onweb Pty Ltd. Web Site Hosting

Web Hosting Features

*	signifies a feature only available under Unix Plan #2 and above.

High Performance and Reliable Technology
Our commitment to high performace web hosting is illustrated by our installed technology. You won't see any low performance, off-the-shelf PCs here. onweb employs dozens of high performance Silicon Graphics web servers to serve web pages with lightning speed. These servers are connected to the Internet via multiple T3 connections (45 Mb/s each!) on separate and diverse backbones (UUnet, MCI, Sprint) for redundancy and balanced workloads. onweb monitors backbone performance and automatically sends IP traffic down the shortest path using the Cisco BGP4 protocol. You can rest assured that your onweb hosted web site will be fast, responsive, and reliable.

Domain Name Registration
onweb offers virtual domain web hosting accounts which means you can have your own domain name (www.yourname.com.au) for your account. onweb will handle either domain registration or transfer on your behalf. You can also have additional domain names point to your account for a small additional charge.
The Australian governing agency is called AuNIC and this is managed by MelbourneIT, which charges $125 to register a domain name for a period of two years. Non-Australian domain registration must be handled by the end user.
onweb can assist with US (.com) registrations.
The U.S. governing agency InterNIC charges $US70 to register a domain name which covers the first two years. They currently bill at a rate of $US35 per year thereafter.

Unlimited updates via your own FTP account
You will have unlimited access to your account via FTP 24-hours a day to set up and maintain your web site. You can work on HTML documents, graphics, and scripts locally and then upload files to your web site when ready. An FTP tutorial and client software is available.

Microsoft FrontPage^TM extensions supported
onweb is pleased to offer support for Microsoft FrontPage extensions for all of our plans. This allows you to use the easy-to-use Microsoft FrontPage program to create and maintain your web site. You may request that FrontPage extensions be installed within your web site when placing an order for domain web hosting services or contact our support department directly. onweb does not charge a fee for this installation! Microsoft provides direct support for all FrontPage users.

4000+ MB of data transfer per month
In general, any outward bound traffic from a web site with the exception of e-mail is considered to be data transfer. For example, each time a web page or image is loaded, a file is downloaded from your web site (not uploaded), or an audio file is requested data transfer is generated. onweb allows a generous 4000 MB per month of data transfer for Plan 1 and up to 8000 MB per month for Plan 4. Additional data transfer beyond the threshold will incur a small charge of $0.20 per MB per month. Our experience has shown that 4000 MB per month is more than enough bandwidth for most web sites. In fact, 98% to 99% of our customers operate within their free data transfer allowance.

Unlimited mail forwarding to a default address
Once your domain name is active worldwide, you can receive all e-mail addressed to your domain such as webmaster@yourname.com.au, sales@yourname.com.au, etc. By default, all e-mail addressed to your domain will forward to your real e-mail address provided by your local internet provider (This is the address that you originally supplied onweb in your email application enquiries). For convenience, specific mail forwarding addresses are available if you need email to be forwarded to different addresses on the internet. For example, e-mail addressed to webmaster@yourname.com.au could forward to an account at your personal ISP, but sales@yourname.com.au could forward to your work ISP account. 10 email forwarding accounts are included in Plan 1.

POP Accounts
In addition to mail forwarding, users have the option to retrieve e-mail directly from POP3 mailboxes on the mail server using a mail program such as Eudora. One master POP and five additional POPs are included in our Plan 1 accounts. The additional POPs can be assigned unique ids and passwords to ensure privacy. Higher level domain accounts provide even more POP addresses for your use. You can also purchase additional POPs as needed. The additional POPs can be assigned unique ids and passwords to ensure privacy. A PPP internet connection is needed.

Auto email responders
"Autoresponders" reply to incoming e-mail automatically. An autoresponder could be used to send a standard text file to persons addressing, say, info@yourname.com.au. onweb uses an autoresponder to send basic information to persons addressing info@onweb.com.au. If you've ever received a response to an e-mail which suggests that the recipient is away from the office, you may have received such an automated response.

Controllable Anonymous FTP
Enabling anonymous FTP allows visitors to access your web site to upload and/or download files without a unique id and password. By controllable anonymous FTP, we are referring to an environment whereby anonymous access can be limited to specific files and directories.

Account "Control Panel" accessed via WWW
All users have access to a web-based Control Panel which allows you to set mail forwarding options, enable/disable anonymous FTP access, view your statistics, change your password and more. It also allows access to other features such as an HTML Form Generator, web-based HTML editor and Perl script checker. Users can also update account contact information at anytime without having to contact customer support.

Detailed web usage statistics & access to raw log files
We a give you a choice of using MKStats1.0, MKStats 2.1, or Analog to track your web usage statistics such as what domains are accessing your web site, how many "hits" you are getting, how much data is being transferred and more. In addition, onweb gives you direct access to your raw log files so you can analyze your statistics with other more full-featured programs. (see products that enhance our services)

CGI script support via your own cgi-local directory
All customers have access to a personal cgi-local directory in which you can place your own custom CGI scripts. CGI scripts are often used to accomplish tasks which are not supported by basic HTML such as a "hit" counter or guest book. onweb makes a number of CGI scripts available, but this directory can be used to set up scripts that you write (or find elsewhere on the web).

Pre-written CGI scripts available for your use
Perhaps you don't know how to write your own CGI scripts or you don't want to spend your time re-inventing the wheel. onweb offers several pre-written scripts, available free for your use. These include a hit counter, guest book, mail form, shopping cart*, discussion forum, and more!

Shopping Cart program^*The Shopping Cart program allows you to implement your own on-line storefront. The shopping cart script keeps track of what visitors have ordered allowing them to add or remove items from their virtual shopping basket. When a visitor decides to check-out, the order information including the buyer's name, address and billing instruction is e-mailed to the site webmaster and a receipt is sent to the shopper. Our Unix Plan 2 and above include a pre-written Shopping Cart script that you can customise for your use. A demonstration and extensive documentation are available. For those of you who may be interested in a more comprehensive on-line commerce solution, Mercantec's SoftCart is available as an additional product.

Access to our SSL Secure Server^*
SSL (Secure Socket Layer) allows users to collect data such as credit card information in a secure environment. Information submitted via a secure form is sent to the server in an encrypted mode. Users may choose to research methods such as encrypted email (PGP), CyberCash, or other solution for retrieving such information from their web sites.

Access to CyberCash^TM*CyberCash enables you to securely process credit card transactions 24 hours a day, seven days a week to a new global marketplace. CyberCash works with all the popular browsers, as well as the majority of Internet hardware, software, servers, communication protocols, and web store applications.

TrueSpeech^TM server support
TrueSpeech is a high quality speech compression software which compresses speech down to as much as 1/40th its original size. Since regular speech files are normally large, compression using TrueSpeech enables them to be transferred faster and more easily. Support for TrueSpeech real-time audio is available for use in your web pages.

RealAudio^TM server support^*
Progressive Networks' RealAudio system is a client-server based streaming media delivery system for the Internet. Providers of news, entertainment, sports, and business content can create and deliver audio-based streaming multimedia content through the Internet to audiences worldwide. We not only provide the server extensions but also include step by step instructions to include RealAudio in your web pages.

Access to Excite^TM Search Engine
Excite® is a new generation of web navigation. It gives your web site the same advanced search capabilities used by the Excite service, allowing visitors to search your web site using keywords or concepts. Try it here.

On-line Technical Support
onweb offers extensive on-line technical support and documentation which will help you get started, get you out of a bind, and give you the means to create complex, interactive sites. In addition, our technical support staff is available by e-mail during office hours (CST) presently, but you may often receive replies outside those nominal hours to assist you.

^*Available under Unix Plan 2 and above.

If you cannot find an answer to your questions in our Frequently Asked Questions page,
please contact <sales@onweb.com.au>