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Google, through the Google Friend Connect service, give you a way to send out a very simple newsletter to your web site visitors. If you just have a small update to send out – and you don’t need anything too fancy – this is a great alternative, that will also get your web site visitors to interact more with your web site.
Now, how do you get started?
If you need help getting started with Google Friend Connect, check out our setup guide.
The first step would be to go to the Google Friend Connect page, and then click on the “Send a Newsletter” link.
Setting Up Your Newsletter Gadget
On the Newsletters page, click on the tab labeled, “Newsletter gadget”. This will allow you to setup the basics of your newsletter and a gadget that people can use to sign up for it using Google Friend Connect.
Step 1 – Options – Here you give your headline for the gadget box, such as, “Sign up for the newsletter!” You also give some text describing it, such as, “Get the latest updates for free!” and then you decide how large your want the gadget to be, by pixels.
Step 2 – Colors – In the “Choose Colors” section, you pick the colors and font you want to use in your gadget. Leaving one of the values empty means it will be transparent.
Step 3 – Generate Code – To create the HTML code you will copy and pate into your own web site layout, click the “Generate Code” button.
Composing a Newsletter & Reading Archives
To compose your newsletter, all you need to do is click on the tab at the top labeled, “Compose Newsletter”. You will then be taken to a WYSIWYG editor where you can write it up. To check out past newsletters, click on the tab labeled “Newsletter history”.
Now this might not be for professional newsletters and updates, but for smaller scale businesses or groups – this could be perfect to help get the news out about updates or changes.
Related Tips and Tricks:
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WordPress themes are a dime a dozen, however good WordPress themes are few and far between. I am a pretty picky designer, so it takes a lot to impress me with a theme, especially when it is free. Here are some of the most impressive free themes I’ve found out there for WordPress.
Statement – Demo it – Download it
Mainstream – Demo it – Download it
NewsOne – Demo it – Download it
Monotech – Demo it – Download it
Know of another free theme that is pretty impressive? Feel free to drop in with your comments on blog.lunarpages.com and let us know how you dress your blog for success.
Related Tips and Tricks:
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Google Friend Connect provides you with the tools bring your web site’s community together. You can create a social bar to show the latest comments, a members box, so members can get in touch with each other, ratings, reviews and more. There are a lot of interactive fun things you can do with Google Friend Connect. The only question now is, how do you get started?
Getting Started with Google Friend Connect
The first step would be to click the “Add new site” button on the Google Friend Connect page.
Next, you will be asked to tell them about your web site. This is where you fill in some basic information about your web site you wish to use the Google Friend Connect tools on.
Congratulations, you can now add Google Friend Connect applications to your own web site.
Now you can start looking at all the fun things you can easily add to your own web site layout or design.
Related Tips and Tricks:
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The holidays are fast approaching, but have no fear because your favorite web host is here to help you with your web hosting woes. Issue 27 of the Lunarpages customer newsletter is out and ready for reading! What all do we have in store for you this month? Here’s a sample of what we are leaving under your tree.
Also, don’t forget that last holiday bonus. When you order a new hosting plan, from now until Christmas, you can get $50 off your order! If you have been planning on launching a new web site or getting that delayed idea off the ground, now would be the time to get a hosting plan for it. Check here for more details on how to claim your Christmas web hosting coupon.
From our families to yours, we all hope you have a very happy holiday season this year, and remember to send your newsletter feedback to us, via the forums, by e-mail or in the comments!
Related Tips and Tricks:
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When it comes to running a trace route, some people become confused on how you get that trace route from your command prompt window to your uber-friendly support team. The easiest method would be to save the trace route as a .txt file, so you could copy the data, and paste it in your e-mail or help desk ticket.
It is all pretty simple:
- Go to Start > Run…
- Enter cmd and click OK.
- At the prompt, type tracert yourdomainname > yourfilename.txt and hit enter.
After it is complete, the file is saved to:
Vista - \Users\yourpcusername\yourfilename.txt
XP - \Documents and Settings\yourpcusername\yourfilename.txt
Now all you have to do is find the file, open it up, and copy the trace route from the .txt file to your e-mail to the support team or into your help desk ticket. You can seen an example of the process being done in less than a minute here:
Hope this tip comes in handy! If you’d like to see more quick video tips, leave a comment and let us know.
Related Tips and Tricks:
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You do not have to wait till Black Friday to pick up a great web hosting deal. Right now, if you use the coupon code Thanks you can save 50% on a new Basic hosting plan.
I could write a million and one words on how great the Basic hosting plan is, however nothing beats looking at the numbers:
12 Months of Basic Hosting
Regular Price: $107.40- After Coupon: $53.70
24 Months of Basic Hosting
Regular Price: $166.80- After Coupon: $83.40
As our most popular web hosting plan, the Basic package comes with priority web hosting support and service, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited disk space, a free domain name and much more. You can find a better “Black Friday-like” deal in web hosting out there.
Sign up via Lunarpages.com today, use the coupon code Thanks, and let them know you heard about this great deal via your friends at blog.lunarpages.com. Happy Thanksgiving!
Related Tips and Tricks:
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As a professional and open-source e-commerce solution, Magento is offering your online store access to unprecedented flexibility and control. You can also get it up and running here with Lunarpages, if you are using one of our new LPCP controlled accounts.
What Makes Magento So Great?
Where Magento really shines is it’s modular architecture. It really puts the control of the online business back in the hands of the shop owner. Any online merchant out there today would be silly to second guess this terrific script’s abilities of getting the job done. Many people who have grown tired of other shopping carts systems have migrated towards Magento because of functionality and delivery, which are two areas where Magento outshines the competition.
At Lunarpages, you can install Magento on any LPCP powered hosting account, either by a manual install or via the LPCP’s WebApps instant script installer. Your choice. Our cPanel powered plans do not support the backend needed yet to host Magento.
Need Help? Check out our profile page on Magento in the web hosting wiki. The third-party scripts and services section of the Lunarforums should also come in handy if you run into a problem. There is also a demo of Magento featured on OpensourceCMS’s web site.
November is Lunarpages Script Month!
 Keep watching the Lunartics blog all throughout the month on November for even more third-party script suggestions, tutorials, tips and more. You can also get tons of information and details about just a handful of the third-party scripts we support on the web hosting wiki. We also have a special forum dedicated to third-party script discussions over at the Lunarforums. Subscribe today to the Lunartics RSS feed for instant updates when we release a new script suggestion!
Related Tips and Tricks:
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Over the past year or so, a lot of people have enjoyed the write-up on how to create your own .htaccess file from within cPanel, so I figured I would give the same sage words of advice for everybody out there using the LPCP control panel.
To create a .htaccess file in LPCP, log into the LPCP, and then go to your File Manager. Click on the text link labeled, ” public_html” to navigate yourself inside the public_html folder.
Now, in the empty text box to your upper-right type in .htaccess, make sure the drop down box is set to “File” and then hit the button labeled, “Create”.
Your .htaccess file will be created in your public_html folder on your LPCP powered account.
For more LPCP help, tips, tutorials and more, be sure to check out the web hosting wiki. Over 340 guides have been published there to help you get more out of your web hosting account at Lunarpages.
Related Tips and Tricks:
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The free, user-friendly and open source shopping cart software, Zen Cart is perfect for any e-commerce web site hosted at Lunarpages. With the thoughts of shop owners, programmers, designers and more in mind, Zen Cart is one of the best third-party shopping cart scripts out there.
You can easily install Zen Cart one of three ways. We give the option to install manually, through LPCP’s WebApps page or cPanel’s Fantastico page. The process is simple, straight forward and to the point.
If you need to see example of Zen Cart powered web sites, you can check out Zen Cart’s showcase page. OpenSourceCMS.com also has a hosted demo of the shopping cart script on it’s web site.
Here are a few more Zen Cart tutorials that should come in handy:
You can find more how-to articles in our web hosting wiki. The third-party scripts and services section of the Lunarforums should also come in handy if you run into a problem.
November is Lunarpages Script Month!
 Keep watching the Lunartics blog all throughout the month on November for even more third-party script suggestions, tutorials, tips and more. You can also get tons of information and details about just a handful of the third-party scripts we support on the web hosting wiki. We also have a special forum dedicated to third-party script discussions over at the Lunarforums. Subscribe today to the Lunartics RSS feed for instant updates when we release a new script suggestion!
Related Tips and Tricks:
© Lunarpages Web Hosting – Also, don’t forget to follow @lunarpages on Twitter!
   
One of the world’s best open-source newsletter managers can be installed a number of different ways, here at Lunarpages. PHPlist is a free script that will handle all your newsletter or mailing lists for you. It is downloaded over 10,000 tie per month – and is possibly one of the most popular open-source scripts out there today.
PHPlist is fully installable via cPanel’s Fantastico, the LPCP WebApps, or by downloading it and installing it manually. Here are a few more features that it includes:
- double opt-in subscription mechanism
- scheduling
- RSS
- list segmentation
- click-tracking
- attachments
- bounce management
Here are a few more tutorials on PHPlist to help you out:
To learn more about PHPlist, be sure to check out their official web site, the support page for PHPlist and the official PHPlist documentation. If you need anymore help – you can always turn towards the Lunarforums too:
It is easy to see why PHPlist is possibly the best mailing list script out there.
November is Lunarpages Script Month!
 Keep watching the Lunartics blog all throughout the month on November for even more third party script suggestions, tutorials, tips and more. You can also get tons of information and details about just a handful of the third party scripts we support on the web hosting wiki. We also have a special forum dedicated to third party script discussions over at the Lunarforums. Subscribe today to the Lunartics RSS feed for instant updates when we release a new script suggestion!
Related Tips and Tricks:
© Lunarpages Web Hosting – Also, don’t forget to follow @lunarpages on Twitter!
   
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