You can use Microsoft Outlook to read and send email from a mailbox hosted through cPanel. The setup looks different in new Outlook for Windows and classic Outlook, but the same account details are needed.
These instructions replace the older Outlook 2007/2010 guide. Use an up-to-date Outlook release and encrypted mail connections.
First, collect your email settings
Sign in to your cPanel hosting account.
Open Email Accounts and select Connect Devices next to the mailbox.
Find Secure SSL/TLS Settings (Recommended).
Record the incoming and outgoing server names, full mailbox username, and port settings.
Choose IMAP unless you have a specific reason to use another account type. IMAP keeps mail synchronized across multiple devices.
Option A: New Outlook for Windows
Open Outlook.
Select Settings or View > View settings.
Go to Accounts > Your accounts.
Choose Add Account and enter your hosted email address.
Continue through the prompts. If Outlook identifies the wrong provider or cannot connect automatically, select an IMAP option where available and provide your cPanel settings.
Enter your verified mail server names and the secure settings shown below if manual fields are presented.
Complete setup and test sending and receiving.
The exact screens and supported manual options can vary with the current Outlook build and email provider. If new Outlook cannot configure your mailbox correctly, try classic Outlook, which provides a documented manual IMAP setup path.
Option B: Classic Outlook for Windows
Open classic Outlook and choose File > Add Account.
Enter the full email address.
Select Advanced options > Let me set up my account manually and click Connect.
Select IMAP.
Enter the incoming and outgoing server names from cPanel.
Use the secure ports and encryption settings listed below.
Enter your full email address as the username and the mailbox password when prompted.
Finish setup and test the account.
Recommended secure settings
Setting
Value
Incoming type
IMAP
Incoming port
993 with SSL/TLS
Outgoing server
SMTP, using the server hostname from cPanel
Outgoing port
465 with SSL/TLS, or 587 with STARTTLS if specified by the host
Incoming and outgoing username
Full email address
Outgoing authentication
Required
If Outlook shows Secure Password Authentication (SPA), do not enable it unless your specific provider requires it. Standard cPanel email authentication does not use that Microsoft-specific option.
Troubleshooting
Outlook receives but cannot send: Check the SMTP hostname, outgoing authentication, port, and encryption settings.
Outlook rejects the password: Confirm you are using the actual mailbox password, not the hosting account password. An email provider may also require an app password or another supported authentication method.
Certificate warning: Stop and confirm the hostname with the provider. Do not disable encryption or ignore the warning.
Messages don’t match across devices: Confirm the account was added using IMAP rather than POP.
A nameserver helps the internet find the DNS information for your domain. DNS stands for Domain Name System. It connects readable domain names to the technical records that tell browsers and email systems where to go.
For example, when someone visits a website, the DNS records for that domain help direct the request to the correct web server.
What does a nameserver do?
Your domain registrar records which nameservers are authoritative for your domain. Those nameservers provide the DNS records used for services such as websites and email.
Common DNS records include:
A records, which point a hostname to an IPv4 address.
AAAA records, which point a hostname to an IPv6 address.
CNAME records, which make one hostname an alias of another hostname.
MX records, which identify the mail servers responsible for receiving email for your domain.
TXT records, which can hold information used for domain verification and email authentication.
Nameservers are not the same as your website’s IP address. They identify where the domain’s DNS records are managed.
When would you change nameservers?
You might change nameservers when moving DNS management to a new hosting provider, registrar, or dedicated DNS service.
Before changing them, copy or confirm the records required for your website, email, and other services. An incomplete DNS zone can make a website unreachable or interrupt email delivery.
How do you find or change them?
Sign in to the company where your domain is registered.
Find the domain’s Nameservers, DNS, or Domain Management section.
Review the current nameservers and identify who manages the active DNS records.
Obtain the correct replacement nameservers directly from the provider that will manage your DNS.
Confirm that the required website, email, and verification records exist at the destination.
Save the new nameservers only when you’re ready to switch.
Allow time for DNS caches to update, then test your website and email.
Changes are often visible within hours, but some systems may continue using cached information longer. Avoid assuming every device will switch at the same moment.
Does NABWD provide hosting and domain registration?
Yes. Nuts and Bolts Web Design offers Linux web hosting with an SSL certificate included. Domain registration is available as a separate service.
NABWD can provide the correct DNS or nameserver information for your hosting setup. Do not use nameserver addresses from an older guide or change DNS records based on a generic example.
Need help with DNS?
If you’re not sure where your domain’s DNS is managed, contact NABWD before changing nameservers. We can discuss your current setup and the next steps.
Nuts and Bolts Web Design · Cul-de-Sac Crew update 85p-36 and 85p-37
Cul-de-Sac Crew is my game. It’s a top down roguelite bullet heaven where you build your Crew, chase off troublemakers and Take the Block Back. This round of work had two sides. One was the game itself: how you move through the story. The other was everything around the game that most players never see: privacy, consent, search and the plumbing that has to be right before a family game can run ads anywhere.
Both halves matter. Here’s what got done.
Part 1: The game (update 85p-36)
Stages 1 to 4 are open from the start
Until now, you had to clear each stage before the next one opened. That kept the story in order, but it also meant somebody who just wanted to see the Haunted Mansion had to earn their way there first. Now Maple Court, the Haunted Mansion, the Corn Maze and the Parking Lot are all open the moment you hit Choose Your Stage.
Clearing a stage still unlocks its crew member, in any order. Maple Mart, the finale, opens once all four are cleared. Just in time for Halloween, you can go straight to the Haunted Mansion.
Keeping the story order easy to follow
Opening everything up only works if people can still tell where the story wants them to go. So the stage select does the guiding now:
Every stage card is numbered 1 to 5.
Your next stage in the story says ▶ NEXT UP, and the cursor starts on it.
Anything ahead of your progress says TOUGH STAGE in red.
Pick a tough stage and the game gives you a heads up first. The big green button takes you to your next stage in order. The gray button lets you play the one you picked anyway. Esc or the B button backs out. Nobody gets locked out, and nobody gets surprised.
During a run ahead of your progress, the stage line at the top of the screen tags it as TOUGH STAGE too.
Cutting the chatter on screen
The game used to pop a lot of little callouts on screen: score bonuses, heal numbers, enemy news. With a full screen of action, it got hard to read. I cut it down for readability and accessibility. In a 4 minute test run, the callouts dropped from 601 to 50, and from as many as 36 on screen at once down to 3 at most.
Here’s how it works now:
Callouts that repeated what the XP bar, health bar and effects already show are gone.
Enemy and event news shows the first time per run only.
Everything else is capped at 3 on screen, and the same line won’t repeat for 20 seconds.
The important stuff always shows: level up picks, Respect gains, jackpots, claim prompts and growth spurts.
Damage numbers, speech bubbles, boss lines and banners didn’t change. Practice keeps every callout, because it’s there to teach.
Eight new lines were added and translated into all 16 languages the game supports. The update shipped for the browser version at play.culdesaccrew.com and the Windows, Mac and Linux versions on itch.io.
Part 2: Privacy, consent and search
Cul-de-Sac Crew is a family game for all ages, including kids under 13. That changes how everything around it has to be built. Here’s the setup now in place.
Consent messages for Europe and the US
Visitors from the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland now get a consent message before any advertising or analytics cookies are used. They can accept, decline with one click, or manage their options. The message runs in English plus every language Google supports for it that matches the site.
Visitors in US states with consumer privacy laws get a “Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information” link, in English and Latin American Spanish. That covers all 20 states with these laws right now, Delaware included, and new states get added automatically.
On top of that, Google Analytics on culdesaccrew.com now starts with consent denied for European visitors until they choose. Personalized ads are turned off everywhere, for everyone. That matches the promise in the privacy policy.
Child directed by default
Every ad request the game will ever make is tagged for child treatment:
On the web, the game page’s ad code carries the child directed and under age of consent tags Google documents for browser games.
In the mobile version, now in testing, every request is child directed, tagged under the age of consent and capped at a G rating.
The site itself is marked child directed in Google Search Console.
Ads in Cul-de-Sac Crew are rewarded only. You choose to watch one for a revive. The paid desktop versions have no ads at all, and the main website never will.
Updated Privacy Policy and Terms
The NABWD Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions were updated:
Privacy Policy: a new section explains the consent message for Europe, the UK and Switzerland, and a new section covers US state privacy rights and the opt out link.
Terms & Conditions: a new section covers Save Codes. The game lets you copy or download a Save Code to move your progress between devices. Keep it private, because anyone with it can load your progress. We never store Save Codes, so we can’t recover a lost one.
Gameplay telemetry stays anonymous. No cookies, no stored IP addresses, no names and no account IDs.
Search Console and the game page
I added a Domain property for culdesaccrew.com in Google Search Console. It covers the main site and every subdomain, including play.culdesaccrew.com.
The game page at play.culdesaccrew.com got a proper title, description, share previews and structured search data, so it shows up right in search and looks right when someone shares the link.
The game page has its own sitemap.
Both sites use a robots.txt that welcomes search engines and blocks AI training bots.
Why this matters
I’ve been building websites for clients for over 20 years, and I tell them the same thing every time: privacy isn’t the fun part, but it’s the part that protects you. A kids game raises the bar. Parents trust you with their children’s screen time, and the law expects you to earn that.
None of this changes how the game plays. It’s the foundation that lets Cul-de-Sac Crew grow the right way.
For 22 years, Nuts and Bolts Web Design has built websites and kept systems running for other people. Now I’m building something of my own: Cul-de-Sac Crew™: Suburban Survivor, a game about a neighborhood crew taking back their block. I’m going to use this blog to share what goes into it, the business side and the tech side, the same way I’d walk a client through a project.
This first post covers the update I just finished. It took three builds and a few long days. Here’s what I built, and why I built it the way I did.
Start with the player, then the business
The headline feature is revives. When you go down, the game offers to bring you back. You get 2 per run, back up with 60% health and 8 seconds of protection.
The “YOU’RE DOWN!” revive offer with a REVIVE button, a NO THANKS button and a 10 second countdown.
That sounds simple. The decisions behind it weren’t.
Revives are also how the free versions of the game will pay for themselves. On the browser and Android versions, a revive will cost a short ad, and only if you choose to watch it. I had to decide what happens in every case before writing a line of code:
The player watches the ad: they get the revive.
They close it early: no revive, and they’re back at the offer to decide again.
There’s no ad available: they get the revive free. Running out of ads is the ad network’s problem, not the player’s.
They’re running an ad blocker: no revive, and a friendly note explaining that ads keep the game free, with a link to support the game directly.
They bought the game on PC: free revives, no ads. They already paid.
They’re playing the free demo: free revives, no ads, ever. The demo’s job is to show the game at its best.
That last one was a late call. The demo didn’t have revives at first. Then I watched the effect in action and decided it’s one of the best moments in the game. Hiding it from the people deciding whether to buy didn’t make sense.
The point for any business owner: write down every path before you build. The edge cases are where trust gets won or lost.
Make the moment count
Theo getting back up as a ring of orange and gold pixels pushes the crowd away.
A revive shouldn’t feel like a menu. When you get back up, your crew member blasts out a ring of pixels in their own dash colors, the crowd gets shoved back, and the screen hits with a new shock wave: a zoom punch, one thump, then a rolling wave. I made it different from the game’s other screen shakes on purpose. Your eyes and your gut should both know something big just happened.
No accounts. Ever.
The Save Code screen with Copy, Download, Paste and Load buttons.
Every game runs into the same question: how do players move their progress from one computer to another? The usual answer is accounts, with logins, emails, passwords and a database of player info to protect.
I didn’t want any of that. This game is made for all ages, kids included, and the safest data is data you never collect. So I built Save Codes instead. The game packs your progress into a code. Copy it, paste it somewhere else, and you’re back. The code holds progress and settings only. No name, no ID, no date. The same save always makes the same code, so nobody can track anyone with it.
I also built in the safety nets I’d want as a user. The game shows you what’s in a code before loading it, backs up your current save first, and gives you an UNDO button. Every one of those came from asking “what’s the worst thing that could happen here?”
Measure what matters, keep nothing you don’t need
The full game now sends anonymous stats when a run ends: stage, crew member, difficulty, how long the run lasted, how far it got and how smoothly it ran. No names, no accounts, nothing typed by the player, and the stats server doesn’t keep IP addresses. Each launch gets a random session number that’s never saved to the device. The free demo sends nothing.
The stats go to a small server I run myself, not to a third party. That’s my IT side talking. If I’m asking players to trust me with even anonymous data, I want to control where it lives.
The stats have already paid off. The first live data showed every field arriving exactly as designed, and I could see quits, revives and save code use come in from real play the same day the update went out.
Fix the bug players can feel
This update also fixed a bug I’m glad to be rid of. Right after the game’s safe opening, enemies started arriving about 3 times faster than designed, all the way to the 5 minute mark. It felt like hitting a wall at 30 seconds. It came down to one piece of logic attached to the wrong condition. On Rough Night difficulty, the board at 45 seconds went from about 124 enemies to about 68.
That’s a lesson I’ve seen in client work for two decades. When something feels wrong in use, it usually is, even when the code “works.”
Small things, done right
Gabriella behind an autumn tree, showing through the leaves as a silhouette.
Your crew member shows through trees, houses and cars as a colored silhouette.
Your crew member showing through trees, houses and cars as a colored silhouette.
The HUD shows the difficulty next to the stage name.
The HUD shows the difficulty next to the stage name.
The mouse wheel scrolls help screens from anywhere, and Esc goes back on every menu.
Every new line of text ships in all 16 languages the game supports.
None of these are headline features. All of them are the difference between a game that feels finished and one that doesn’t.
Hosting it myself
The browser version’s title screen with Support Us / Donate, Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions links.
The full browser version lives at play.culdesaccrew.com, hosted by me instead of a game portal. That means I control the experience, the privacy and the support link you see on the title screen. Portals have their place. For a game I’m putting my name and my business behind, owning the platform was the right call.
What’s next
Android is in testing, and the Steam demo is on the way. In the next post, I’ll go deep on the work that went into keeping this game safe for kids, from how ads are requested to how the Privacy Policy and Terms match what the game actually does.
If you’re a business owner thinking about building something of your own, or you need help with your website or IT, you know where to find me.
I’ve been talking about Cul-de-Sac Crew for decades. Here’s why I finally built it, who it honors, and what comes next.
I always wanted to make a video game. It started in the 1990s, when I was a teenager playing Zombies Ate My Neighbors. I never let go of that feeling. Anyone who has known me long enough will tell you I’ve been talking about Cul-de-Sac Crew™ for decades.
Then I played Vampire Survivors, and it clicked. That was the kind of game I could actually build.
I Wasn’t Starting From Zero
I’ve worked in IT since 2001 and have run my own web design and development business on the side since 2004. Back in the early 2000s I launched a resume building app, getnoticedfirst.com, which I plan to bring back soon. I’ve been an adjunct professor since 2015.
Over the years I’ve done media design, creative direction, project management, development, IT support and maintenance, planning, procurement, supervision, and training. Every one of those skills went into this game.
When AI got good enough to help build video games, I jumped right in. In July 2026 I started creating art and learning Godot. Now it’s October 2026, and it’s push to launch time.
What the Game Is
Cul-de-Sac Crew: Suburban Survivor is a top-down survivors game with a Saturday morning cartoon feel. You play as one of the kids on Maple Court, and the block is under siege. The animals want your Treats. The people want your Blessings. Your job is to take back the block.
Nobody gets hurt in this game. Everybody gets chased off, and every one you chase off earns you Respect. You fight through five stages: Maple Court, a haunted mansion, a corn maze, a parking lot, and the mall, where Big Bad Maple Man is waiting for you.
This Game Is Personal
The good neighbors who help the Crew honor real people in my life.
Grandma Lilly honors Ms. Leslie Coach, my teacher when I was a kid in North Philadelphia. Annie honors my late mother, Angela. Dad-Dad honors my late father-in-law, James. Sally honors my late sister, Saleah, and Farmer Tee honors my sister Tiara.
My daughter Gabriella helped design it. The Crew itself comes from Gabby’s childhood drawings.
Where You Can Play
The game started on the web, mobile is next, and Steam follows in early 2027.
I put my passion, my soul, my creativity, and my direction into Cul-de-Sac Crew: Suburban Survivor. And this is only the start.
Cul-de-Sac Crew is a series. My daughter and I are already working on our second game, Cul-de-Sac Crew: Living Large. More games under the Cul-de-Sac Crew name are on the way.
That’s my why.
Demetrius Pinder Nuts and Bolts Web Design
Get started with NABWD
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Nuts and Bolts Web Design
Newark, Delaware
(302) 737-4162
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