website.
UPGRADED RATE PLANS
This release comes with some revised web hosting rate plans, with more bang for your buck! Please see the New Plan Updates - 8/2010 blog entry for details.
Following the deployment of Site Builder Release 4.17, all web hosting plans have been upgraded. This is great news!
The biggest change is the disk space allocated to each account, with most plans receiving about 3 times as much disk space as the original plans. Accordingly, the disk space upgrades also were adjusted. Also, the $24.95 and $34.95/mo non-ecommerce plans were replaced by a $29.95/mo non-ecommerce plan. Please see the plan fees list for details on each of the new plans.
These plan changes apply to both existing customers and new customer sign-ups. If features in your current plan are not included in the equivalent new plan, these features remain available to you unless you change your plan. If you change your plan, you will receive only the features listed in the new plan and cannot return to your previous plan.
Customers currently using the $24.95 and $34.95/mo plans will remain on these plans, but you will not have these plan options when signing up or upgrading your plans. Customers currently on these plans will receive disk space upgrades in line with the new plan set.
These plans were replaced because the differences between these plans and the base non-ecommerce plan were small. The $29.95/mo plan, which replaces these two $24.95 and $34.95/mo plans, includes the Calendar, Site Search, Message Board, App DB, and Secure Forms features, which provide more value to you when upgrading your non-ecommerce plan.
Also, please note that upgrades on accounts will not be adjusted automatically. You must make any desired changes via your My Account area; or contact us for assistance. You will not receive a billing credit for adjustments to your upgrades.
8/23/10 Note: If you were using a beta test feature such as AppDb, you will need to upgrade your plan to the $29.95/mo non-ecommerce plan or better.
Please contact us if you have any questions or need help upgrading your plan!
As our customer base grows, it's even more important that we track all support requests carefully, so that no customer requests fall through the cracks. The best way for us to do this is to ask that all support requests come via email. You can request support through our 
Kristen Moeller
Coexist Celebration
Celebration Church
Site Builder (aka Cool Tools) System Update: 4.17 is chock full of wonderful new features, summarized below. 
