Getting Umbraco 4 working on TSOhost.co.uk

I have only been using Umbraco CMS for about 6 months now and despite the introduction of version 5 I am still yet to make the jump across due to time (the severe lack of it!)

If you are trying to set-up your Umbraco site with TSOhost then you may find you get errors when the site cannot read the umbraco config files.  Here are the steps to get your site working:

1. Move your site to an isolated application pool via the TSO control panel.
2. Set the permissions on the "public_html" folder to 777 ensuring that the changes are set to be recursive.  You can do this either via an FTP client or within the TSO file manager.
3. Recycle the application pool

One thing I have noticed is that if your page template is modified via the Umbraco admin page the change may not appear straight.  The only way to get the changes to appear is to refresh the application pool.  These changes would come across eventually but only when the application pool recycles automatically after a period of inactivity on your site.

I host all my site with TSOhost who I can only recommend with the highest of praise.  I have had dealings with Rackspace when working with a FTSE100 and the support we got was as though we were a nobody.  Dedipower were better but still not the best with reaction to datacentre incidents.  TSOhosts are the perfect providers of ASP.NET SQL express hosting for SME's, Darren & Craig have been immense help.  Cheers guys!

Configuring Google Apps MX records to work with 123-reg.co.uk domain name

I have to do this task many times but each time I need to setup the MX records for Google Apps Gmail for a domain registered with 123-reg.co.uk I always forget what I need to enter.  This may also help with other domain name providers when during the Google Apps setup process the only option you have is "other" as your domain name provider.

When selecting other Google presents you with a table similar to this (it may have changed since the time of writing but the principal will be the same, just make sure you use the values Google is providing with you now):

Priority	Points to
1	ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM.
5	ALT1.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM.
5	ALT2.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM.
10	ASPMX2.GOOGLEMAIL.COM.
10	ASPMX3.GOOGLEMAIL.COM.

Looks confusing enough but all you have to do but follow these simple steps and you'll be up and running receiving emails in no time.

Go in to you 123-reg.co.uk control panel, select your required domain name and go in to the Manage Domain Name section.  From within here you will see the "Manage DNS" option under "Advanced domain settings":

Once in to this sectin select the "Advanced DNS" tab:

Delete any MX records that may already be present and then enter the new MX records as per the google setup website (example table above)

The trick that Google fail to tell you is that you need to enter an @ symbol as the "Hostname" on 123-reg.co.uk.  The other details you will see are as Google list them; another point that others fall short on is that the full stop after the Destination MX value is required!  Once that is setup you can start enjoying Google's great email services but routed through your own distinguishable domain!