If you need further customization to your website feel free to contact our design team at design@micromediahosting.com. We offer many upgrades to our clients including:

• Adding additional pages and removing unwanted pages on your site
• Javascript image slideshows
• Graphic design assistance and logo setup
• Modifying text areas - adding and removing
• Search engine optimization

Should your business outgrow your current design we offer custom website development including e-commerce solutions, blog creation, image gallery portfolios, custom logo design, and much more.

If you order a design + hosting package we automatically set up your website e-mail address to forward all mail to your personal account.  If this is not the case for you, or if you had the e-mail forwarder removed, here are instructions on how to log into your cPanel control panel to check your mail.

The first thing you need to do is log into cPanel.  You can find a cPanel login form at the top and bottom of any page of this website.   Once you’re logged in look for and click on the “Webmail” icon.

From there you’ll be taken to another page where you’ll press on “Go To Webmail Login”.

The next screen you’ll be taken to will present you with three options, three different types of mail clients you can use to read your mail.   It doesn’t really matter which you choose, although RoundCube has a nice user interface.  Click on one of those options to view your mail.

After you have finished checking your mail you can log out.  You’ll be redirected to a login screen and if you wish you can bookmark that page.  Then when you want to check your mail again you only need to login from that screen rather than go through all the various screens we just went through.

Another option is to configure a mail client to fetch and display your e-mail directly on your computer, rather than going online for it.  A popular mail client is Microsoft Outlook, although Mozilla Thunderbird comes highly recommended by the MicroMedia team.  If you would like to read instructions on how to configure a mail client you can read this page.

MicroMedia was founded on the idea that small businesses and individuals should have a resource for affordable website solutions.   Not everyone can afford a super custom design and frequent updates but that doesn’t mean that they have to go without.

We offer our clients a simple solution.  Our website hosting services, which are American based and of high quality, come with multi-page website designs all ready for your company’s information.  When you sign up you can choose from one of our many design options and it will be set up with your account.

All website designs come with an integrated content management system (CMS) that enables you to make changes to your website’s content yourself.  Simply log in with your personally selected username and password and you can change the written content, images, and menu links yourself.  This system is one of the easiest in the world to operate and we’re excited to be offering it to our clients as a way to control their website information and cut down on management costs.

Step-by-step instructions on how to mange your website content with your content management system. It couldn’t be easier with it’s AJAX interface and on screen editing. Here’s how you can edit the images and written text quickly and easily.

Log In
Somewhere on your website there will be a link to log into your CMS. When you press it a log in box will appear where you’ll enter your unique username and password.

If you forgot your log-in information, or if you would like to request to have your username and password changed you’ll need to contact your webmaster to have it changed.

Changing Pictures
Many of the images on your website can be set to be changed through your CMS. Simply click your mouse on the picture you want to edit and the following box will appear:

First press the “browse” button to browse through the files in your computer to locate the image you want to upload. If you want this picture to link to another page of your website, or to link to another website altogether, enter the complete url address in the link field. In the title field you can give your image an official title or enter in a few keywords to aid in SEO.

Fancy Titles
Sometimes short titles or sentences using special fonts will be a part of your website. To change these just click on it and the following box will appear:

In the text box type in the new title that you wish to have. If you want this title to link to another page enter in the complete url of that page, including the http:// . Additionally, you can specify the size of the font and change the hexidecimal color. To view a list of hexidecimal colors you can visit this page.

Editing Written Content
Editing the written content of your website couldn’t be easier! This CMS features something called “inline editing”, meaning you simply click your mouse on the text area you wish to change and type away.

There are some control icons located in the top right corner of all editable text areas. Here are what the icons are and what they do:

• Save: By pressing the save icon your changes will instantly be saved to your content management system, but will not be made live to your website. This is useful if you are in the middle of making changes but have to leave your computer for awhile. The next time you log into your CMS the changes you had made previously will be loaded for you.
• Publish: When the publish button is pressed all changes are immediately displayed on your website for all to see.
• Rich Text Editing: Should you wish to have more control over your written content, such as changing the font or color, you can press the rich text icon. It will load a box that will give you controls similar to Microsoft Word. More details on that below.
• Revisions: By pressing this icon a box will open which will display all the previous revisions you have made to your content.

Rich Text Editing
When editing text in basic mode all changes will automatically conform to the predefined style of your website. But should you wish to have more control over your written content you can press the rich text editing icon and the following box will appear:

This method of editing is similar to Microsoft Word. There is a lot you can do with this feature, including:

• Bold, italic, underline, and strike-out
• Paragraph alignment
• Bullet points and indent
• Insert an image
• Insert HTML code (like if you need to add a PayPal button)
• Change text and background colors
• Create tables
• And much more

Here are a few of the controls you might not be familar with:

FTP stands for “File Transfer Protocol” and it is a great way to transfer files from a computer to the server, and vice versa. It’s typically the way web developers upload files to a website. In order for someone to connect to the server via FTP they will need a user name and password. It’s simple to set up and in this tutorial I’ll show you how:

First you need to log into cPanel, your hosting account control panel. Scroll down just a little and click on the “FTP Accounts” icon.

This will take you to the FTP Accounts screen where you can add an FTP account. The first field is for “Login” and the word that you enter into that field will be your user name. Enter your password into two fields below. Then there’s a field called “Directory” followed by an icon of a house. If you leave this field blank it will give access to the root of your domain (recommended for beginners). Press “Create FTP Account” and you’re done!

There is a way you can retrieve your domain email directly onto your computer. This can be convenient because it doesn’t require you to constantly log into your email account online; you just simply open a program on your computer desktop. Many people are familiar with one of these programs - Microsoft Outlook. But we at MicroMedia want to encourage you to use something even better. Thunderbird. It is similar to Outlook but it’s easier to use and much more powerful. And if you already have Outlook set up and want to switch you can import all of your information over quickly!

Here are the steps to installing Thunderbird on your computer so that it will connect to the server hosting your website account and retrieve your email.

The first thing you have to do is visit the Thunderbird website and download the program.

After you’ve downloaded the files go ahead and start the installation. The Mozilla Thunderbird Setup Wizard will open and you have to first press “Next” and then agree to the terms.

Go ahead and set the setup type to “standard” and then press next.

Then the program will install and you’ll have to complete it by pressing “Finish”. But wait, we’re not done. When Thunderbird first opens it will want to create a new account. You can always do this at a later time, and create as many accounts as you want, but let’s go ahead and set that up now.

Select “Email Account” and press next.

Next you will need to enter in your personal details. The name that you enter into the “Your Name” field will be the name shown to others when they receive mail from you. Enter the email address you have created on your hosting account below that.

Now it’s time to enter in the details of your email account on the server. There’s a way to find out what these settings are through your cPanel, but typically the ingoing server is always mail.yourdomain.com and the outgoing server is mail.yourdomain.com. Obviously replace the “yourdomain” part there with your actual domain name.

Here is where you need to enter your username for your account. This is usually the same username you use to log into cPanel.

And finally you have to give this account a name on Thunderbird. This is only for you to see so you can call it whatever you want. Press “Next” and then “Finish”.

The first thing Thunderbird is going to want to do is to check your e-mail, and in order for it to do that it’s going to need your password for your account. Enter your password here, and if you don’t want to do that every time you can check the Password Manager box so your computer will remember the password in the future.

And you’re done! If you have any mail in your account it will be downloaded automatically.

For further instructions on how to use Thunderbird, such as creating new accounts and modifying your settings, you can read this page

If you have an e-mail account associated with your domain name, such as steve@yourdomain.com, you can set up an e-mail forwarder for that account. Meaning that any e-mails sent to steve@yourdomain.com will be automatically copied and sent off to any other e-mail addresses that you want, like steve@yahoo.com.

Here’s how to go about setting that up:

First log into your cPanel, the control panel for your hosting account. You’ll come to a screen that looks like the image below. Find the “forwarders” icon and click on it.

This will bring you to your main forwarders screen. If you have any forwarders already set up it will list them here. Otherwise it will show you a message that says “There are no forwarders configured for the current domain.”. Click on the “Add Forwarder” button.

The first step is to type in the beginning of your e-mail address into the first field. So if your e-mail is steve@yourdomain.com you would enter steve into the first field, while the drop down field next to it will complete the e-mail address.

After the “forward to email address” note fill in the address of the email account that you would like e-mails to be directed to. Then click the “Add Forwarder” button.

And you’re done! Note: you can set up as many forwarders as you wish.

If you would like to create an additional e-mail address for your website, here are the steps to take:

First you need to log into cPanel, your hosting account control panel. It will look like the image below. Once logged in click on the “Email Accounts” link.

This will take you to your Email Accounts screen. To add a new account fill in the first part of the email in the field after “Email:”. For example, if you are creating the email address support@yourdomain.com you would put the word “support” in the field to the left of the drop down box. Select a password for this account and fill that into two places, then press the “Create” button. You now have a new email address.

Once you hit “Create” you’ll be taken to a success page confirming the creation of the email. You don’t have to do anything else. However, if you will want to configure this account to connect to a program on your computer such as Outlook or Thunderbird, you would press the button “Yes” to get the details necessary for that.

If you need instructions on how to connect your computer to your cPanel email account to automatically download and receive mail, you can read this article.