Frequently Asked Questions (F.A.Q.)

At Mainely Technology development is considerably different from design. Design is more about look and feel. This can be accomplished using a variety of tools that generate html, but rarely lends itself to easily make changes and often looks very different on browsers other than the one it is designed for.

Developing a web site involves not only design but putting methods in place that allow for expansion in the future and easily incorporating changes that are a part of any active business. The ability to provide domain name registration, hosting, e-mail, and maintenance in a manner that provides for installing changes quickly is all a part of the development process. It's an approach that has greater long term advantages than if we only focused on design.

Once a web site has been created, the information needs to be put someplace where your potential customers are able to access it. The web site host is the place that holds the web site information and sends it to the browser when a person types in, or clicks on a link to, your site.

A domain is your web sites name. For example, our domain is MainelyTechnology.com The www. that precedes most domains is a specific area called a sub-domain. It could be www. or anything else. The www. normally refers to a web site, so it is the prefix you see most commonly. Two prefixes that you may not normally see but are often used are mail and smtp.

Your business changes and grows. Your web site should reflect the most recent information available about your business. This insures your site is accurate and doesn't appear forgotten. Probably the only thing worse than not having a web site is having one that is out of date or looks neglected. Your potential customers may think you went out of business.

POP stands for Post Office Protocol and is one method of downloading e-mail messages from the host to the client. The host is the place that accepts e-mail on your domain's behalf until you are ready to read or download the messages to your computer. POP3 is simply a version of the POP system being used and is the most common.

IMAP is Internet Message Access Protocol. This is similar to POP but is a newer protocol. It provides the similar functionality. Most e-mail hosting services will provide either POP or IMAP.

SMTP stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol and is used to send e-mail messages. When sending an e-mail using a tool like Outlook or Thunderbird the e-mail does not need to go through the same system that hosts your e-mail. Outgoing e-mail can be sent directly to the recipient or can be sent through the service that provides your Internet access.

WebMail is a service we use through our hosting agent and allows access to e-mail from anywhere Internet access is available. The space on this host, and most others, is limited and should not be used to store messages indefinitely. When the space is full, new messages may be returned to the sender because there is no place to save them. For this reason, many people prefer to use an e-mail application.

E-mail clients such as Outlook or Thunderbird pull received messages off of the server and store them locally on your computer. This frees up space on the server so your inbox doesn;t fill up. Messages on your local computer, however, are not available from the WebMail server because the message was moved from the server to your local computer.

When you need to travel and need access to old e-mail messages it would probably be a good idea to save them on to a USB flash drive for access from any computer or laptop.