You know, many people don't realise this, but there is usually more to their website hosting package than they may realise. People don't always have to go and buy a commercial web-based software package unless they know that what they have available to them wont do the job the way they need it to.

Check your built-in scripts. Hosting companies that are running Cpanel almost always have a copy of fantastico installed. This software is fantastic, pun intended. It has a record of many different programs from many different categories, just waiting to be installed. Everything from content management systems, to classifieds, to form mail processors to blogging tools. There is so much stuff there. Plus it's a 2 click install. 1 Click to tell fantastico what folder to install the software to and what your administration details for that program will be, then you click install! Too easy!

Built-in email. I think it's great you get so many built-in email features, but many people don't really know about how to use it all. Remember, if you plan on having a marketing campaign, set up an email forwarder (or alias, in admin speak) with a specific name that forwards to your normal POP3/IMAP account. That way you don't need to remember yet another user name and password for the account, plus you can set up a filter in your email program to filter incoming email sent to that address to it's own folder and you can assess the direct feedback to your bit of marketing and how well people are responding to it.

Password protected folders. Combine this with FTP (File Transfer Protocol) and you have a rough file sharing system. Instead of clogging up people's email accounts with large file attachments, use FTP via a web-based file manager or a program like FileZilla and upload the file to a specific directory. Use your hosting provider's control panel to password protect that folder with one account and password and share that amongst your colleagues or set up everyone with their own account (it really doesn't take that long!) and direct them to sign in and download your latest data that way. Saves people having to sort and delete old (large!) emails further down the track and you can easily and very quickly upload updated data or remove it completely instead of having to send out mass email telling everyone to ignore the data and to delete it.

I hope this has provided some insight into some of the features that people see every time they login to their website control panel, but never really realised what it was all there for. They really are quite useful once you toy around with them. Happy feature hunting!

Martin is a writer and computer fanatic. He is available for writing assignments of any size and can be contacted via his website at http://www.martincoleman.com