Web configuration, network solutions, and other problems

When you first set up your web domain on Open Veld, there are a few things to do right away.  Some details will not apply to you, especially if you have the UniWeb Parking plan, in which you will only be concerned with password and e-mail.

Important messages from Open Veld
Please read and save important messages from Open Veld.  There should be several machine-generated e-mails that you will receive from us, including ones with subject headings, "Confirmation of your order" and "New Web Account Established."  Please promptly read these and notify us at sales1@veld.com if you see any errors.  The other two machine-generated messages that you will receive from Open Veld are about your domain registration, first that it has been submitted, and then that it has been completed.  (Please also see below under Internic and domain transfers).
The "Confirmation" is sent to you from Open Veld as soon as your order is placed, usually within one minute.  (Customers on AOL may not receive it for several hours.)  The "Confirmation" contains a copy of your service agreement with us, including the breakdown of your payments, the terms of the agreement and renewal policy, among other things.  For many customers, especially those who have chosen to take substantial discounts for long-term pay-ahead plans, we must receive your payment in full within 21 days.  Please make your check payable to, and mail to:  Open Veld, P. O. Box 290067, Fort Lauderdale, FL  33329.  Thanks!
The second important e-mail is the one titled "New Web Account Established."  It is sent usually within a few hours after we receive your order.  Please notify us if 24 hours elapse and you do not receive it.  The "New Web Account" e-mail contains the following details:  domain name, IP address, user id, password, and location of your control panel.  These five things are all you need to start uploading files, using FTP or FrontPage (if you have FrontPage extensions installed).  FTP and FrontPage are basically incompatible, so if you have FrontPage extensions installed, don't use FTP except for access to your CGI directory.

The twilight of the web
When you are setting up a domain on a new IP address, which is the most common situation, there is a delay of typically 10-72 hours before the domain name servers around the world start to learn about the new address.  There follows a period of 12-36 hours when some domain name servers "know" the new address and others do not.  Therefore, if you are uploading files during this twilight period, and then checking for their presence through the domain name, you will receive erratic results.  To be safe, you should at first upload only to the IP address until a few days have elapsed or you are consistently finding the files by typing the domain name in your browser.  Then you should upload any new files to the domain name, and can begin to tell others (including the search engines) about the location of your new web site.

Internic and domain transfers
If you are transferring a domain from another host, you should receive messages from Internic entitled something like,
       "[NIC-12345.54321] Modify Registration YOURDOMAIN.COM"
which may follow days after your Open Veld order.  Any such notices are not from us, nor can we answer them for you.  Only you as the Administrative Contact can authorize domain modifications, by responding to such messages.  Therefore please carefully follow the instructions and verify that the changes are in fact the the ones you want.  Mistakes do occur, and sometimes requests come in from the wrong host.  The host information, including server names and numbers, is at the very bottom of the modification request.  If you have any problems or questions, we will try to help, however only you as the Administrative Contact can authorize modifications.

Network Solutions registration payment
New domain registrations for the dot-com, dot-org, and dot-net domains require prompt payment to Network Solutions.  The price is $70 for two years domain registration.  You can pay securely on-line using a credit card by going to http://www.networksolutions.com/help/pay and follow the link to their Secure Online Payment System.  Normally they will have your domain and account in the database within 24 hours after you receive the notice "Domain registration completed" from Open Veld.

Password
Once you receive from Open Veld your "New Web Account Established" notice, you can change your password through the control panel (the location indicated in the same e-mail).  However, if the domain name has not been propagated through the world's domain name servers (normally during 2-5 days after your account has set been set up), you will have to access your control panel through the IP address, not the domain name.  We will give you a "strong" password to access your account.  It will contain no words in the dictionary, and will have a mixture of possibly letters, numbers, and other characters.  Your accounts is hosted on a UNIX server, which is case-dependent, so you need to watch whether the password letters are upper- or lower-case.  An upper-and-lower case password can be very difficult to crack, and also very difficult to remember.  So, if you want to make your password easier to remember, it is also going to be easier to crack.  The most important way of avoiding having your password guessed, either by person or machine, is to make sure it is not a word in any dictionary, including brand names, place names, and personal names.  That's also why a combination of letters and numbers is relatively secure.  We do not advise something guessable like a birthday, social security card number, street address, or the name of your cat as a password.

E-mail forwarding
Depending on the type of hosting plan, you will have different options for e-mail.  You will probably want to set up some of these right away.  (Always, you must have a separate way to get on the internet, either an dial-up Internet Service Provider or AOL, or else a networked connection.)  The UniWeb Parking plan has only two options, one an e-mail address which you can designate such as webmaster@yourdomain.com to forward to another address such as yourhandle@yourISPaddress.net  You can then have all other mail forwarded to a second address.  The hosted plans (Personal, Professional, Corporate, etc.) provide a large number of mail options.  Your other mail options may include many autoresponders and POP mailboxes.  The advantage of the POP mailbox is that you can use it as a normal e-mail, for receiving and sending.  As long as a particular mailbox name, e.g., yourname@yourdomain.com has been set up as a POP mailbox, you cannot use it for forwarding or autoresponder.  This is not a system limitation, but an intentional provision to reduce certain kinds of problems that can occur.  (See also E-mail features for more advanced capabilities.)