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How to Set Up Your Hosting in 5 Minutes Flat
Point Your Domain at Your Host
The email you received should have contained the addresses of
some nameservers. Nameservers look like this: ns1.yourhost.com.
If you can't find it, take a look at the help section of your
host's website.
Once you know your host's nameserver, go and log in at your
domain name registrar's website. They all work differently, but
somewhere you should see options to configure your domain.
Replace the registrar's default nameservers with your host's
nameservers.
Try going to your domain by typing www.yourdomain.com into your
web browser. If it's working, you should see a page telling you
that your configuration was successful. If it doesn't, then you
should take a break for a day or two - nameserver changes can
still take a while to spread across the whole Internet.
Test Your FTP Account
The next step is to try uploading a page to your website by FTP.
Before you can do that, though, you need an FTP program and a
test page.
The easiest way to make a test page is to open Notepad and write
"this is a test". Save it as index.html. When it comes to the
FTP program, you have a lot of choice. There's something for
everyone: some good free ones to consider are Cute FTP
(cuteftp.com), Smart FTP (smartftp.com) and Bulletproof FTP
(bpftp.com).
Once you've done that, open the FTP program and ask it to
connect to your host's FTP server. This is usually
ftp.yourhost.com, although you might also now be able to access
it through your own website by using ftp.yourdomain.com. Once
you're connected, you should browse through the folders looking
for any existing index.html file - it'll usually be in a folder
called something like 'public' or 'public_html'. Upload your own
index.html over this one, and say 'yes' when you're asked if you
want to overwrite it.
Now, go to your website in a web browser. If everything's worked
the way it should, then you'll see what you wrote in that file
right there on your website! You can get started straightaway
writing real content to replace that little bit of text - it's
always exciting when you realise that your site is out there and
ready on the web right now. If you don't see the text, on the
other hand, then you might want to refer to your host's support
pages.
Set Up an Email Address
Almost all web hosts allow you to configure your account using a
program called cPanel. The host your email sent you should tell
you how to access it: it'll usually be something like
http://www.yourdomain.com:2082/cpanel. If you know the address
but you can't get to the page, you might need to disable any
firewall software you have running on your computer.
If you've got the cPanel address right, you'll be asked for your
username and password, and then you'll be presented with a
screen full of icons. Which icons you have will depend on which
features you got with your web hosting. Look for the icon called
'email', and then create any accounts you want there.
To check your email, you need to add an account in your email
program. This shouldn't be too much trouble: look for an option
called 'Accounts' in your email program's 'Tools' menu, and then
tell it you want to add an email account. You'll be asked for
POP3 and SMTP servers (your host can provide these), as well as
the email address and password you just configured in cPanel.
Try sending an email to your new address from one of your other
accounts, to see if it works.
Other Things to Do with cPanel
It varies from website to website exactly what you might need to
do with cPanel. It makes it easy, though, to do whatever you
might need to do, whether it's adding new FTP accounts or
creating databases. Don't worry: cPanel is designed to stop you
from messing anything up, so it's fine to experiment with it a
little.
About the author:
Original Source: Eclipse-Articles.com -
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Information supplied and written by Lee Asher of Eclipse Domain
Services
Domain Names, Hosting, Traffic and Email Solutions.