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Why
did we create the Instant Web Sites service?
If ever there
was a service where the economies of scale provide a major competitive advantage,
Web Hosting is it.
Being in the Web
Weaving and Web Hosting business, naturally we would like to see more and more
organizations create their own "Net Presence". Therefore, we set out to eliminate
or at least reduce some of the barriers and inhibitors. There are several factors
that could make a Net Presence cost prohibitive for many people and organizations.
To name a few:
- The Web Hosting learning curve (could not only cost in $$$$, but also in your
"Net Image").
- The cost of a high speed connection.
- The cost of the equipment, ranging from servers to routers and CSU/DSU units
- Last but not least, the ongoing cost of a system administrator which needs
to almost constantly tend to your web site.
We have created the Instant Web Site service to take all the system
management headaches away, leaving you with the pleasurable task of creating the
coolest of Web sites. In addition, the collection of all the Instant Web Sites
presents visitors with a variety of choices, naturally increasing the number of
visitors for all sites. (Had the mall analogy not been so overused, we would use
it here!).
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How
do Instant Web Sites work?
We have created
a series of applications which do the bulk of the work necessary to create your
own Web site. Yes, you do have to do some work. For starters, you would have to
fill out our signup form. Once you provide
your information such as "Site Name", "Site Title" and other important info, our
applications will instantaneously create your Web site and provide you with the
first view of your very own Web site.
Your Web Site
may have many pages. However, initially, a single placeholder Web page will be
created based on the "Site Title" you provide. You may use FTP
to subsequently upload your Web pages onto Instantweb servers. As you will see
in the Instant Web Site Sign Up, you can select your own FTP Some relatively hard
to do features such as search will automagically be incorporated in your Web site.
You can use our Tools Page to perform system
management operations at a click of button. For example, you can lock certain
sensitive or unfinished directories, and keep unwanted eyes out.
In addition to
all the automatic features, a number of examples and how-to help
files have been created to assist you in your Web Weaving. Furthermore, we
have taken a number of resources available on the World Wide Web, sifted through
them all and rated them for each category of novice, intermediate and expert.
The result is a single document entitled Instantweb's
World Wide Web Help.
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Who
was the Instant Web Sites service designed for?
The Instant Web Service is designed for people who want to use their creative
energy on developing a state of the art Web site, and not be bogged down with
the boring grunt work.
Instant Web
Site clients should be somewhat familiar with HTML.
Although we do provide a number of automated tools, without the basic knowledge
of HTML, you would not be able to use the Instant Web Site Service to it fullest
potential.
For those willing
to learn, we have provided a list of comprehensive documentation on HTML. Just
click on Instantweb Help Pages for a self-service
training trek.
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What features will my Web site have? Using Instant
Web Sites, you can have a complete state of the art web site. Nothing short of
the custom sites that cost hundreds of thousands dollars to create. Here is a
list of some those features:
- A High
Speed connection.
- Search across
multiple web pages at your site.
- Ability to receive
Mail from your visitors.
- Graphics which
users can click on to make selections using Clickable
Maps.
- Capability of
incorporating Forms in your Web Pages. With
our built-in cgi-mail form, you can create any form you wish, without worrying
about the back-end. Anything that your visitor enters will automatically be emailed
to you.
- Ability to perform
interactive operations, based on user's needs and your very own CGI
Scripts.
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What services does Instantweb provide me, the "WebMaster"?
You guessed right. Most of the features mentioned above assist visitors and makes
your site a friendlier place. So its a given, your Instant Web Site is "visitor
friendly". Now, is it also WebMaster friendly, or is it a bear to manage all these
features?
At Instantweb,
we will perform a number of operations on your behalf which makes managing your
site a true "no-brainer". In fact, you need not do anything, but read the reports
we send you. To list a few, here are some of the system management functions
we perform on your behalf.
- Nightly Backups:
We backup all of our sites on tape every night and store them off-site.
- Automated
Indexing: Every night (at off peak hours), we re-index every site at Instantweb
to ensure that the day's addition of files is included in the latest search database.
Obviously, locked directories do not get indexed.
- File Backup:
In addition to the tape backup, our backup tool
bundles your entire site in a single file and place it in your locked "admin"
directory. Only you can access this file and download it to your own machine.
- Usage Statistics:
We keep statistics of your site. These will kept in a private place and you can
access them as you wish.
And of course,
we provide you with tools to perform any of these functions as you please, and
when you please. You don't have to wait for our nightly automated operations.
Just use the Instant Web Site Tools Page.
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How much does all this cost? Instant Web Site's pricing
follows a Pay As You Grow model. Initially, we like to reduce the startup
costs for you. As your site grows more popular, we would like to share in your
success. Therefore, we have come up with an easy and fair pricing model, based
on hit rates.
The base cost to host your site is $30.00 per month. It
includes what most people need for their site. It allows
for 50 Megabytes of disk space and up to 120,000 hits per month. Hits above and beyond the 120,000
per month are charged at one dollar per 1000 hits, rounded
to the nearest dollar. If you need more disk space than
the 50 Megabytes provided, a monthly charge of $2.00 per
Megabyte will be added to your bill.
Instantweb will
bill you in advance of the hosting services. You may choose a quarterly contract
with advance monthly billings or a yearly contract with advance quarterly billings.
By choosing a yearly contract and quarterly billings, you reduce our invoicing
costs. Instantweb passes these savings on to you and reduces the minimum hosting
costs by 25%.
This can reduce
your monthly hosting costs to as low as $22.50 per month.
Personal accounts with a non-commercial focus, Students
and Teachers can take advantage of our incredibly low
offer of $5.95 per month by choosing a yearly contract
and quarterly billings.
This will provide
the first 120,000 hits and the first 50 Mega bytes at
$5.95. Hits above and beyond the 120,000 per month are
charged at one dollar per 1000 hits, rounded to the nearest
dollar. If you need more disk space than the 50 Megabytes
provided, a monthly charge of $2.00 per Megabyte will
be added to your bill.
Students and Teachers may select the $5.95 student rate,
however, PLEASE NOTE that InstantWeb reserve
the right to change billing fares without notice, IF your
site is found to have a commercial-focus. Any commercial
sites using the Student Rate will immediately be changed
to the Commercial Rate ($22.50).
You will not
be required to enter your credit card over the Internet. You will be billed via
mail.
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Why doesn't my CGI directory work? The CGI directory
is available for paying members only.
Upon receipt of the first payment the CGI directory will become available for
use.
This limitation
is imposed to protect the system from folks who wish to abuse it. In order to
keep the costs low and provide superior service, your CGI directory will remain
locked until the receipt of the first payment.
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What are the limitations of Instant Web Sites? Instant
Web Sites have all the functionality of large custom sites that you may have visited.
The only limitation comes from a business, marketing and economics point of view.
The nature of
Instant Web Sites provide a large number of services for a very low cost. If we
do not impose some limitations on it, the service might be abused by some which
will ruin the benefits for all.
Being free spirited,
benevolent business people (yes, there is such a thing), we have tried to minimize
any limitations we have on the system. However, there are Technical, Legal and
Ethical limitations which we must address.
On the technical side, Instant Web Sites
will provide you with 50 Megabytes of disk space and your
share of the servers' resources. As mentioned above, your
share is determined by the number of hits your site has.
There are some
legal limitations which we have thoroughly covered in the Terms
and Conditions Section. Please be sure to review them. Any site that violates
Instantweb's Terms and Conditions, or the laws of the City of Los Angeles, the
State of California , or the United States of America, will be removed immediately.
Instantweb is
absolutely against censorship. We would hate to be in a position of having to
remove any material. Be sure to avoid all racially/sexually/generally offensive
material.
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