martynw

Thanks for the insight. I had heard the one well known hosting provider talks about 100% up time - but the reality is that they have more downtime than they would like to admit. But my question is not really 'does anyone provide 100% uptime hosting' but raher what are the technical things that could be down to acheive it. For example, could you have 2 different servers running in 2 different locations with too different switches etc (e.g one of TotalChoice hosting servers in the USA and one in the UK). I suppose the problem with that would be having DNS point to both places? Also has anyone heard of this "proxy-cache" that I mentioned?

Does anyone have any insight into how it would be possible to achieve 100% up-time for a site? I was told by support that this is not possible to achieve at TotalChoice Hosting. Since it is inevitable that all servers must suffer some down time, I presume that there is some way that it is possible to have multiple servers being pointed to by the same DNS server? I also read somewhere about proxy-cache-servers (I think). People trying to access a Web site could be routed to the cache server without getting to the actual site. I understand these are used to make the Web more efficient, but they can also be useful if a particular site were down. Is this the case?

Thanks, that makes it a lot clearer. I would definitely be at the low end. When I looked at osCommerce it appeared that credit card numbers are stored on the database - I don't know if this is the case with other carts that can be auto-installed on TotalChoice Hosting.

I have been researching setting up an e-commerce system using OS-commerce or CubeCart/ZenCart installed via Fantastico. My initial thought was to use PayPal Direct (the $20 per month option where customers do not need to leave your Web site and the shopping cart communcates with PayPal using the PayPal API). I then started reading about the PCI (Payment Card Industry) Data Security Standard. This was created when VISA, American Express, Diner's Club, Discover Card, JCB and MasterCard collaborated to produce a set of standards known as the PCI Data Security Standard. All Merchants and Service Providers that handle, transmit, store or process information concerning any of these cards are required to be compliant with PCI as of June 30, 2005. Penalties for non-complaince are severe. So, say I set up CubeCart, got an SSL certifificate etc I would certainly be handling and transmitting credit card information. I'm not sure whether I would be storing or processing credit card information based on the configuration mentioned above (i.e. CubeCart, SSL), but irrespective of that, it appears that I would need to be compliant with the PCI Data Security Standard. Has anyone come across this? How would I go about making sure that I was compliant (the standard includes things like making sure data is behind a firewall - something I am sure Total Choice have taken care of)?

Thank you very much for your replies and suggestions.

I recently transferred a new client onto my TotalChoice reseller account from APlus (a San Diego based hosting company). Since the transfer, my client claims to have got a virus and some spyware on his PC. My understanding is that this could not be anything to do with the change of hosting service. Maybe it is just coincidental or the spyware/viruses just recently came to 'life." Am I correct? His security is looked after by someone else who has installed a SonicWall firewall that is supposed to check for viruses/spyware etc. It may well do, but something seems to have got through in this case. Personally I use AVG for virus checking and AdAware and SpyBot for spyware checking.

That seemed to do the trick, thanks Bruce, the message has gone away. In Thunderbird there are 4 options: none, TLS(if avaialble), TLS, and SSL I had inadvertantly (or it defaulted) ticked the TLS (if available option). I changed it to "none" - and it works fine. Out of curiosity, what is TLS? Thank you.

I have set up sending e-mail via my TCH host (rather than the Cox SMTP - my ISP). It works fine, except that when my PC (using Thunderbird) tries to connect, I get a message: "the security certificate presented belongs to "server90.tch.....". When I click OK it sends the e-mail anyway. I am a bit confused by this, as I don't think that my e-mail client is encrypted or using SSL. Could someone explain what I need to do so that I don't get the "the security certificate.." message? Martyn Edit TCH-Bruce: removed reseller domain name

Thanks for the welcomes. I will check out DADA Mail. I did a a little experimenting and the answer to the question is to, in CPANEL, set up an e-mail forward to "| php -q /path/to/public_html/emailpipe.php" where emailpipe.php is the script you want to run. If you are not sure about the path, take a look at one of the .htaccess files and you should see it there.

I am trying to create a double-opt in e-mail list so that when people want to join my list they go through the following process: 1. Enter their e-mail on my site. 2. A script sends them an e-mail syaing something like: "if you really want to joing this list press reply" 3. If they reply to this e-mail their e-mail address is added to my list. I understand that the way to do this is via e-mail piping, i.e. I arrange for their 'opt-in' e-mail to go a specific address, e.g optin@****. Somehow I create a script that 'intercepts' this email and 'pipes' it to a script for validation and adding to a MySQL database. My questions is, how do I 'pipe' the e-mail, addressed to one specific address, to a script? I will still need to POP other emails (e.e martyn@****) using my e-mail client.