Here are a few tips to staying safe online…

1. ALWAYS use a firewall! This is even more essential when using a broadband connection. Windows XP comes with a firewall, but if you’re not using XP a good, free firewall can be downloaded from ZoneAlarm at www.zonealarm.com.

2. Use AntiVirus Software. Norton Antivirus is rated the best, but if you’re a bit short on cash a good free version can be downloaded from Avast - www.avast.com (personal use only).

3. Scan your system regularly for spyware - one of the best free antispyware packages available is AdAware from Lavasoft - www.lavasoft.com

4. Don’t open suspicious e-mail attachments - if in doubt just delete it without opening it.

5. Use a good, up-to-date browser. The latest version of Firefox can be downloaded from www.mozilla.org

The Redirect button is extremely useful when updating sites and forwarding to other domains. For example, if you owned an online shop at www.myshop.com you may want to register the domain myshop.co.uk to prevent customers who accidently typed the wrong URL in from missing your online shop.

Log in to your cPanel account for the domain myshop.co.uk and click on the Redirects icon (as shown above).  Type the sub-address from which you wish to redirect (if you’re wanting to redirect from just the domain name leave this blank), then type in the domain you wish to redirect to. Choose whether this is a temporary or permanent redirect and click ‘Add Redirect’. Now, in this example, customers who visit the domain www.myshop.co.uk will be automatically redirected to the domain www.myshop.com.

Your account is separated into two main sub-accounts, you’ve got your hosting control panel (cPanel, and soon Hosting Controller), and your billing control panel (we use ClientExec).

cPanel is the most widely used control panel for Linux hosting, mainly due to its excellent functionality and ease of use. cPanel uses various different ports for logging in depending on your account. If you have a basic end user package, your port is 2082 and if you have a reseller package your port is 2086.

For example, a reseller on the domain ‘domain.com’ would use:

http://domain.com:2082

(remembering to substitute ‘domain.com’ for your domain).

You will then be prompted with a pop-up box asking for login details. These login details were provided to you in the welcome e-mail when you first signed up.

Logging in to your billing control panel is easy - just go to http://www.600host.net/billing and enter the username and password you chose when signing up for the account.