Web Development Articles

What is a Dedicated / Virtual Dedicated server and why is it different than normal web hosting. Web hosting offers you limited control of how the server your web site is hosted on behaves. Normal hosting plans put many customers’ accounts on a single server and you upload your files to that Server. Dedicated / Virtual Dedicated servers allow you to actually control your own server where you receive Admin access to install and run virtually anything YOU want on the server. You can host multiple web sites on the one server account, and even sell hosting and host other sites on your server.

I have referred to Dedicated and Virtual Dedicated Servers. You may ask, what is the difference? Virtual dedicated servers are similar to Dedicated servers as they offer many of the same features, but at a much lower price.

With a virtual dedicated server, the customer shares the server space with a limited number of other customers using the same server box. Each virtual dedicated server is isolated from the other accounts giving the user full control of their own server. Virtual dedicated servers are useful for companies and individuals that run complex applications that need the bandwidth, consistent performance, and flexibility of a virtual dedicated server.

First of all, some people are worried that they will not be able to use Linux hosting because they run Windows on their PCs. However, what operating system you run on your own PC is irrelevant to which web hosting environment you can use, because the latter is run remotely on a web server, where your website files will be uploaded.

Linux and Microsoft Windows are two different operating systems. Windows is a well-known household name and does not require much introduction. Linux is a new version of the Unix operating system. Both these operating systems make excellent environments for web hosting. However, there are some differences between them.

To help you decide whether Linux or Windows hosting is better for you, we look at the following elements:

Cost

Linux is known as an “open source” operating system. i.e. there is no licensing fees to pay. Therefore, compared to Windows, Linux is very cheap. Starting with Windows XP, Microsoft has begun enforcing software activation. This means that a single copy of Windows can only be installed on one computer. With Linux, once you own a copy, you are free to install it as many times as you wish on any number of computers.

Many businesses, from one-man-bands to multi-national corporations, have a web-presence these days. i.e. They have a website telling their customers about their companies: what they do, where they’re based, their company history, how they’re different from their competitors, etc. Many of these businesses also sell products and/or services online.

If you own a business and wish to have a presence in cyberspace, then you need to consider buying a package from a web hosting company.

Web hosting refers to the process of renting computer space and bandwidth (data transfer capacity) from a company so that you can make your website visible to the outside world.

Put simply, you buy an allocated space on a computer from a hosting company, then transfer the files of your website to this computer. Your website then becomes available to users around the world, and this enables them to browse your website, as well as download files and buy products and services from you.

Domain Name

First of all, you need to choose a domain name for your website. A domain name is simply an address for your website. Examples are www.microsoft.com and www.yahoo.com. Avoid choosing a domain name which is too long or too complicated for users to remember.

First, to see if you can use cheap web hosting you need to know how much disk space you will need. How large is your website? How many pages, video files, music files, etc. do you need? Second, a cheap web hosting company will need to know how busy your sight will be. If your site is going to have a lot of visitors, cheap web hosting may not be for you. Third, how many email accounts do you need? Cheap web hosting companies do not usually provide many. Lastly, how much are you willing to spend? Cheap web hosting is not as technical as the more expensive web hosting.

If you go online, you can find a list of the top 10 cheap web hosting companies. The top 10 cheap web hosting companies are rated by their price, quality, and service provided. The cheap web hosting companies are priced between $4.95 and $19.95 a month. The cheap web hosting company’s price varies on what kind of things you need. The disk space provided can be from 3000MB to 5000MB. The bandwidth varies from 40GB to 300GB. If this is not enough for you, then a cheap web hosting company is not an option for you. Most of these cheap web hosting companies offer free set up. This will make things much easier for you. Be aware of cheap web hosting that offers unlimited disk space. If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.

Here are some things you should know before finding a “cheap” or or low cost web hosting services.

You should pay very careful attention to the terms of use and the acceptable use policy of that low cost web host. You can find a good deal because cheap web hosting industry is very competitive but if a host is way too cheap for the features it offers compared to others, don’t go with them.

Going with a low cost web host requires extra research: read the reviews of that host on this site, look for any information about them in the search engines, see how long they have been in business. Visit the support pages and see if you are comfortable with the level of support offered by this host. You can’t expect to get the greatest and fastest support for every little problem you have by paying less than /month.

You took the leap. You set up a website to display your important message. Congratulations! As in life, first impressions are important on the web. Web researchers found that you have about 2 minutes to make that first impression a good one. Visitors will judge your site in those few seconds on its professionalism and appropriateness to what they are looking for.

In fact, a website can lose about one-third of its potential customers due to poor design, according to a recent user study conducted by Jakob Nielson, Ph.D., a principal of the Fremont Calif.- based Nielson Norman Group.

Take a long hard look at your site. Or ask a friend to give you a brutally honest review of your site. Does it pass the test of professionalism? Are the graphics of good quality and clear? Is the formatting, font size and font colors consistent throughout the site? Or does your site commit design mistakes that speak AMATEUR as soon as it loads?

There are some common mistakes website owners make that may cause visitors to leave early. Correct these top 5 mistakes to make sure your visitors stay long enough to read your important message:

Many online entrepreneurs these days are faced with the problem of running several websites and having to maintain several web hosting accounts for the various sites. Actually there is a very simple and effective solution to this problem. The answer is to run sub domains. Although sub domains are very similar to having a site within a site, they are not simply additional web pages of an existing website. Each sub domain can have a website of it’s own and completely separate from the main website.

What is a sub domain?

A sub domain in technical terms will be a folder or subdirectory located within one domain’s root directory. Usually by looking at the addresses you will be able to tell that the two websites are really offshoots from the same thing. Sub domains have helped many companies prosper on a large scale online as smart entrepreneurs have established sub domains for various other businesses that are offshoots of their parent company.

What are the advantages of having sub domains?

Anybody who decides to get a web hosting service or facility for their website will also soon be faced with the tough question of what server they will need. Will their website be run by a Windows server operating system or will they prefer to go for a Unix system?

Typical Windows servers will run on Windows NT, Windows 2000 or Windows XP, while Unix servers could be Linux or Open BSD to name just two. The truth is that both systems have there pros and cons.

If site stability and uptime are critical for you and your new website, then Unix should be your choice because they are generally thought to be superior in stability. Windows have the disadvantage that they usually require rebooting much more often. Still Windows are miles ahead when it comes to ease of use. A Windows server operating system will generally be much easier to operate and administer than its’ Unix counterpart.

On the other hand, Unix, even with its’ stability may not end up being so user-friendly, especially for non-techies. There is also a price to pay for the extra stability which is evident in Unix systems. Usually Unix machines will require their software to be updated on a very regular basis. All in all, Unix server operating systems are favored over windows as they are widely considered to be more stable.

There is really no stopping VOIP (voice over internet protocol) and internet telephony in general. This technology has rapidly and relentlessly spread its’ tentacles right across the net within a very short period of time and now stands as a clear threat to the old established phone companies around the world and the world of communications and telecommunications as we knew it. In the process VOIP has helped change web hosting in many ways.

Mostly it has placed demands on web hosting that were previously just not there. VOIP requires a stable and extremely reliable link and excellent service from a web host to be able to work efficiently. The fact that the corporate world has quickly embraced VOIP, saving colossal fortunes in phone company bills and associated costs has meant that only the better web hosting enterprises have benefited from the windfall.

With non-VOIP web hosting it is extremely easy to get away with shoddy and unreliable service. But with VOIP, and especially where most corporate companies require communications lines to be left open all the time, shoddy or poor quality web hosting enterprises are usually quickly identified and abandoned. This is a far cry from the early days of web hosting where many web host servers were situated in cellars somewhere and school dorms. They were mostly run by hobbyists as an extremely profitable part-time enterprise that virtually required very little attention that could occasionally be given during their spare time.

The fact that an estimated 40,000 new blogs are being started daily should be of great interest to anybody already in the web hosting business or intending to go into it. Especially those planning to go into the business as affiliates or as resellers because this group of online entrepreneurs are in a very good position to cash in quickly on this amazing growth rate of blogs with hardly any investment necessary.

While it is true that a vast majority of blogs are hosted free, it is also true that many blogs are gaining high traffic so quickly that they are forced to quickly find paid web hosting as they exceed their allocated bandwidth.

The other fact to bear in mind is that virtually all successful bloggers own several blogs. This is significant because it is not easy to own several websites since lots of technical know-how and time are required to maintain a single website, let alone several. This is not the case with a blog that mainly requires content and very little technical knowledge to run very successfully. In terms of business volumes this simply means that a web hosting business that targets blogs is bound to grow a lot faster than the one that only seeks clients from the ranks of traditional websites.