Here are the answers to most of the questions that people ask about our service. If you have a question that is not covered by this page please let us know and we will provide you with a personalized answer.

What is your spam or bulk e-mail policy?

Toucan Design has strict policies that prohibit all bulk e-mail/usenet posting and unsolicited advertising e-mail. Any client found to be engaged in this activity will have their site removed from this network. PLEASE! Don't waste your money on bulk e-mail scams, save your site and your money. Don't Send Spam! There are no refunds for clients deliberately misusing our services. Note that any emails sent to people who do not expect to receive something direct from you or your company are considered unsolicited e-mail.

Bandwidth use

Toucan Design charges clients a surcharge who use more than 20GB of transfer a month (on that particular month). You will never be forced to pay extra hidden charges however. This is charged at a rate of $10 per 5GB sold in 5 GB blocks.

Subdomains

Toucan Design charges clients a once-off $5 fee to setup subdomains. They must point to a directory on the clients site. A subdomain is for example http://members.yourdomain.com/ which points to the same place as http://www.yourdomain.com/members

Domain pointers

Toucan Design charges clients a once-off $5 fee to setup domain pointers. This is a second domain that points to the exact same site as your original domain (note you cannot point a domain pointer to a subdirectory). A subdomain is for example http://www.domainpointer.com/ which loads the same site as http://www.yourdomain.com/

Email setup

Toucan Design gives you access to a web-based control panel with which you setup your mail accounts, autoresponders, e-mail forwarding etc. You may setup as many accounts as you need within reason. You may not give away free e-mail from your website, if you wish to do this, you should ask us to help you move your e-mail services to that of companies like bigmailbox.com.

Web-based e-mail

Toucan Design also gives you access to a web-based e-mail system, where you can check e-mail and send e-mail. Be aware however we do not support giving away free e-mail from your website. This would put huge load on our e-mail servers. If you need this kind of service we recommend coupling your Toucan Design hosting with the free e-mail services of bigmailbox.com.

Do you allow SSI?

Yes, Toucan Design keeps every possible service open to it's clients. We believe that you need the flexibility and freedom to create. Far be it from us to stand in your way. To use SSI your page must have the .shtml extension.

Do you support ASP?

Yes our Windows hosting plans fully support Active Server Pages, and ODBC database connections for Access, DBase and Foxpro databases.

Do you support ASP.NET?

Yes our Win2003 hosting plans fully support ASP.NET (aspx).

Do you support JSP?

Yes our Win2003 and Linux hosting plans support Java Server Pages. On Windows this is activated through the control panel, on Linux activation is automatic.

Do you support PHP?

Yes our Win2003 and our Linux hosting plans support PHP. PHP is installed on all servers.

What if I go over my disk space?

Toucan Design will contact you and ask you to reduce your disk space usage, or pay a fee for the extra disk space. This is not billed automatically.

Does Toucan Design support international domains like .de, .nu, .au, .nz etc.?

Yes, you can host any domain name that you would like with Toucan Design. However, we cannot register all domain names. If the domain extension you want is not listed on our domain registration page, then you will need to register the domain elsewhere. However, you can still host with Toucan Design, just ensure you specify our name servers (see http://support.webstrikesolutions.com/hhtransfer.shtml)

How long does it take to setup my new account?

Orders are set up immediately and automatically when you place the order, however, if there is an issue with the setup process support will be automatically notified and the problem will be rectified as soon as possible.

How long does it take to get a domain working?

Your account is will set up immediately, so you will have access to our servers straight away. On average a new domain should be resolving to our servers in about than 24 hours, a domain that is moving to Toucan Design from another service takes about 48 hours on average. In any case if your domain is not working 48 hours after you have requested a change of name servers with your domain registrar, you should contact your Toucan Design representative for an update, read http://support.webstrikesolutions.com/hhtransfer.shtml carefully as it explains the process involved in changing name servers associated with your domain. Note, you do NOT have to change your domain registrar to us, you are free to continue to use your existing domain registrar.

What hardware do you use?

The hardware specifications change depending on the load and number of sites on a particular server. At the time of writing our new machines are Super Micro Dual Xeon machines with 2GB RAM.

What connection do you have?

Toucan Design utilizes connections to multiple backbones to ensure that data reaches the end-user in the fastest, most efficient manner possible. We house our servers in major data centres in San Francisco, Denver and San Antonio (click here for facility details).

The data centres run the Border Gate Protocol (BGP4) for best case routing. The entirely switched, Cisco powered network employs Cisco 12000 GSR and 7500 class routers running HSRP (N+1 hot failover) to ensure that data can be routed even in the event of a router failover. The BGP4 protocol is a standard that allows for the evaluation of each packet of information sent out from the Network. Each packet of information is evaluated and sent over the fastest route possible. Because of our redundant network architecture, packets may be sent via alternative routes even if they are being delivered to the same end user. This also allows for packets to be redirected via another route if network congestion on the public internet becomes overwhelming.

Our providers are paid to make sure that packets of information are delivered to the end user's eyeballs. This offers significant advantages over simply peering with the major backbones. Peering agreements rarely include Service Level Agreements (SLAs) so no one is accountable for lost packets at congested exchange points. Because there are actually SLAs with all our providers, we are able to guarantee that all packets will leave our network at full speed.

The Network currently operates at less than 50% capacity during peak hours. This allows for us to accomodate even the largest spikes in traffic that are often associated with the most popular websites. We are always adding network connectivity and new routes in an effort to make sure content is delivered to you users as efficiently as possible. A low bandwidth utilization also allows for the highest amount of uptime. We have multiple DC3-OC12 connections to backbones.

Can I host an adult site?

Toucan Design as a public Internet provider does not censor legal web content in any way. However we do charge sites that transfer more than 20 GB per month and adult sites quite often fall into this category.