Recently, I decided to switch my web hosting company. I had been with my last hosting company for almost two years but I was having continuing problems with their system. So I switched and I am up and running without too much problem. Switching hosts when you have a large site is some work but if you organize it you can do it smoothly. We have three business sites and the largest has close to two hundred pages.

But that isn't the topic of today's tip. After the switch was made to the new IP address which took about forty eight hours to transition fully, everyone was able to bring up my sites but me. When I loaded the new sites, I placed a little phrase on each homepage so that I knew when it had switched and was coming from the new host.

I wasn't getting the new page. I tried my desk top and my lap top, but no, the old site kept coming up. I went to our local library and checked it on their computers. The new site came up. I figured then it must be my cable company. I called them and they said the DNS, (Domain Name Servers) were all up to date. The customer rep I spoke to was able to bring my site up from the new host right from her desktop which was through the cable service.

Then I went to one of the Windows Bulletin Boards at windowsbbs.com where they discuss all kinds of problems with Windows, Internet Explorer and more. I did a search on my problem and read through some of the similar situations.

It turned out to be a little file in my Windows folder called "Hosts". Actually there are two. The other is "Hosts.sam" which is a sample file with instructions. I then opened up the "Hosts" file, added the IP addresses and domain names of the new sites. When I opened up my browser, the new sites came up immediately.

All the headaches came down to that one little file with it's three lines of text in it. So if you ever are changing hosts or having a problem of getting to a site that you regularly go to, check that "Hosts" file. And if you are having any problems with Windows or

Internet Explorer, try visiting the Bulletin Board above, it has a lot of great info.