We have now launched our Customer Control Panel and eXtend Control Panel for the iPhone and Android powered phones.

Getting started
Using your iPhone you can manage your domain names, manage all your web hosting accounts , view the system status updates, view your invoices and go to the normal control panel. To access this, using your Apple iPhone, iPod Touch or Android phone go to your standard log-in  (http://instacontrol.yourfulldomain)  and log in.

INSTAhosts new iphone control panel

Whatever your thoughts about the iPhone there is no denying it represents a step change in the way we access data and spend our time on the move and thanks mainly to the ever growing app store we have immediate access to all aspects of our digital life. The success of the app store is well documented with over 85,000 apps to choose from, 2 billion downloads, over 6.3 million apps downloaded every day, and the iPhone OS is now the 4th most used OS. Our recently launched INSTA Host  iPhone control panel based on customer feedback and demand is testament to the increasing importance of mobile internet access and business use.

The downside to the success of the app store is the sheer volume of apps there are to search through is mind blowing, so we have done it for you! Below are some of the best apps (paid and free) we have found for managing your website through your iPhone. We are sure there are plenty we could have listed, but there is a good chance we haven’t come across them yet, so if you know of any, leave a comment below.

http://analyticsapp.com/: Access all your Google Analytics data through a specially designed interface for the iPhone making it easier and quicker to pull and report data.

http://www.ftponthego.com/: “FTP On The Go” lets you log into your server using your iPhone to download and upload files, and comes with an inbuilt text editor to amend files on the fly.

http://iphone.wordpress.org/:  The official WordPress app allowing you to  write posts, upload photos, edit pages, and manage comments on your blog from your iPhone

http://www.concentricsky.com/products/iphone/: CSS, HTML, JavaScript and  PHP cheat sheets on your iPhone

http://www.code-line.com/software/: Colour code selector including Pantone, web safe colours, and HTML colours.

http://ego-app.com/: Keep up to date with your web 2.0 stats including feedburner feed subscriptions, twitter followers, Google Analytics data etc.

http://www.freetheapps.com/app.php?app=crop: Crop and rotate  images without any loss of picture quality

http://www.itunes.com/app/sourceviewer: (Direct link to iTunes) View a web page’s HTML, CSS & JavaScript

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DownThemAll!
http://www.downthemall.net/
If you’re downloading a large file (for example a website backup) it can be very irritating if you get disconnected or your computer crashes.  Typically this always seems to happen within the last 10%!
DownThemAll! is a download manager integrated into Firefox which is able to pause and resume downloads.  The neat thing about it is that its completely integrated – when you start a download you get an option to download with DownThemAll!.

Xmarks (previously Foxmarks)
http://download.xmarks.com/download/all
Thanks to the recent fashion of “small cheap computers”, it seems everybody has at least 2 computers nowadays.  With my home PC, laptop and work computer I can’t live without Xmarks – it’s a bookmark synchroniser which keeps your bookmarks identical across computers.  It has some nifty features such as bookmark profiles (so you can vary your bookmark toolbar at work for example), and if you’re on a computer where you can’t install the add-on, you can still see your bookmarks from a web page.
It’s compatible with Firefox on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux – as well as Internet Explorer and Safari.

TwitterFox
http://twitterfox.net/
If you’re a Twitter fanatic like some of my colleagues, you’ll find this simple add-on a blessing.  It adds an icon on the status bar which will notify you when someone you’re following tweets on Twitter.  You can also quickly tweet or reply to a tweet directly from your browser without loading up Twitter.

Firebug
http://getfirebug.com/
This is one for the web developers out there.  Firebug lets you inspect and alter the current webpage – allowing you to explore the document tree and CSS styles of a specific element and tweak them instantly in-place.  It’s also got a powerful JavaScript debugger/profiler that helps you track down those annoying errors.

VertTabbar
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/8045
When one of my colleagues mentioned this add-on to me, I was sceptical.  But I find myself becoming more and more attached to it.  The add-on simply moves the tab bar to a vertical position on the left-right of your browser.  This means you can have more tabs open and still see their titles.  It works perfectly on a widescreen monitor where horizontal space isn’t at a premium.

Speed Dial
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4810
Speed Dial adds a “quick launch” page to Firefox, where you can put your most used websites with thumbnails for each of them.  This feature will be familiar to Opera and Chrome users.  It can be configured to appear every time a new tab is opened, making it a good “jumping page”.  It’s just a shame it can’t be synchronised with Xmarks!

What are your favourite add-ons?  Let us know here and we can all share!!!

Or have you jumped ship to Chrome or IE8?  Let us know!

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Please take a look at our community software….http://www.instacommunity.co.uk which can be purchased at our INSTA turnkey store HERE

Following on from our recent post about Hitwise’s research in to social networking in the UK yet more research is pointing to social networks as being THE growth area online.

Nielson Online has released findings in to the use of social networking around the globe and from a virtual standing start a few years ago their category has exploded in to 4th place.

Grouped with blogs to create a category named “Member communities” they have now over taken email and are only behind search engines, portals and PC software (I’d argue ‘adult sites’ would be in there somewhere if they were not consciously excluded in this type of research).

Other stats that jump out are:

- 67% of their research panel use member community sites

- 1 in every 11 minutes online are spent on these sites

- The 35 – 49 age category saw the biggest increase in uptake

- UK mobile web users are the most likely to access these sites through a hand set than any other country

- 69% of the UK online audience visit a member community site

Social networking doesn’t really offer anything new in terms of what you can do (posting on a board, send a message, chat online, share images…) but what is different bringing  all of these in to one handy place where our ‘friends’ can access them.

I wonder how it will be before we can search the internet from Facebook?

This looks like a great time to jump on to the social networking band wagon and our addition of social networking software Elgg to our CGI one-click  Internet  library of one click install programs lets you to take full advantage.

You can read Nielson’s press release summary here: http://www.nielsen-online.com/pr/pr_090309.pdf (PDF)

PS, dont forget that we offer a fully installed INSTA community over at http://www.instasite.biz

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All that is left to do is enter your HTML in to the ‘message’ field!

Why use HTML instead of plain text?
Professional image:
Put yourself in the place of your customers/ leads and how you perceive a company or service that sent an attractive email compared to one that sent a plain text email.

Consistent branding:
The best and strongest brands carry their messaging through every communication tool, ensuring all copy, colours, and logos are the same wherever you look. There is nothing stopping you doing exactly the same.

Add more content and links:
With HTML emails you can turn your autoresponders in to much more than just a “We will get back you” notice.  With menus, images, side bars, boxes etc you can continue selling your services without intruding on the central message.

Designing and coding HTML emails
If you have no or little experience with creating and sending HTML emails, or you want a few tips on taking them to the next level, you can find a couple of really good articles that will help you with HTML email coding & HTML email lay out & design at sitepoint.com

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dotProject features include:
- User Management
- Email-based Trouble Ticket System
- Client/Company Management
- Project Listings
- Task List
- File Repository
- Contact List
- Calendar
- Discussion Forum
- Resource Based Permissions
- Plus many more!

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- Gmail – Fast, searchable email with less spam
- Google Talk – IM and call your friends through your computer
- Google Calendar – Organize your schedule and share events with friends
- Google Docs – Share online documents, presentations, and spreadsheets

To setup Google Apps for one of your domain names login to our control panel, click “Manage Domain Names”, select the domain you wish to update and then click “DNS Management”. On this page there is a new section called “Setting DNS for Google Apps”. Click the link in this section and all the settings will be made automatically for you.

To find out more about Google Apps visit: http://www.google.com/apps/

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- Arrangement of pictures in categories and albums
- Users can upload pictures with web interface
- Full multimedia support
- Creation of thumbnails
- Search feature
- Random picture
- User management (private galleries, groups)
- Multi-lingual
- User comments on images
- E-card feature
- Slideshow viewer
- Image rotation
- Multi-pic upload
- & so much more!

Coppermine is well known for being fast and extremely easy to use. Their support forum is highly rated so there’s always help close to hand, should you need it:

http://forum.coppermine-gallery.net/

Coppermine also have a well documented user guide should you need further assistance:

http://coppermine-gallery.net/demo/cpg14x/docs/

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We have updated a number of the scripts you can install from the CP  to the latest version:

WordPress upgraded to V2.6.1

PHPCoin upgraded to V1.4.4

Joomla upgraded to V1.5.6

Locked Area Lite upgraded to V6.0

Mambo upgraded to V4.6.5

RoundCube upgraded to V0.2-aplha

Website Search upgraded to V1.5b

AWStats upgraded to V6.8

ZenCart upgraded to V1.3.8a

Openads upgraded to V2.6.0

Web Calendar upgraded to V2.9.3a

You might be interested to know that keeping the scripts we provide up-to-date is quite a big job, on average it takes 3 hours to update each one and on occasions when major changes are made to the script it can take a few days. Some scripts like Joomla and WordPress release a new version every few weeks!

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Quick and Easy to Update
Content Management Systems allow users to add new pages to a website with minimal effort. Your entire website is managed via your administration control panel where you can add new articles, images, polls and many other features via an intuitive interface.

Web Experience not Essential
Traditionally you would need to hire a web designer/developer to manage your website. Using a CMS eliminates the need to do this. Everything from the look and feel of your website to article management can be handled via your control panel.  It is also a very cost effective way of running your own website as everything can be updated and managed by yourself. If you are ever in need of help or guidance, you can check the CMS provider’s FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) section of their website or try posting your problem over at their official support forums. A list of useful links can be found at the bottom of this article.

Automatic Navigation Generation
Menu’s will be created automatically when you add new pages/categories which will form the basis of your websites navigation, e.g. Homepage, Contact, Articles, etc. This eliminates the need to manually update your navigation each time you add a new section, saving you time, effort and preventing the risk of creating dead links.

Searchable
Using a CMS will allow your entire website to be searchable enabling people to find content fast.  The advantages of having a search system in place on your website will save users the time of having to trawl through static pages trying to find what they need. It makes for a much better user experience and is certainly less frustrating.

Scheduled Content
With most Content Management Systems you can post date articles allowing you to publish them on a certain time or day of the week.  This is especially handy if you need to publish content at certain times but you’re not available to do so – the CMS will update it for you.

Protected Content
A CMS can make certain pages viewable only to people you choose. For example, you can allow visitors to your website to view all of your basic articles but require registration for them to view premium content.

Consistent Design
Don’t worry about creating new pages for every article as a Content Management System will automatically produce them for you. The article page will be created from a single template and, no matter how much content you add, you can rest assured the look of your website will stay the same.

Extendable
Content Management Systems, such as Joomla, have an excellent resource of extensions allowing you to develop your website further and offer more functionality.  There are hundreds of extensions available, including Ecommerce, Forums, Galleries, Classified Advertisements and so much more. A link to the entire database of extensions can be found below.

Remember you can easily install your own CMS from our database of scripts that come with any hosting account.

Helpful Links

Joomla Extensions
http://extensions.joomla.org/

Joomla Community Forum
http://forum.joomla.org/

Drupal Forum
http://drupal.org/forum

Typo3 Documentation
http://typo3.com/Support.1228.0.html

Nucleus Support Forum
http://forum.nucleuscms.org/

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phpBB is a high-powered, fully scalable and customisable open-source bulletin board package. phpBB has a user-friendly interface, simple and straightforward administration panel and helpful FAQ.

Below are some Top Tips in helping you run your own forum and get your community off to a good start.

Start off Small
Many forums make the mistake of creating too many categories too soon. If you’re just starting out with your forum, you’re going to create a negative atmosphere if you have plenty of categories but with zero or very few posts. Plan out the minimum amount of categories your forum needs and use those for now. Once the community becomes more active with regular posts and contributing members, you can start to introduce more categories that will suit your target audience.

Make the Forum Appear Active
When you first start building your forum, it’s important to create a sense of activity, as it will be less likely that users will register to a forum which appears to lack enthusiasm and where there are no new topics being created. If you’re determined to make your forum a success then you should either get friends to sign up and post topics or create multiple accounts that you can login and post as, so inevitably you’re answering your own questions to begin with, but it makes the forum appear more active.

Creating & Running a Successful Forum
Every member that is newly registered to the forum should be sent a “Welcome to the Forum” message via the private message system. This is a really nice touch that new members will appreciate, it doesn’t have to be unique to every user, you could have a standard template that you can simply copy from and paste into a message.  It’s a good idea to include links in your welcome message to the most popular categories on the forum , encouraging new members to participate. Give them the opportunity to introduce themselves to the community, add a link within the message to the “Introductions” forum on your board and make sure you greet them with a reply.

Reply to Posts as Soon as Possible
Make the right impression by subscribing to all forums so you will be alerted of new threads and posts. Login and reply as soon as you can, if you are unsure how to answer the question, it may be worth searching the internet to see if it has been answered before and use that information to help, be sure to credit the original source.

Hire Moderators
Over time you will find it harder to monitor your forum as post rates and the amount of new registrations increase. It’s almost impossible for yourself to monitor the forum 24/7 for inappropriate content, such as spam and advertising.  It would be highly advisable to hire a moderator to help run your forum, approach the active members on your forum and ask if they would like to help improve and grow the community. Due to their commitments to the forum, it’s likely they will accept your request and be happy to help. It’s advisable to create a set of rules and instructions for moderators to follow so the forum is still run in exactly the way you want. Also, try to hire a moderator who is in a different time-zone so when you’re asleep, the forum is still being moderated.

Remove Spam
Nothing can turn visitors away more quickly from a forum than spam, so make sure you keep a watchful eye on members trying to sell unrelated products and remove posts that do not serve any purpose or that are offensive. It’s advised to create a forum for “General/Off Topic” posts so members can chat about other things which are not forum specific.

Send a Regular Newsletter
Send a regular newsletter to your forum members which includes the latest popular topics and encourages them to participate. It’s a great way of reminded members about your forum and also a way of generating traffic back to your boards.

Useful Links:

Support:
http://www.phpbb.com/support/

Modifications and Styles
http://www.phpbb.com/customise/

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