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How to Select a Web Site HostMike Snyder So, you know how to create HTML files web pages and want to start a website. You have a domain name but dont know where to store the files web host. You find countless web hosting companies offering a wide range of products but you cant make heads or tails of all the features to decide which plan is right for you. Does this sound like you If so, this article was written for you. Hopefully after reading it, you will have a better understanding of all the terms associated with web hosting and find a hosting company that is right for your business. File Storage Space Usually hosting companies sell different packages centered around storage space. Storage space is specified in kilobytes KB, megabytes MB, or gigabytes GB; a megabyte is 1000 kilobytes and a gigabyte is 1000 megabytes. How much storage space do you need Well, that depends on what you are planning to do with your website. If you have only a few pages of text and little to no graphics or images, a 25 MB should be more than you will ever need. Most hosting packages start at 25 MB of storage space. When comparing web hosting companies for file storage space, be sure to check their terms and conditions to make sure they do not charge another setup fee for upgrading to a packge with more space. One way to determine the size of your files in Microsoft Windows, right click the Start button and click Explore. Scroll down and select the files or folders you plan on using for your website. Right click on the selected files or folders and click Properties and you will see the size. Bandwidth Bandwidth is the measure of how much data flows through your site. It is usually expressed in GB transfered per month. If you are expecting a lot of hits millions of page views to your site you will need to get the most bandwidth you can afford. For new web sites it may take a while to get up to a significant bandwith. If you find you are approaching the bandwith limit, you can always upgrade to a plan with higher bandwidth. Some plans allow you to increase your monthly bandwidth for an additional monthly charge. Most hosting plans include a significant number of POP e-mail accounts and unlimited e-mail forwarding. POP accounts can be accessed with your current e-mail program and some hosts may include a webmail interface for your POP accounts. If you have several people that work for your web site/business and want them to have their own e-mail address, you will need to select a hosting plan with enough POP accounts. E-mail forwarding is when e-mail that is addressed to your website gets redirected to another e-mail address that you specify. An example of e-mail forwarding: for one of my websites mail addressed to mike-@-mrgoodbeer.com, sales-@-mrgoodbeer.com, and webmaster-@-mrgoodbeer.com all get redirected to my Gmail address. With e-mail forwarding you can easily track where your e-mails are coming from. Be careful though...the more e-mail addresses you have, the more SPAM you will receive. Shared vs Dedicated When comparing hosting plans, you may notice plans for shared hosting and dedicated hosting. Shared hosting simply means that your web site will be hosted with other websites on the same server or machine. Shared hosting is good for the average web site where speed is not a priority. A dedicated server is just that, a server that is dedicated to your website. The advantages of a dedicated server are speed and control. The disadvantage is cost, you will usually have to pay a much larger monthly fee for having a dedicated hosting plan. If you know nothing about Unix, Linux, or network administration make sure to get a managed dedicated server. The hosting company will take care of all the security and software patches/updates that arise over time. Make sure to review the hosting companys terms and FAQ concerning their dedicated servers to determine if their service is right for you. Support For the companies that do not have 24 hour support, you will have to determine if their phone support hours meet your specific needs. Make sure to note the location of the company and offset the support times for your time zone. If you plan on working on your web site during all hours of the day, make sure to choose a company with 24/7 phone support; otherwise, you will have to wait for them to open before you can get help to solve your problem. CGI Common Gateway Interface CGI is a program, also know as scripts, that can be run on a website to make the site more dynamic. CGI programs can be written in PERL, C, Unix shell, and countless other languages. It is best to select a hosting plan that allows CGI because you will undoubtedly run across an application or game that you want to modify or include on your site. There are many resources on the web that list free CGI scirpts and countless companies offering CGI scripts for you to buy. MySQL MySQL is used for creating and maintaining web based databases. If you anticipating having some data on your site that your users might want to sort you will probably need to find a web host that supports MySQL. Some hosting companies specify how many databases you can have on your site and charge an additional monthly fee if you want more. You will have to determine how many databases you will need and select the appropriate web hosting plan. FrontPage FrontPage is a website creation and management what-you-see-is-what-you-get WYSIWYG tool developed by Microsoft. The files generated by FrontPage may have extentions asscoiated with them. If you are using FrontPage to develop your site, you will need to make sure that the hosting plan you choose supports FrontPage extentions or your web pages may not display properly, if at all. Server Operating System OS For most basic websites you will not have worry about which OS your web hosting company is using. Most hosting plans are running on either Unix or Linux. For some unique web site features, you may need a Windows based server. Setup Fee Some hosting companies charge a setup fee when your account is created. This is usually a one time fee and may be waived, in some cases, when you pre-pay for your service. Check the hosting companys terms carefully to determine the details of their setup fee. SPAM Filter Most hosting plans include some type of SPAM filter for your e-mail accounts. This feature can come in very handy if you are using POP email accounts. Shopping Cart Some hosting companies provide shopping cart features as part of their hosting plan. You do not have to worry about this featue if your web site is not selling products. Also, there are many different third party shopping cart applications and CGI scripts available on the web that you may choose to implement on your web site such as the ones found at PayPal.
| | | | RELATED ARTICLES Opinion – Search Engine Success This article is actually the summary to a book soon to be released by the author, titled “Guaranteed Website Success”. Opinions are quite often controversial. Such is the nature of this one. Web Hosting Basics So youre about to embark on your first web project and youre wondering where on earth to start Well, one of the first things youll need is a web hosting package. There are so many out there it can seem daunting to try and choose one. In this article well teach you the basics to help you make an informed decision. The DRC Blew It The DRC Disability Rights Commission recently announced the results of their year-long investigation into the accessibility of 1000 websites. The DRCs report http://www.drc-gb.org/publicationsandreports/2.pdf concluded that most websites are highly inaccessible, with over 81% not even meeting basic standards of accessibility. Having Your Personal Portfolio On The Internet Will Help You Infiltrate The Workforce And Get Your Identity ‘Out There’. If you’re an up and coming graphic/web designer just out of university, you’ll know it’s quite hard to break into the workforce. You have to contact employers one by one, spend your time traveling and lugging your portfolio to their offices. Well, things have changed, and for the better let me tell you. Now you can make your own on-line portfolio on the Internet, and send its web page address to numerous design companies at once so they can all see your work easily. You don’t even have to leave your house and organizations all over the world can access your work easily. What makes a good Web Hosting Provider! When building your website and getting it hosted online, you want your site to be up and running on the World Wide Web 24/7 without any hitches so that it is making you money all the time and all you have to worry about then is getting visitors to your site, doing seo, getting repeat visitors, maximizing your sites revenue, etc. You don’t want to have to worry about your web hosting and it’s stability. The Contrast And Similarities Between A Web Designer And Web Programmer The concept of web designing based on the nature and rapid growth of the Internet is nothing to boast of any more. This is because of the large number of web sites published to the Internet everyday, so as to showcase one’s presence and dominance on the World Wide Web. You may ask why this is so, well, the so simple answer is the rate at which technology is evolving. Cheap Web Hosting - When Cheaper is Better Anyone who has ever shopped for web hosting knows that you can spend anywhere from nothing up to several hundred dollars to host your web site. So what’s the difference Well often times if you’re talking about typical shared web hosting in the $6 to $20 range – nothing. That’s right – nothing! Nothing that is, except good old fashioned marketing and hype! Buyer Beware: Web Hosting, Registration, and Site Building "All in One" Package Nightmares Starting out in any type of online marketing or Internet business can be confusing and overwhelming. There are so many different aspects of a start-up: domain name registration and purchase, Web site host purchasing, and of course, the "building" of the Web site itself. This leaves many consumers looking for an easier way to purchase everything in one place, both to save money and to save time. The Top 15 Essential Ingredients of Every WINDOWS HOSTING Plan Package First things First. Why would you like to have Windows Based Hosting when there are Linux packages for cheaper ratesThe answer is – it depends onwhat application you are looking to use for your hosting. Consider the tools and scripting languages you plan to use – if you use PHP, Perl or MySQL, Linux is the way forward. If apps are Microsoft-specific, then Windows is what you need.Clear… Up the Sandbox! Go to any internet marketing forum you want these days and one of the topics is sure to be whether or not there is a "sandbox" at Google where new sites are forced to come and play for 3-6 months before joining the ranks of ranked and searched results. On the surface it would appear that this is so. New sites are typically taking a long time to get indexed and even longer to show up in the search results. So hence, the sandbox theory. Lets examine some possible reasons and more importantly, our reaction to it. Forums – Should you have them on your website Forums have become a common feature in many websites. With good free scripts available, and paid scripts being relatively cheap, it seems that every new website has its own forums. But is it wise to add forums to your website Getting Your Site Seen By Search Engines Is your website listed on search enginesWhen people search for you, does your site show up on page 1 or page 20 of the search engine results Are You Driving Away Potential Customers When a prospect lands on your website will he or she understand what you are presenting Do your ordering/sign up instructions make sense Can prospects easily find the information they are searching for If you don’t know the answers to these questions you may be driving away potential customers. Be the King of Your Domain So there you are. You’ve got a topic that you really love. You’ve done your research. You’re ready to start your new website. As good as it is, you’re certain to get traffic and tons of sales. All you need to do now is register a domain name and start designing the site to end all sites! Flash - To Use Or No To Use Out there in the WWW there are thousands sites using flash for their needs. But the majority sites are not in this list. Lets summaries some facts about flash using on YOUR web site and after that its you who will have to decide: to use or not to use. There are some facts about Macromedia Flash Technology: Top Five Most Profitable Color Combinations Used In Cover Design! "Two days ago, an old man stopped me on the street and asked me who my stylist is. Web Site Professionalism What Is It Your web site should be-visitor friendly to navigatesearch engine friendly for the crawlersAutomated with ecommerce and subscription forms... Choosing the right web host Whatever type of website you want to host, choosing the correct host can be tricky. Most hosting companies offer you more than you will ever use, their sales staff recommend high-end packages for small websites. How Can I Stop Getting Spam Are you getting too much spam We all are, but if youre a webmaster the word spam takes on a whole new meaning. Custom Hooks in TierDeveloper Custom Hooks is another powerful and most demanding feature provided by TierDeveloper. Custom Hooks work like database triggers. It could be your own business logic that you can activate before or after performing some database actions. PreHooks and PostHooks are two ways, provided by TierDeveloper, through which you can embed your own logic in the generated code. Pre hook methods are called before the database access is performed whereas post hook methods are called after the database operations are performed. |
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