WebHost4Life Transition Site

A number of customers have contacted us regarding the change from SmarterMail to the mail system on the new platform. While we are aware of the great features and interface SmarterMail offered, we are confident that the new mail platform offers just as much, if not more.

Some of the benefits of the new mail platform:

• Redundant mail architecture: The previous mail platform was susceptible to hardware problems. If the hardware went down, or had an issue, your mail would be completely unavailable. The new platform is overly redundant; one server going down will have no impact on your ability to send or receive mail.
• Better spam protection: The new platform integrates with Cloudmark to offer best-in-class spam filtering. On top of that, you can enable your own white, black, and greylists to manage your mail even further.
• Reliable mail storage: The new mail storage system ensures, even in the event of a drive failure, your mail isn’t going anywhere.
• Adaptable WebMail interface: Utilizing our own solution means we have the flexibility to offer new WebMail interfaces — from a look, feel, and functionality perspective. We’re always evaluating new interfaces, as we receive feedback.

The transition from SmarterMail to the new mail platform was done with
great thought, and was done so with the best interest of our customers in mind. We recognize that it is a change, but are confident you’ll benefit from, and enjoy, the new mail platform.

UPDATE: We’ve worked out a way to move over most of your contact and address book data. The new contact system doesn’t map field-to-field to SmarterMail, so you may have to clean up some contacts, but they will migrate over.

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Unfortunately, due to the way the data is stored, there’s not a perfect way to transition address books from the old WebMail system to the new WebMail system.

If you rely on the addresses in your WebMail system, there is a workaround: you can export your addresses from your current WebMail client as either vCards or a CSV file (if supported).

• If you export a CSV file, you can import that directly into the new WebMail system (email address only)
• If you export vCards, you’ll need to import them first into a mail client like Outlook, Outlook Express, Thunderbird, etc. From there, you should be able to export your contacts in a CSV file to then be imported into the new WebMail system.

We continue to explore a solution to this, and hope to have one in place in the near future.

As the migration continues, more of you will make the transition to the new platform. We understand the transition can be overwhelming, but it can also be an exciting time for you. That’s why we’ve highlighted some of the improvements and services available on the new platform:

• Redundant, pooled architecture: Essentially, this means your site is never supported by just one web server. On the Windows side, it is served by an active-passive pool of two servers; one server is always ready to handle your traffic, should the other server go down. On the UNIX side, we use a load-balanced pool of servers, meaning your site may be served by up to eight to ten web servers, at any given time.

• Robust mail platform: The new platform uses dedicated mail appliances (capable of handling tens of millions of messages a day) to provide mail delivery, in addition to advanced spam protection (on top of which you can layer greylisting). Our mail platform also allows you to receive your mail via POP, IMAP, or WebMail, over a secure connection with encryption.

• Great partnerships: Our partnerships with industry leaders allow us to offer you special tools, free trials and promotions, throughout the year. As a result, we’ve integrated Google’s Webmaster and Sitemap tools into your control panel, along with free marketing credits with Google and Yahoo!, a suite of security services, and more.

• Larger support team: We have a large Support Team, available 24×7, via chat, tickets, phone, and email. Through surveys and follow-up measures, we’re constantly measuring our level of customer satisfaction. When we find an area that requires improvement, we adjust our training and processes for improved results.

These are just some of the benefits you’ll find on the new platform. We are working to make your transition as smooth as possible, and we hope you take advantage of some of these new services over the next few weeks.

When you log into your WebHost4Life control panel, prior to your account’s migration, you’ll be brought to the Transition Kiosk, a temporary resource for managing your account during the migration.

The first thing you’ll notice is the date your account is scheduled to be migrated. If you would like to reschedule your account’s migration for a more convenient time, click the calendar icon and select a different date; then be sure to click “Schedule Migration Date” to save your date change.

Please note: The date listed in your Transition Kiosk is the earliest that your account will be migrated. We’ll test each account on WebHost4Life’s new platform, one by one, before we migrate it. If we uncover any issues during this testing process, we may delay the migration of your account until your site successfully completes our quality assurance process.

Most customers are best served by our Automated Migration Option, where we take care of the details for you and migrate your site automatically. The Automated Migration is the default option; above the date in the Transition Kiosk, you’ll notice that “Your transition preference” is “Automated.” Learn more about the migration process.

If you would prefer to take a more active role in the migration of your account, click the “Change” link next to “Automated.” On the following screen, click the “Switch to Manual Path” button. If you have a complex site — for example, if it has password-protected areas or makes use of cron jobs — we recommend switching to the Manual Migration Path. Learn more about the Manual Migration Path.

If you need to make edits to your site before your account is migrated, click the “Log into Control Panel” button to access your original WebHost4Life control panel. After your site has been migrated, you will no longer see the Transition Kiosk when logging into your account; you will manage all aspects of your account via your new WebHost4Life control panel.