Category: Web

A Campus Divided

For the 35th episode of Reclaim Today, I had the distinct pleasure to sit down with professor Riv-Ellen Prell and artist Livia Foldes to discuss their collaborative project A Campus Divided: Progressives, Anticommunists, Racism, and Antisemitism at the University of Minnesota, … Continue reading

Read More →

New User Manager in cPanel

We get questions occasionally from Reclaim Hosting users that are interested in adding a sub-user to their cPanel account. Multi-user cPanel access would be awesome, but unfortunately that’s something that we don’t have yet. However, we now have reason to believe that it’s on the way. 🙂

cPanel just released a new theme (for the first time since 2007) called Paper Lantern, and Reclaim Hosting has slowly begun rolling it out to users. One of Reclaim’s favorite changes that comes with this new theme is the User Manager.

While the User Manager isn’t exactly multi-user cPanel access, it lays the foundation for it. And as a bonus: it’s also a nice way to easily create a user with access to multiple items at once. Let’s take a look-

You have two ways of getting to your User Manager within cPanel:

On your left hand side bar (quickest option):

Or by scrolling to the bottom of your cPanel and looking in the Preferences category:

Upon clicking User Manager, this is what you’ll see:

Note the settings wheels next to the search bar that allow you to refine your search, as well as the “Add User” button to the left.

Here you have access to an array of options from a single screen. On top of quickly creating and managing user accounts, you can now also create and maintain email, FTP and Web Disk accounts. 

The User Manager also allows you to link separate user accounts (email, FTP, Web Disks) that share the same username, so users can make use of the new Unified login system. Basically, this just means that End users now have to remember one set of credentials as opposed to different sets for every account.

And my personal favorite– you can see which users have access to what with a quick glance to the right-hand side of the page.

Read More →

Featured Applications | 03: Slack

If you’ve missed the previous featured apps that Reclaim Hosting uses,you can find those here and here. 

Out of all featured applications I have or will be highlighting, Slack has got to be the one I’m m…

Read More →

Easy Fixes for your Reclaim Hosting account

Long time no post! It’s been a crazy last few weeks, and I’ve got a lot to talk about. 

Wanted to start today with something Reclaim Hosting related: Easy troubleshooting fixes for your website.

I’ve been working primarily in support since starting at Reclaim, and to be honest, most of the problems that users find themselves reaching out for end up having a very simple solution. I’ve developed a bit of a mental checklist that I run through when brainstorming with users, and thought it might be worth mentioning. And since Jim Groom has pronounced this month as ‘Documentation December,’ all the more reason. 😉

I’m sure that as much as you just LOVE talking to our awesome Support staff (*wink*), there are a few techniques that you’re welcome to try on your own to save you a little time. 

 

1. Login Credentials

Reclaim Hosting has tried to eliminate the complications of having multiple passwords by having one for your Client Area. Once you’re in the Client Area, you’re golden. You can access your cPanel, dashboards, emails, account info, you name it. 

However, a lot of users want to log straight into their WordPress dashboard, for example, which is fine, but occasionally different passwords get lost in the mix. They will have bookmarked a wp-admin link, attempted to enter their site multiple times, and then before they know it, our firewall will have detected too many failed logins and the user will be locked out. (Just so you know, 5 attempts within 3 minutes will result in a temporary block for 30 minutes.)

So before locking yourself out of your website, here’s a quick little reminder on how to reset your WordPress (or any other web install) password right within your cPanel:

First, go to your Client Area Homepage>cPanel and click on the web install that you’re trying to access.

Now obviously, if you’re not locked out, you can click on the wp-admin link (next to the first red dot) and that should push you through to your dashboard. To change your login password however, type it in next to the second red dot. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click Save All.

2. Find Your IP Address

If resetting your WP password doesn’t work, chances are that you’ve been blocked by our firewall. If this is the case, we’ll need to whitelist your IP address so we can prevent this from happening in the future. 

To find the IPv4 version of your IP address, go to the following link: http://ip4.me/

Send a support ticket letting us know that you think you’ve been locked out. And if you send your IP address along with it, gold star for you. 🌟

We like to know your IP address for other issues as well, so this is something really handy to know how to find!

3. Clearing your Browser Cache

Another great trick to keep in your back pocket is knowing how to clear your browser cache. May sound simple, but many times it does the trick. 

For example, sometimes users will sign up for a Reclaim Hosting account, install WordPress, and then see the generic Reclaim welcome page instead of their website. We drop a few default files into every hosting account when they sign up. These files are in a folder called “default.html” within your file manager; these get overridden by Wordpress upon installation, but occasionally browsers will cache the welcome page. 

To clear your browser cache, we generally send users here since it has different step-by-step instructions for each browser. (Clearing your browser cache can also be helpful to erase faulty login credentials as well!)

Read More →

Featured Applications | 02: Evernote

Don’t forget to read about the first featured application if you missed out!

For me, Evernote has been that one application that keeps creeping back into my daily life without me ever making a deliberate decision to properly use it. Until (very) recently, this had been my relationship with Evernote since freshman year of college. 

At first I tried to take notes on it for classes, but there was always that one class every semester that had a totally backwards, wonky way of doing things that threw the entire system off. For example- 4 out of 5 professors (based on my experience) will allow you to bring your laptop to class for note-taking purposes. That fifth professor however, will stubbornly insist that you handwrite your notes on recycled paper while using pen ink that can only be found from the highest mountain top in Argentina. Or something to that extent. 

Granted, you can take pictures of or scan handwritten notes and place each page individually into your Evernote class notebook, but that means an extra step. And when you’re a busy student that’s constantly applying the most productive and efficient methods to do anything and everything, “extra steps” are a death sentence. 

I had always liked the idea of using Evernote & was determined to find a use for it. The interface was (and is) beautiful, and has only gotten better with each update. It appealed to the part of me that got overly excited when purchasing school supplies. It was an infinite supply of fresh, perfect notebooks. 

I tried to use it to organize my ideas for this website, for example. Post ideas, inspiration for design, business goals– you name it. But after the Pinterest boom & handy, dandy “save as a draft” button, that didn’t keep either. 

All of this is to say that through my years of playing around with it, Evernote is great if you have an actual purpose for it. If not, it will more than likely be an extra step. I guess this is technically true of all web applications, but I’ve just felt it more with this one. 

 

Using Evernote for Reclaim

Moving forward, I’ve found a use for Evernote & am super excited to talk about it today. As Reclaim Hosting’s first hire, I didn’t exactly have the normal training that a typical ‘new hire’ might receive when entering a new company. I was more or less thrown into everything with Jim & Tim as my safety net. I learned the rules of the Reclaim Road by asking a LOT of questions and by doing a LOT of research. During my first two months, I’d stumble through the work day, and then would give myself homework during the evening to better understand the concepts that I had been exposed to. 

I’m not stumbling as much anymore; I’d like to think I’m somewhere around a brisk walk. Tim & Jim, well, they’re both sprinting. I’ll catch up with them one day. 😉 But since I’ve had a little more headspace here recently for analyzing methods instead of simply understanding them, I’d thought I’d make life easier for myself and possibly for the next hire that comes to Reclaim.

This is where Evernote comes into play. Right now I work primarily in support. Support is about fixing what’s broken. In order to fix it, you have to know exactly what originally broke, how to fix it, how to prevent it from happening again, and then remembering it five weeks down the road when a separate individual has a similar problem. Sometimes this can be as simple as remembering a series of clicks to get from Point A to point K, other times it may be more complicated like looking at the different variables that may be causing an error. 

When I learn how to solve a problem, whether on my own or by studying previous conversations that my bosses have had with customers, I take screenshots of how to fix the issue at hand. Each solved problem then becomes a new “note” in my Reclaim Hosting Evernote notebook. I’ll make my own comments on the screenshots, provide relevant links and tag the note for easy access in the future. The idea is that I can reference these notes on an as needed basis, or perhaps a future hire can use them as a starting point for their training period.

 

HOW TO USE EVERNOTE

Getting started with Evernote is very self-explanatory. The Evernote team has also provided a great Getting Started Guide to walk you through the process. 

This is how a blank slate looks on the application:

click on the image for a larger version.

An archive of your notebooks, tags, recent notes & shortcuts can be found in the left column. In the middle column you can scroll through the current notebook’s list of notes. The right side is for creating/editing notes and tagging & sharing them. 

 

Searching in Evernote

The search bar on the top right-hand corner allows you to easily search any tag, word, note– anything, really. Check out an awesome example of this below:

First, take a look at the top right- I searched “password”. Doing that led me to a note on resetting someone’s password for them. Not only did the finder pull me to this note, but it then highlighted password in my comments AND in a screenshot. The area in the above photo with the blue box around it? Yeah, that’s a JPEG file. How cool is that?!

 

Sharing is caring

The last awesome thing that I wanted to talk about is sharing from Evernote. It’s super easy both for you and the person that you’re sharing with, regardless if they have signed up with the app. 

Sharing a note can be as simple as clicking “share” in the top right hand corner & sending it out to whoever you’d like. 

However, you can also make a public link for anyone and everyone to view. 😉

Read More →

How I joined the #4life club

Hi everyone- in honor of writing my first Reclaim-related post, I’d like to officially introduce myself. Not as the sister to four younger brothers that originally acted as my online “hook” some eight y…

Read More →
css.php