In order to have a website on the Internet, you need to have a web server connected to the internet. Our web hosting service sets your website up on our secure web servers.

Yes! You can host multiple websites on your Hardlines hosting account. We use domain pointing to let you use your current web hosting resources for additional websites. These addtional websites can have their own distinct content, and domain name (i.e. www.newwebsite.com). They will share the same IP address, disk storage space, and bandwidth transfer of the main hosting account, as well as emails.

Yes! You can upgrade (or downgrade) your hosting package at any time.

Within 10 minutes of signing up you will receive a welcome email with all the information you need to start uploading your website, or setting up your email addresses. Just use the IP address that is given in the welcome email to upload your site and view it on the web. When your domain name 'propagates' then you can start using your domain name.

The suggested method of uploading your website is using an FTP client. Set up your FTP client to connect to ftp.yourdomain.com. You can connect using your DirectAdmin login and password, but it is recommended that you log into your DirectAdmin control panel, and create a new FTP account in the "FTP Menu", because FTP is not an absolutely secure method of transfer. Alternatively, you can also use the "File Manager" tool in your DirectAdmin Control Panel to upload your site.

Hardlines offers use of the very easy to use and powerful web statistics engine, AWStats. You can access your statistics from inside your Control Panel.

Hardlines does not currently offer internet access.

Installatron is an automated system that can install a number of different common server applications. Installatron makes it easy to install and configure these applications using the web interface. Software such as Blog, forums, CMS, e-commerce, guestbook, portal and more are available. You can access Installatron for your site through the "Advanced Tools" section of your DirectAdmin Control Panel.

The answer to this question depends on your current hosting provider. Hardlines' team of technicians would be happy to help you move your website.

Hardlines' primary webservers are running Linux using Apache Web Server. We also offer hosting solutions on Apple Xserves.

Hardlines has partnerships with many high quality web designers. For a recommendation, please contact us using our online contact form.

Our webservers are compatible with Microsoft Frontpage, and we will support any basic problems. However, if you have any advanced problems, we suggest contact Microsoft directly.

Yes! You can setup cron jobs from inside your control panel. However, Hardlines reserves the right to cancel any cron jobs that produce too much load on our webservers.

Check that all your settings in your email client are set correctly. The proper email settings can be found in the Tutorial section of this page.

To set up a new mail account, you must log into your DirectAdmin Control Panel. Click on the email icon.

The answer to this question depends on what mail system you are set up on. Hardlines uses two different email systems. Premium accounts can access their account through our CommuniGate interface located at https://mail.hardlines.com. Use you full email address as your login. Our Basic and Standard users can choose between a couple different systems to acces their mail. SquirrelMail is available at http://www.hardlines.com/mail/, alternatively, UebiMiau is available at http://www.yourdomain.com/webmail/

Please contact Hardlines Support to retrieve your email account name.

Email clients are largely a matter of preference. To help protect you from spam and email virii, Mozilla Thunderbird works well.

The answer to this question depends on what package you are using. For a package comparison, please see our compare page.

The space used by email accounts is only limited by the overall amount of space available in your package. However, you assign a disk usage quota to each email account when you set them up.

Any unsolicited commercial email is considered spam. Please read our Terms of Usage and Acceptable Use policies.

Hardlines offers an optional spam and email filter using our spamTrasher service.

These are two different services used to download your email, POP3 being the most popular. POP3 contacts your email server, and then downloads all the new emails directly to your computer. This means that the messages downloaded will be available for you to read, even if you are not connected to the internet. However, POP3 will then remove the message from the email server (unless specified otherwise). IMAP just downloads a list of the emails, and will then download the new message only when you click on it to read it. If you read your email at multiple computers, this is the best option. IMAP also stores all messages on the server (including Trash, and Sent mail).

A domain name is the unique name that identifies an Internet site. On the Web, the domain name is the part of the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) that tells a domain name server where to forward a request for a Web page. For example, the domain name of this web site is hardlines.com

Domain name registration is $35. However, domain name transfers are always free.

Certainly! This is called having a DNS pointer. If you own multiple domain names, you can point them all to the same website. The number of pointers is limited by the hosting package you are set up on.

You can register a new domain, or transfer an existing domain using our automated system.

Primary NS: ns1.hardlines.com (205.234.74.10),
Secondary NS: ns2.hardlines.com (206.63.68.92),
Tertiary NS: ns3.hardlines.com (206.63.68.90)

You can use our WHOIS tool to tell if your domain is already taken.

If you domain is taken, you should try an alternate choice. Typically, short domain names and acronyms are mostly taken, so try a longer domain name. Also, don't limit yourself to .com, We can also register .org, .net, and .us domains. You can use .biz names (and all other top level identifiers) with our servers, but you must initially register the actual domain with another provider.

Hardlines can register .com, .org, .net, .us, .biz, .info, .ca, .cc, .cn, .name, .tv, .de and .uk domain names.

You will retain all ownership to any domain name registered through us. However, for ease of setup and support, we set Hardlines as the Administrative, Technical, and Billing contact.

For ease of setup and support, it is highly recommended that the domain be transferred to Hardlines' control. However, if you wish to keep the domain with your registrar, you can configure the domain name to use our name servers.

Transferring a domain name is made easy with our automated ModernBill system.

Typically, you will need to renew your registration after one year.

Domain Name Servers are multi-tiered and distributed across the internet. It can take a few hours for the changes to propogate out to the internet.

There is no limit to how many domains you can register.

The preferred payment method is Visa or Mastercard. Please contact support to pay by credit card. We also accept checks and money orders.

We can set you up on our automatic bill payment system that will charge your credit card upon every renewal cycle automatically. Please contact support for information.

If you are paying by check or money order, send your payment to Hardlines Company, 112 Ohio Street, Suite 107, Bellingham, WA, 98225. Be sure to note the invoice number on the check.

Yes! Please contact support to change your billing cycle.

Yes, if your payment is unreasonably late, your account will be charged a late fee. Please view our Terms of Service policy for clarification.

Yes! If you want to pay in advance, we suggest signing up for a full year, so you can take advantage of the savings.

You can update your credit card information in our ModernBill system or by contacting support.

Username: Your full email address (ex: yourname@yourdomain.com)
Password: Your password
Incoming Mail Server (POP3/IMAP): mail.yourdomain.com
Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP): Your ISPs outgoing email server (ex: mail.yourisp.com)

It is suggested that you use your ISP's outgoing mail server because it will be faster for you, and if you choose to use Hardlines' incoming mail server (mail.hardlines.com), you will be charged for the bandwidth used to transmit your email.

Hardlines suggests creating a new FTP account using your DirectAdmin Control Panel. Because FTP login information is transmitted unencrypted, using your normal DirectAdmin login information to connect via FTP is not suggested.

It is the responsibility of you, the user, to secure all your accounts with a proper password.

A secure password will have all of the following qualities:

• Have both upper and lower case letters
• Have digits and punctuation characters as well as letters
• Are easy to remember, so they do not have to be written down
• Is more than 6 characters long
• Is not a name, place, or dictionary word (or any of those spelled backwards, or appended to a single numeric digit)
• Can be typed quickly, so someone else cannot look over your shoulder

Hardlines highly suggests having a quality virus detector installed on your desktop computer. A quality detector will scan all incoming and outgoing emails for virii and worms, as well as scan all downloaded files. spamTrasher email service is available from Hardlines. spamTrasher will effectively detect and quarantine spam and virii before they reach your desktop.

Hardlines highly suggest keeping a credit card on record with your account. This will avoid interruption in service for non-payments.