Before you can run your portal under your own domain, you first need to update the corresponding settings of that domain at your ISP. Every domain points to a particular IP address (four numbers separated by dots, such as 188.40.132.252). When you buy a domain, that IP address usually points to some server at your ISP. However, your ISP has no connection to your portal hosted at 21Publish. Thus, you need to update the IP address for your domain to point to 21Publish. The corresponding setting is called "A-record", so you should ask your ISP how to change the A-record to point to 188.40.132.252 (which is the address of the 21Publish system). Once you have updated your domain configuration, it might take up to 48 hours to have those changes propagated through the Internet. If you find yourself on the 21Publish homepage when entering your domain URL in your web browser, those changes were successfully propagated and you can configure your portal accordingly. All you need to do is log in and add your domain. Thus, do the following: 1. In your portal administration, click on "Portal content->More options->Domain administration". 2. Enter your domain in the "New domain" field, e.g. "www.mydomain.com" 3. Click "Add domain" Now your portal can be accessed by entering your domain, yet all links within the system still show the 21Publish-URL. In order to change that, you need to click "Use as main domain" in the list of your domains. Then, all links will be displayed using your own domain. Note: This way, you can access your portal using your own domain. Your members will then have their weblogs at URLs such as www.portaldomain.com/weblog1 etc. If you want your members to have their weblogs at subdomains such as weblog1.portaldomain.com, you need to ask your ISP for a different thing. In such case, you need a "wildcard entry" pointing to 188.40.132.252 instead of merely changing the A-record. Please contact your domain provider for details, since not all ISPs offer such service (which means that you might not be able to offer subdomains for your users).

You can select up to 9 different lists linking to particular blogs or entries. These lists are displayed on your portal pages (except for help and search pages) and can be selected at "Portal content -> More options -> Lists". The content of those lists is defined as follows: Recent posts blogs with most recent entries Fresh photos photoblogs with most recent postings Hot topics entries of the last 24 hours with highest number of different commentators Blogs of the Week entries of the last 7 days with highest number of different commentators Blogs of the Month entries of the last 30 days with highest number of different commentators Sweetie index highest relative increase of stars within the last 48 hours Big debates highest relative increase of comments within the last 48 hours Favorites blogs most frequently listed as favorites Most Prolific blogs with highest number of entries

Functionality for uploading own weblog layouts can be deactivated at "Community and Members -> More options -> Features". Any layouts already uploaded prior to your deactivation won't be affected by that setting, ie the function only affects future operations.

You can activate or deactivate the XML-RPC interface any time at "Community and Members -> More options -> Features".

Yes. You can deactivate this feature at "Community and Members -> More options -> Features". Note: the data itself won't be affected, yet its merely a presentation matter. Once deactivated, members cannot enter such data anymore (the respective input fields are not displayed), and already stored data won't be displayed when accessing a weblog. Thus, you can enable or disable this feature anytime, without compromising your members' data.

Each weblog has the option of generating an RSS feed. Such a feed is a machine-readable presentation of your weblog in XML format. This format can also be used for the updates list of your portal. Once you've activated an RSS feed of your updates list it contains the 100 most recently updated weblogs of your portal. That way, anyone can subscribe to that updates list and is always up-to-date whenever one of your members posts a new entry. You find this feature at "Portal content -> More options -> Portal RSS feed".

You can deactivate karma voting at "Community and Members -> More options -> Features". Any existing scores won't be deleted, but they are merely not displayed anymore. Thus, you can enable or disable this feature anytime without risking to reset data.

Generally, you have three options of accessing a weblog: by directory (http://www.21publish.com/weblogname/) by sub domain (http://weblogname.21publish.com/) by an own domain (http://www.weblogdomain.net) Each member can always reach their weblog by using the directory URL. This is default setting upon registration. In addition, members might choose to reach their weblogs through a sub domain. Members can also choose to reach their weblogs through their own domain (provided they can change the corresponding DNS settings, either manually or using an online interface at their domain registrar). If you do not want your users to map own domains onto their weblogs, you can disable this feature at "Community and Members -> More options -> Features". Note, however, there are always ways to reach a weblog through another URL.

No. Currently, only predefined services can be selected. However, each author still has the option of entering additional ping URLs with each entry.

All supported weblog directory services are listed at "Community and Members -> More Options -> Ping settings". Since some services are language-dependent every service displays what language its blogs usually have. Thus, you can exclude those that do not contain your language. If no service is selected, no notification ping will be sent once a new entry is posted. Otherwise, all selected services are notified. However, such a ping will only be sent upon posting an entry if the respective author has activated pings for his/her weblog (pings are activated by default upon creation and need to be deactivated explicitly).