Q: Do you offer a free web page building tool with your service?
A: No. Our service is designed for the needs of small businesses which typically have a person on staff to manage a website, or the budget to hire an outside company to do it for them. We DO offer a FileManager application which you can use to create and edit raw HTML web pages, and upload image files, but it is not a template-based site "design" system. For this we can recommend Microsoft FrontPage2002 and Macromedia DreamWeaver.

Q: Do you offer co-location ("co-lo") services — such as hosting my server hardware in your facility?
A: Unfortunately, we no longer offer co-location services. If you are interested in leasing a new Linux-based server (IBM, Cobalt, custom-built/generic, etc.), then please fill out our information form and describe your needs as fully as possibile. We do not quote custom server leasing over the phone, at this time.

Q: Do you host foreign domains and company sites?
A: We will only host sites and domains owned by U.S.-based companies. We also verify every new account order placed to ensure complaince with this policy.

Q: I'm confused by all the terminology used on your site like "SSL" and "POP3" — what do all the features mean?
A: You may wish to read our Web Hosting Glossary and our Explanation of Hosting Features. The former provides a general glossary of terms, while the latter goes through each feature found on our Hosting Services page.

Q: What kind of payment methods can I use?
A: Neotrope accepts the four major credit cards: American Express/Optima, Discover/Novus, MasterCard, and Visa. We only accept check payments from existing companies.

Q: I need to have 75 or more e-mail accounts for our fraternity, is this possible?
A: Unfortunately, no. Our server is set-up to only allow a maximum of 50 unique POP accounts per domain/account. While you can have a large number of "aliases" for each POP account (i.e., you could have sales@, info@, help@, and marketing@ all go to one person/account), you can have no more than 50 unique users/log-ins (i.e., bob@, fred@, sam@, etc.). Each additional user added to your base account would cost $1.00 each, per month. And, remember that e-mail storage space is shared with your web content storage area. So, 50 users with 10MB of storage each would require 500MB of storage space overall just for potential e-mail!

Q: Can I pay for my Web hosting with PayPal?
A: Yes — as of Feb. 1, 2002 we now accept PayPal for your hosting plan. See the order form for more information. You may use your verified PayPal account for Web design services and for our e-Marketing/Promotion services. Contact us for our PayPal I.D. in order to "send money" from your verified PayPal account.

Q: Is Neotrope a "reseller" of another company's hosting services?
A: No. Neotrope is a genuine Internet Presence Provider (IPP); we own and manage our own hardware and software. We have been offering hosting services since January 1996, and Web development since March of 1995. Currently our hardware lives in a network operations center specifically designed for hosting providers; which does not offer bandwidth or rack space to "end users." You can host your business site with confidence using Neotrope Hosting services, knowing you're dealing with the actual company providing you your Web presence.

Q: Do you support Flash, ShockWave and other "rich media formats" ?
A: Absolutely, yes! Our servers are configured for every MIME type from Acrobat PDF to Windows Media, including many of the new MPEG-4 formats.

Q: Do you do domain name registrations?
A: Yes! We have a dedicated Web site where you can register or renew domain names (.com, .org, .net) for as little as $7.75 per year. We also now offer the new domain extensions like ".biz," ".ws," and ".info" for only $14.95 per year (see site for availability of the "new" domain types). When you register or transfer/renew a domain name, you will be given the option to select the Neotrope Hosting "name servers" which properly point your domain name at our servers.

Q: I already use another domain name registrar, and I want to register a new domain, or transfer a domain to you for hosting — what are your DNS numbers for Neotrope Hosting?
A: In order for Neotrope Hosting to actually "host" your Web site, you must point your domain name at our DNS (or, "Domain Name Servers"), which then repoints that domain locally onto our server and your account I.P. address.

In simpler terms, you must update your "domain name record," at the registrar where the domain was registered; the domain name record must be changed to point at our name servers, which are:
     NS.MINDSETHOSTING.COM    64.65.58.113
     NS2.MINDSETHOSTING.COM   64.65.59.113

Additionally, if you're using Network Solutions (or WorldNic), you may be asked for our "host names," instead of DNS. They are: NSE1638-HST, and NSB1883-HST, and you can also enter our "handle" of "CS2778" in the "technical contact" blank.

Q: I had my site at another provider and received a ton of "spam" every day, how do you deal with unsolicited e-mail?
A: As a service to our customers, we manage the global anti-"spam" database for all our Web servers, which contains offending I.P. addresses and domain names which have sent us unsolicited e-mail in the past. Once added, these sites may no longer send us any e-mail whatsoever. Generally, we add about a dozen new blocked addresses per day.

Similarly, we take seriously any complaint of "spam" being sent by our hosting customers. Unsolicited e-mail can take many forms, and need not be sent directly from our server to be considered a violation of our terms of use. If you send out a e-mail blast using a third-party provider who forges or hides its originating server and/or if you send unsolicited e-mail which points to your domain or e-mail account on our server, this would be considered unacceptable practice, and perhaps lead to account cancellation. Also, we do not offer hosting to ANY company which primarily sells e-mail list services, software, or re-mailing services.

Q: Do you support third-party service providers like Everyone.net and Atomz.com for free e-mail, search and community features on my Web site?
A: Absolutely. We offer support for a custom MX command to point your e-mail services at Everyone.net — to see one of our sites doing this now, go to our sister site, DigitalAuthor.com. One MX change is provided free; additional changes will be charged a Support Incident fee.

Q: Your hosting service looks nice, but what services do you specifically NOT support?
A: Neotrope Hosting does not support chat applications (CGI or Java) on our servers, nor do we support high-end search engine applications like the Gossamer Threads system, due to very large use of system resources. We do not currently offer "sub-domain" support (as in blinddate.excite.com, where blindate is a sub-domain, that would point to: excite.com/blinddate). We do not offer support for ColdFusion (CFM), or Miva, at this time.

Q: Do you offer MySQL Support?
We do have MySQL installed but are in the process of implementing a graphic user interface (GUI) since only expert users would be able to utilize MySQL using a shell account at this time. We do not have MySQL set-up to work with PHP (yet). Since most of our customers use custom flat-file dbase applications (which come with shopping cart systems like Goldpaint, or ComCart), our MySQL technical support capability is somewhat minimal at this time (Spring 2002).

Q: Do you offer WindowsNT hosting?
We no longer offer WindowsNT-based hosting (as of October 2000) due to constant security and virus problems, ODBC-related crashes and overall reliability issues. We now only provide reliable Unix/Linux Apache-based hosting.

Q: I see you advertise support for Active Server Pages on your hosting plan page — what are the limitations?
A: Obviously, since ASP was originally designed to run on WindowsNT servers, there are many "built-in" features of ASP which do not actually work when running ASP on Unix/Linux. Specifically, you cannot run popular databases like MS-SQL because there is no MS-SQL application running. You can use many objects and scripting features, but it runs very much like Perl or PHP in that it is somewhat limited to being a "parsed" language. So, you must provide your own ASP scripts to read/write flatfile database files, just like with Perl or PHP. MS DSNs (i.e., Access or Excel) don't work because there is no application layer to connect to a dbase process. Please inquire for more info if you intend to run ASP scripts and are unfamiliar with Chili!Soft ASP.

Q: Do you provide credit card processing for me if I want to set-up an online store?
A: No. While we will help you set-up the shopping cart portion, it is against credit card company policies for one company to accept CC payments on behalf of another (called "factoring"). You would need to obtain a Merchant Account through your bank branch, or even CostCo's business services. PayPal gets around this in a unique way. What they do is take money from one "account holder," then transfer money to another "account holder," thus getting around the factoring issue. Neotrope can assist you in obtaining a Merchant Account, as well as a "gateway" account to process orders in realtime.

Q: I am a current Neotrope Hosting customer and would like to put a link to Neotrope on my site, how do I do that?
A: Neotrope offers a 10% discount to our small business customers who place a "Web Hosting Powered by Neotrope" button on their home page(s). You can find the easy to add HTML code here. You don't need to copy a graphic, simply the HTML found in the link, and add it someplace unobtrusive on your home page.

Q: I am new to HTML and Web hosting... will you show me how to edit my Web pages?
A: No. Our technical support is limited to showing you how to use the features of your virtual domain on our server(s). We do provide a dedicated Customer Support Site where we show you how to set-up e-mail, create users, and control your site features. We can not train you on how HTML, JavaScript, CGI-scripts, ASP, PHP, MySQL, FrontPage, or other technologies work. We do offer a wealth of information on Web design, graphics, CGI-scripts, multimedia, and related topics on our sister site, DigitalAuthor.com.

Of course, you can hire us to assist you with developing a Web business site from scratch, or we can help you to "refresh" it to make it more effective in communicating your business message.

Q: Do you offer "live" video streaming?
A: We do not have default services installed for Windows Media (requires WindowsNT server), QuickTime (requires MacOS server), or Real formats. You can, of course, serve any of these formats using the HTTP ("buffered") method of video on demand (VOD). We can assist with install of the basic RealServer package on Neotrope Hosting BIZ.pro accounts if needed — please inquire about this in advance of sign-up to ensure we can meet your needs.

Q: I was looking for Mindset or Mindset Hosting and I was directed to your site. Why, and what happened to Mindset?
A: Our company was founded in 1983 by Christopher Simmons as S.U. Graphics, became Mindset in 1987, and legally changed to Neotrope™ in 2001 (Neotrope was originally launched as our entertainment division in 1996). See our News page for more info. Because we never trademarked our old name, Mindset, back in the '80s, there are now too many other companies with a similar name, and it was no longer unique. Neotrope is unique, and is a pending registered trademark and service mark of Neotrope; which loosely means neo as in "new," and tropia as in "hyperbole." So, essentially our new corporate identity means "new hyperbole," which also fits comfortably with our brand slogan of "Creative Thinking in Communication Arts."

Q: The 3-D image on your home page is cool, but what is it supposed to be?
A: We get asked this a lot. :) What it means is completely subjective, but the artist (Neotrope president Christopher Simmons) had in mind a futuristic world where giant cities exist in the huge oceans and the chrome-looking towers are above-water network towers (like telephone poles) which connect the cities for communications. In the context of using a small portion of the much larger illustration for Neotrope Hosting, the idea was that Neotrope is providing network services, and this illustration seemed an appropriate image to use, particularly since our company was founded in Redondo Beach, has existed in Manhattan Beach, and Long Beach, California. Our connection to the ocean is both artistic and spiritual. Today, Neotrope is located in South West Torrance, California, on the edge of Rolling Hills, Palos Verdes, and Redondo Beach.

Q: What are your terms and conditions for hosting?
A: All hosting plans are subject to our Acceptable Use Policy (AUP), and Terms of Service (TOS) found on our hosting service contract/application.

Have a question not found here?
E-mail us at: support@neotropehosting.com