Native Design Services - Aboriginal Web Design & Hosting Specialists

Technical Support FAQ

How do I contact Technical Support?

What kind of technical support do you NOT provide?

How do I configure my POP account?

Why has my webmail stopped working?

What is Horde and what does it do?

What is SquirrelMail and what does it do?

What is SpamAssassin and how can it help me deal with spam?

How do I upload my website to my web hosting account?

What is a cPanel and how do I use it?

I think my website might be "down", what do I do?

How do I contact Technical Support?

Tech support is provided mainly through via our online contact form for fastest service. Your can also reach us via our toll-free line at 888-828-9355.

Please leave a detailed voice mail or a detailed email message regarding all aspects of any problem you may be experiencing. This will allow our tech staff to better pinpoint the origin of your problem and resolve it as soon as possible. (Just leaving a general message asking to be called back could potentially take longer, since we don't know which of our staff would be in the best position to assist you.)

What kind of technical support do you NOT provide?

We do not provide any technical support relating to HTML syntax, java programming, javascripting, any 3rd party software, CGI programming, CGI or opensource scripts, nor any other non-webhosting or non-network related aspect.

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How do I configure my POP email account?

Depending on the web design or web hosting package that you have chosen; your email accounts may be set up on the server on your behalf and you will be sent the details. If you are a web hosting-only client, alternatively you may create or set-up your alloted email accounts on your own, using the cPanel interface.

If NDS is setting up the email accounts on your behalf, the information you will be sent includes your new email address, your user name, and your password as well as the URL for your private web-based interface. The "incoming mail server" and "outgoing SMTP server" will always be based on the following: domain.com (Replace domain.com with your own domain, for example, the NDS mail server is "native.ca")

Depending on the email program that you are using, you will have to input all of the above information in your preferences or settings section.

You may also choose to occasionally access your email through Horde, RoundCube or SquirrelMail, our webmail interfaces; see below for more information.

Why has my webmail stopped working?

Login to your email using your private webmail interface; if you can access it, then nothing is wrong with the mail server and it could be an outside influence affecting your email access.

Your POP and webmail account uses space from your overall allocated server space. If you keep large attachments in your webmail account without downloading them to your computer and delete them from the server, they can eventually cause you to overexceed your maximum.

Example: You have a hosting account for 15 MB of server space. Your website takes up 10 MB of space. You receive a half dozen attachments of over 1 MB in size, without downloading and deleting them -- you are now exceeding your allocated server space and your POP account may temporarily "freeze".

Be sure to stay within the limits of your account's allocated server space, or make arrangements to increase your account's limits. If you are not sure of the amount of "free" server space left on your account, please contact Tech Support or check the account stats on the left side of your cPanel.

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What is Horde and what does it do?

Horde is one of the web-based e-mail interfaces that we offer to clients. Horde includes many of handy extra features, particularly handy for someone who needs something more than just basic webmail. Horde is made up of several modules, each with a specific purpose:

Horde's address book and contact management application is capable of attachments, spell-check, address books, multiple folders, and multiple-language support.
A web-based calendar and daily organizer (think Day-Timer). It currently provides a robust web-based calendar for individual users with repeating events, and a smart algorithm to display a whole day of events even if many of them overlap with each other.
A simple, multiuser task list manager .
A simple note manager (memo pad application).

You will be able access your email from any computer with internet access, using the private email web interface URL, user name and password provided to you when your POP account was set up. If you require more information, please consult this detailed and printable Horde User FAQ.

What is SquirrelMail and what does it do?

SquirrelMail is one of the web-based e-mail interfaces that we offer to clients and includes the following features:

Address book
Sending and receiving attachements
Multiple folders, including user-created ones
Configurable user preferences

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What is SpamAssassin and how can it help me deal with spam?

SpamAssassin is a feature that can be activated on your domain's mail server that will enable you to better handle the growing problem of spam or UCE (unsolicited commercial email). The longer your email address stays valid, the more spam you are likely to receive. It may not be a problem for you -- yet -- but others find it very frustrating. Some recent research has indicated that numerous ISPs and email service providers find their incoming mail is between 40% and 80% spam, overall; and quite a few old-timers who've used the same address for years, get over 30-50 spams or more a day!

The SpamAssassin feature filters your email through a "smart" system that detects the most commonly used terms and phrase patterns used in spam messages and assigns a numerical value to them. Messages exceeding a certain value are determined to most likely be spam and their subject line will be modified to include "**SPAM** in the header, in order that you can choose whether or not you wish to open it.

You can choose to activate the SpamAssassin feature through you cPanel interface, or if your web hosting account is being set-up and moderated on your behalf by Native Design Services, you can request to have it activated or deactivated for you.

If you require more information, please consult the SpamAssassin website FAQ for end users.

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How do I upload my website to my web hosting account?

Once your payment is received and your new web hosting account is setup, you will be sent the upload details regarding your account. These include your domain name, IP address, user name and password. Depending on FTP client that you are using, you will need to input this information into the preferences or settings section of your program. Your web design program might also have a built-in uploading feature; in which case you should follow your user manual's instructions.

Upon accessing your domain, you will be able to view such folders as your CGI bin (if your account includes it), web mail folders, cPanel and more. Your site should, by default, be uploaded into the public_html folder.

What is a cPanel and how do I use it?

A cPanel is short for "Control Panel" and it is an online interface that allows you to have much more control over all aspects of your domain and it's management. It also gives you a quick synopsis of your web usage; from overall file space to monthly bandwidth.

You can access your cPanel by going to:

http://www.YOURDOMAIN.com/cpanel

and typing your account ID and password when you are requested for it.

If you have never used a cPanel before, you will probably only be using it for informational purposes, such as checking your current monthly bandwidth usage, or your web stats with the analog and webalizer features. You might also use it to check on the server status, or to log on to the web interface of any of your domain's email accounts. You can also use it to add one or more popular features to your website, such as a basic or advanced guestbook, guest counters, countdown timer or formmail, using the included CGI scripts.

For complete details, please follow the text link on the bottom of your cPanel interface page, to an in-depth online documentation regarding the use of your cPanel.

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I think my website might be "down", what do I do?

If you believe that your website is "down" due to server problems, you must first try the following, before contacting Tech Support:

Login to your cPanel, and click on the "Server Status" button, located on the bottom of the left hand navigation panel, to see what is wrong. If all is "green light" then your access to the internet and your website are being affected by an outside source that is outside of our control.
Login to your email using your webmail interface; if you can access it, then nothing is wrong with the mail server.
If you are unable to login to your cPanel, please take note of the exact times to the outage, from when you first noticed it, to the time when the site returned online. You will need this information to submit it within 72 hours.

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