UKC

Invoicing and Billing Nightmare – Lessons Learned!

Dear Customer,

Re: Black Monday 25th Feb 2013

We are very sorry with regards to the invoicing issue we have experienced today.

We have today launched a new Billing System which straight off sent out several thousand invoices for domains that are no longer required by their owners!

Our traditional domain renewal method is to assume the domain is no longer required 28 days after expiry. The new system today sent out invoices going back up to 90 days after expiry of UK domains as in fact these domains are still renewable up to this time.

We have already cancelled all invoices ranging from 499903 to 500127 and so no further reminders will be sent for these domains.

We are very sorry for this mishap today and hope it did not cause too much distress.

Kind Regards,

Billing Team @ UK Cheapest

PS. We promise it will be worth it once we’ve ironed out the issues!

How to test CGI is working with a ‘Hello World’ script

How to get CGI working on Plesk 11

Running CGi and Perl scripts is not as straightforward as PHP, so in order to get your CGI working, ensure to confirm the following steps. Once the file in in the correct location, and the file system permissions are correct you will be good to go.

1) Ensure Perl-CGI is installed on the server. If you host with us, this is already done for you.

# yum install perl-CGI

2) Ensure Perl/CGI is enabled for your domain name in your Plesk panel. Find the domain name in the Plesk panel and look at the ‘Website Sripting and Security’ section.

3) Create a file named ‘hello.cgi’ with the following contents:

#!/usr/bin/perl
print("Content-type: text/plain\n");
print("\n");
print("Hello World!\n");

4) Ensure your file is uploaded to /cgi-bin and not /httpdocs/cgi-bin

5) Ensure your file permissions on the file are 755, you can set this in your FTP application or File Manager

6) You can now execute the file as such: http://www.mydomain.co.uk/cgi-bin/hello.cgi

Hello World!

How to add another domain to your Plesk 11 hosting account

Adding another domain to your Plesk 11 Hosting Account

You can host multiple web sites with your Plesk 11 account. The limit is set to your hosting plan, current we support hosting up to 50 sites per account.

To host another domain name in your Plesk 11 hosting account please do the following:

1) Login to your Client Management Portal
2) Select Services > My Services then View Details of your Hosting Account
3) Click “Login to Plesk Control Panel”
4) Click “Add Domain”
5) Enter your new domain name to host eg. iveriaternaartwork.co.uk
6) Keep the “Use our DNS Settings” and “Hosting Type” as the defaults suggest
7) A default document root will be provided eg /site1
8) You can now FTP your new website using your FTP username and password with document root set to /site1
9) Ensure your new domain name is set to the same name servers as your primary domain name to connect the domain to your hosting server.

If you have any problems do not hesitate to contact us.

Use httpdmng to reconfigure a single domain

sshHow to use Plesk httpdmng to rebuild a single domain

Rebuilding all site configurations can take a considerable amount of time, especially if you have many domains hosted on your Parallels server – so it’s best to avoid this where possible.

If you have made a change to only a single domain configuration (in vhosts.conf for instance) you will need to rebuild the configuration but for speed and performance there is no need to rebuild the configuration for all domains.

At the command line issue the following:

# /usr/local/psa/admin/sbin/httpdmng --reconfigure-domain domain.com

Within 15 to 30 seconds your domain configuration will be updated.

7 Headlines that Get Clicks on Twitter

How to Get More Clicks for Your Tweets

It doesn’t matter how great the article is that you are promoting, if you do not engage your followers then they will never click through to your site.

You only get 140 characters to make an impression on your followers so getting the headline right is real the secret to success on Twitter.

It’s All About The Headline

Once your tweet is broadcast you have the tiniest slice of time to grab attention before it scrolls off and into ‘never to be seen again’ territory as will happen with most tweets that pass every minute.

Headlines have always been important in publishing, headlines sell newspapers, headlines bring traffic to your site. It’s all about using tricks in the headline, and there are some great tricks, so let’s look at what headlines work.

1. The ‘How to’ tweet

This is one of the easiest ones to use because it habitually starts with the words ‘How to’. So for example if your followers are interested in driving traffic to their site using Twitter then this headline would work on you – in fact you are here now so that is proof enough! Everyone is looking for better, more efficient ways to do things and ‘How to’ guides offer just that:

  • How to Pull Traffic Using Twitter
  • How to Eliminate Spam Emails For Ever
  • How to Fly To Australia for Peanuts

The ‘How to’ tweet is the easiest to use and is a guaranteed attention grabber, keep it short, sweet and useful.

2. The ‘question’ tweet

If you ask a question you’ll immediately get your followers to consider an answer and at this point you have already engaged their attention. That is half of the battle won, now complete the question with something interesting and you get your click. Sounds easy? It is! Just be imaginative.

  • Do You Really Know How to Trade Forex?
  • Are You Sure Your Site is Fast Enough?
  • Have You Made Your Blog Hacker Proof?

Remember, you are asking a question that ignites curiosity, they simply must, absolutely, need to know the answer!

3. The ‘direct offer’ tweet

Here there is no messing around, you are getting straight to the point. No tricks. no seduction, just a direct message that will appeal to your followers. All of your followers that are interested in your tweet subject will feel compelled to read more.  Using the word ‘Free’ is a real puller.

  • Save 30% On All Orders – Today Only
  • Free Forex eBook for All of My Followers
  • Daily Special – 20% Off Everything Today

If your offer is truly appetising, who can resist it? It’s all about getting that click and your content will do the rest.

4. The ‘forbidden knowledge’ tweet

In this tweet you are promising to reveal information that your reader doesn’t know if he or she knows. This raises the curiosity of your follower, engages their attention. They will be asking themselves, “Do I know the secrets?, Let’s look just in case… (Click)”. I bet that if you are interested in Forex, you are wondering yourself what those secrets might be?!

  • The Forex Secrets You Thought You Knew
  • Google Algorithm Ranking Methods Revealed
  • Tricks The Top Sites Don’t Want You To Know

Grab attention using headline keywords such as ‘secrets’ and ‘revealed’ to convert tweets to clicks.

5. The ‘call to action’ tweet

Here you are commanding, even demanding that your reader takes action. This is a direct message which requires immediate action, a call to action tweet.  This is especially powerful when your followers can relate to the command. If your followers were all WordPress users then this would be a hugely successful headline.

  • Don’t Get Hacked – Upgrade to WordPress 4.0 Now!
  • Upgrade To Google Chrome 10 Today
  • Install Windows 8 Service Pack 3 Immediately!

Be careful when commanding your followers by ensuring your follow through content will be of great benefit.

6. The ‘news’ tweet

Everyone likes to stay up to date with the latest news in the industry (whatever industry you’re involved) so mega important news releases can be used to drive traffic to your site. Rather than re-tweeting to your followers breaking news, write your own article on the news item and draw your followers to your own site.

  • Apple iPhone 6 Release Ahead of Schedule
  • Gold Prices Reach $2,500 Per Ounce
  • Great Barrier Reef is Disappearing Faster Than Expected

Why give away the traffic? You can provide links to the major releases from your own content later.

7. The ‘numbers’ tweet

The numbers headline is one of my favourites. From the outset your follower will know that this is a potentially great article that can be read in bite sized chunks. Some of which may be new and some may be already known, regardless, this indicates an ‘easy to read’ article that is bound to have some tricks that your follower has missed.

  • 10 Tricks to Making a Great Website
  • 7 Tips and Tricks When Using Siri
  • 8 Business Ideas You Should Be Using

Your followers won’t want to miss out and will be sure to visit your article to fill any gaps in their knowledge.

What grabs your attention? Learn by example

There are many methods to being successful on Twitter and there are many variations of the headline. Be creative, use your imagination. Make a note of works works on you. Which tweets work on you? Look to see how each tweet that grabs your attention is formed. Look and learn.

All we are doing is trying to get the attentions of your followers. Anything you can say that will make them pause and think, just for a moment, is enough to engage the, and if the headline is relevant then they will follow up your offer. This is where you must keep up your part of the bargain.

The material you offer must match up to your headline, give your followers what they seek and you will find they will gladly share your article with their own followers who will then become your followers. Ultimately, great content is the secret to all online success.

I hope you have found this article useful and maybe learnt something along the way. If you have any suggestions feel free to leave comments and suggestions, I will link back. Please hit the Facebook Like or Google+ links at the bottom of this page and share this article with your friends and followers. After all, sharing valuable interesting information is what social networking is all about. Good luck!