Icethunder – Your place for webhosting stuff!
The Small Guide to Google Apps [4.] – DNS configuration
Sep 2nd
We covered the easiest scenario in my last article here at Icethunder.net. It’s time to get a little bit dirty. Today’s article will cover the little bit harder way of configuring your domain name, but at the end you will see it is maybe even as easy as the previous way 
the Educational Way of setting up Google Apps
In this scenario your domain name registrar does not provide you an easy link to install Google Apps and thus you will need to do all the configuration changes yourself. You do not need to worry as I will guide you trough the whole process with images and text
There are some examples of set up steps on this Google web site and you might use it if your domain registrar is on the list
The steps to Google Apps
PART A. of Google Apps Set up Read the rest of this entry »
The Small Guide to Google Apps [3.]
Sep 1st
Well it’s time to start our real journey from a state when we are using “something” and we want to move to Google Apps and enjoy some of the advantages this product offers to us. Maybe we will not use all the features of Apps, but i think you will try the majority of them
Scenario number 1.
Where are you?
You are a guy who freshly registered a new domain name and wants to received and sent email in a few seconds. You are not so keen on getting your web site online in under 5 seconds and you might not even need one as of now. you might set up one in the feature, or the next day, but you want to use a “redundant” solution for your email to not get into trouble if your web host encounters downtime or problems Read the rest of this entry »
The Small Guide to Google Apps [2.]
Aug 30th
The last time I talked about why to choose to use Google Apps and not your web hosting company’s email solution. The reasons I am using it for all of my domains are mainly:
- security – access by using valid SSL certificate
- spam and virus protection
- huge email account [7GB...no hosting company will allow you more than 2GB for all of your accounts!!! Google gives you 7GB/account ]
- 99.9% availability
- easy configuration after you configure your first domain
- features like Calendar, Sites, Docs and more from the Apps marketplace which you do not find anywhere else
to name a few…
Let’s start our Apps configuration journey Read the rest of this entry »
Small Guide to Google Apps [1.]
Aug 29th
A few weeks ago I talked about “Shifting responsibility in web hosting“. The story back than has been about some kind of “outsourcing” very important and hard to configure server services to a third party with more knowledge. I gave you a some examples back than too to make your shift both cheap and painless.
Today I will take this category one step further and provide you with a nice guide about how to move to Google Apps and get rid off less stable, not very spam protected default hosting solutions you get every time you sign up for a hosting package.Web hosting companies try their best, but they are in no way email companies and thus Spam is still a problem…
What is Google Apps?
I think everyone know who or what is Google. It’s the giant web search engine, but searching the web is not all they can do. they are also selling advertisements, offering you analytics tools to analyze your web site traffic and they even offer you a great solution to host your emails with the by using your own domain name. Read the rest of this entry »
What Linux distro to use when on a VPS?
Aug 28th
I think this question is asked a lot of times on various web hosting related forums and web sites. The reason why Linux is great is the fact there are just so many different flavours of it. You can check this link to get an image of how many different Linux versions there are
And this great variability is what I think causes the confusion most of the time. For people who come from Windows Desktop/Server environment it is very hard to believe that they are all the same, but differ only in minor things.
The true fact is, that the Linux kernel is always the same. It can differ in version, but it is the same kernel used across all the Linux/GNU distributions. And when you are in the world of servers you really stop seeing so many differences between the various distributions. The reason for this are the facts like that servers do not use Read the rest of this entry »
Help! My web site is not working!!!
Aug 27th
Well, if you want to get attention you do have it 
But it would be very nice if you would be able to describe your problem in more detail while trying to find help on a forum. It’s because you do have the attention, but with no relevant data to start with no one will be able to help you.
Include as many information as you only can when trying to find help in web hosting. People are willing to help but they need info to get started.
When searching for help try to append these information:
- your domain name so others can check if they can see your web site or the Error message
- what have you done before this problem started to show up
- what did you install
- what did you uninstall
- what did you allow Read the rest of this entry »
My Domain names guide [2.] – Name registration
Aug 19th
I do no see a lot of sense talking about the very basics and differences between domain names as they are really not that important. I will cover the most important basics in the next couple of points and move on to more important and fun stuff
- there are two different TLD groups as explained in the first article [generic tld's and country specific tld's]
- first level tld’s can not be registered by normal humans [you can not register a .your_tld ]
- second level domain names can be registered trough a domain registrar
- some TLD’s can only be registered under very specific circumstances
- prices between different tld’s are not the same and can vary really a lot
Domain name registration Read the rest of this entry »
My Domain names guide [1.]
Aug 18th
I think everyone knows what a domain name is. It is a name you give your web site. You type the name into a web browser [e.g. IE, Chrome etc.] and wait ’till the web site loads. And you get angry if the web site does not load under 2 seconds But behind the scenes lots of things happen. We will talk about them in one of my future articles as well as about DNS settings and how to chnage some if the settings for some popular services like Google Apps etc.Today it will be only about a light introduction
What’s a domain name?
As said before it is a name for your web site, but it is a compound “thing”. It is made up of several pieces. Let’s explain this on a simple example:
www.icethunder.net
- www – you are accessing a web site and it is a CNAME [a DNS record...we will talk about DNS a little bit later]
- icethunder – is you actual name you want to use
- .net is the TLD you have chosen to register
- icethunder + .net together make a domain name you are able to register at a domain registrar.
TLD’s or Top level domains Read the rest of this entry »
My basic VPS Guide [16.]- a small Wrap up
Aug 17th
This might seem like the end of the ‘Basic VPS guide’ series, but you do not have to worry.This article only means the end of the “basic” series and a little more advanced series will start right after this one finishes The last couple of days have been full of work for me and that’s the explanation why I could not write as much as I would like to.
Main goals…
The main goal of this VPS basic guide was to teach you at least the basics. But not only to teach you what commands to type to the console, but to teach you THINK. This is much more important than knowing all the commands. When you are able to think you will come to the right solution sooner or later, but if you only know the commands and do not know how to think than you will not come to it at all I gave you some useful command and I know there could be even more, but I only included the basic ones and added some links to get more help, commands and clues
What did we learn in our VPS guide? Read the rest of this entry »
VPS server name and SolusVM FAQ
Aug 10th
I have come across this question fairly frequently in the last couple of months. It’s the problem of understanding what is the “server name” you have to fill in while signing up for a VPS server. I think you know, that while buying a VPS server from a web hosting company you are asked to fill in the name of the server. But what is it? How you know what to fill in? I’ll try to answer this question in the next couple of lines.
What’s the server name in VPS? Read the rest of this entry »
