ArTips©-The newsletter dedicated to the business of art.

Sometimes practical, sometimes techy, always helpful.

In the course of one week, I met two artists who "lost" their websites.

In both cases, their website was coordinated by an individual, not a company. This person did all the work of getting the domain name registered and arranged for the hosting service. They coded the website, uploaded it, and then became unavailable (one person actually moved out of the country, and left no contact information).

Both these artists need to make changes to their website, and don't know how to do it. They don't know who is hosting their site, and they weren't given the information on how to access it.

If you have a website, make sure you also have all the information you need. You should have your Host Name/ID, User name, and password. Find out who is hosting your site. You should also know what company was used to register your domain name, as well as any User ID and password (if used by the registrar).

Take this information and file it away someplace safe. I hope you never need it, but in case your web developer becomes unavailable, you'll be glad you've got it.

If you're in the Philadelphia area, look for my ARTBiz column each month in Art Matters.