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Frequently Asked Questions - Account Features
To protect the stability and performance of our servers, we forbid running mailing lists directly on our servers. However, if you wish to use mailing lists, you should take advantage of our pairList service. Click here to learn more about pairList.
Yes, you can. FrontPage will utilize the server-side extensions we offer at no additional charge (available with Advanced accounts and higher), while most other authoring tools do not require any special server-side extensions. We support FrontPage 2000 extensions only.
Yes, absolutely. We have written a tutorial on its use.
No. These are all against our policies. These policies are carefully designed to protect and enhance the performance and reliability of our service. Please read the policies if you are uncertain about a proposed project.
Yes, you can, although we recommend you obtain an FTP client program instead, for improved reliability and functionality. To access your account through a Web browser, use a URL like "ftp://username@server.pair.com/usr/www/users/username/".
Some media types can be "byte-streamed" from any account with the proper MIME types configured. Many MIME Types are already correctly configured on our servers. You may
easily configure any additional MIME types you need.
Hosting XML or WAP pages is simply a matter of creating the proper custom MIME types; no other special
support is required on the server. WAP and XML MIME types are
configured on our servers, and can be used with any account.
No. pair Networks provides services exclusively utilizing the FreeBSD UNIX operating system. Please note that we support powerful open source alternatives to each of these technologies, such as PHP, Perl, and MySQL.
We do not provide any services using Windows NT, Windows 2000, or Windows XP, and do not plan to offer any services using those operating systems. We use the Unix version of the FrontPage server extensions in order to provide that service.
The SQL implementation we support is the powerful MySQL, which runs on a dedicated pool of specially configured database servers. These can be accessed via Perl, PHP, or Python for Web integration. We do not support Microsoft Access or Microsoft SQL Server, as those are Windows-specific programs.
The extensions provide CGI capabilities and have a similar impact on server load. Consequently, the Advanced or higher account type is required, with at least one domain name. You may, however, use the FTP Wizard with FrontPage and any account type, although this will not allow you to use the "bots" in FrontPage.
No. Level 1 System CGI is available for Basic and higher
accounts. Level 2 System CGI is available for Advanced and
higher accounts. Custom CGI is restricted to Advanced and higher Accounts only.
Please note that we do in fact offer Custom CGI at the $17.95/month price point with our Advanced Account.
Accounts with Custom CGI are able to use a wide range of powerful CGI software, with a resulting impact on the load of our servers. By setting an appropriate price for this capability, we are able to ensure that it is utilized in proportion to the number of new servers we set up.
Hosts who offer this capability at lower prices will logically have higher loads on their servers. This isn't a problem that can be brushed off by saying "we just have faster servers to compensate"; the difference in load between static and dynamic page serving can be orders of magnitude. Worse yet, poorly-written CGI programs can take down any server easily. Managing that sort of problem incurs higher costs for the hosting company.
Yes. This question was frequent in 1996, but we have never made any distinction between personal and commercial usage.
Yes. We have e-commerce services available.
Yes, certainly. The charge for upgrading is merely the difference in setup fees between the old account type
and the new account type. You are issued a pro-rated refund for unused time under the old account type, and
billed for a new period at the new rate. There is no fee for downgrading. This upgrade (or downgrade) can be
accomplished through My pair Account Control Center.
pair Networks reserves the right to refuse or discontinue service for any
project that it considers unsuitable, undesirable, or otherwise
unacceptable, pursuant to our service contract and policies. At the
present time, this includes most adult-content sites. If you need a
recommendation for this type of hosting, contact our friendly Sales Team
at sales@pair.com, and they'll point
you towards Web sites that recommend companies that specialize in adult
hosting.
Each account includes an allowance for disk space and outbound data transfer. For example, the Basic Account allows 500MB of disk space and 40GB/month transfer.
At the end of each calendar month, the average use for that month is calculated for disk space.
The day of highest usage for both disk space and transfer is omitted from the calculation. The over-usage charges, if any, are based on the results.
If your account used a daily average of 550MB disk space and 42GB/month transfer, your over-usage charges for that month would be:
50MB of space (550 - 500) * $0.10/MB = $5.00
2GB of transfer (42 - 40) * $1.99/GB = $3.98
The total over-usage charge in this case would be $8.98.
The simple answer is "because there's no such thing." Any provider who claims to offer "unlimited bandwidth" either has no concern for the performance of their network and servers, or is lying to their customers about how much transfer they'll really allow a site to use.
At pair Networks, our transfer allowances are much higher than most hosts, but the reason they exist at all is simply to protect the availability and quality of our service for all customers. We also provide cost-effective options to meet the needs of busier sites, which means you always have a smooth upgrade path available. Hosts who advertise "unlimited bandwidth" are trapped by their own mistake, and cannot provide any options when faced with a popular site; they are more likely to simply shut it down.
There is no need to prepurchase such allowances. We bill customers for over-usage on a monthly basis. During each calendar month, an estimate is mailed out so there won't be any surprises.
You can store as much e-mail on the system as your Web hosting account allows. Please note that the amount of e-mail you have stored counts toward your hosting plan's disk space allotment. However, because large mailboxes are not efficient to access, we recommend that you download, delete, or archive old e-mail frequently. We also recommend that file transfers be made through FTP rather than e-mail.
"What isn't?" might be an easier question to answer. We provide a rich development environment, including all standard Unix system tools, a wide variety of Web site and graphic manipulation tools, full access to our supported programming and extension languages (C, C++, Perl 5.8.8, Python 2.5, PHP 5.2.5, tcl 8.5). Advanced and higher accounts have the use of our dedicated database server pool for MySQL.
We are currently using Perl 5.8.8, PHP 5.2.5, and MySQL 5.0.45. PHP 4.4.7 is available as a CGI for customer experimentation.
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