A Brief View on Web Hosting History

Posted by on July 14, 2010 - 8:51 am

The World Wide Web created a huge impact in communications, information, business and virtually everything else from shopping to reading. Anything that we know today has a virtual existence in the Web. It is the world without boundaries where information flows freely available to anyone from anywhere who wants to search it. It was hailed as the greatest creation in technology known to man today. With the inception of the internet, the web hosting industry came in place. Its trail leads back to 1991.

Beginning with the email function that everyone can utilize with the internet, it has since become a massive tool for the world when it was evolved in the year 1991. Unbelievable opportunity is at the palm of people who use the internet because they have been given the power of information by creating web pages. By having web pages, the commercial value of the internet and email has been hugely increased.

Since then, a new era in business began and it is known as the electronic commerce or E-commerce. This has spawn a huge potential for web hosting business because every business out there will need presence in the web and the only way to achieve that is to have a website. Therefore, to get a secure website that will perform for them, the only way is to go to through the service of a web hosting company. With web pages, businesses can have a boost in audience because the internet is borderless. Therefore, with web hosting, the internet’s purpose and function will go beyond the fields of universities and computer experts but available to every walks of life.

This move taken in the internet industry has given every person the same opportunity to be able to access the internet through web pages or web sites. When it first began, the websites look rather simple with easy formats. If compared the current web sites, the technique and style of websites have change dramatically. Nowadays, web sites are far more complicated. With that, company is making all sort of profit by providing up to date state of the art web site designs and ideas.

Therefore, we can get the idea that web sites actually cost much more before if compared to current times. In earlier times, the web service is not available to many and only those who can afford could use this service. However, as the demand increase and provider increases, web services became much more affordable and today, there are some services provided for free.

In the earlier days, servers are provided by larger companies and they will rent out spaces to smaller companies. As the industry improves, web hosting companies now will own their own server and this move has skyrocket the whole web hosting industry. Now, there are countless companies providing web services that provide web hosting and web page. So, this industry is no longer only available through the huge and bigger companies but available to everyone and even individuals can host web pages easily from their own computer if they want to.

With the evolution in web hosting service, competition has become more and more tough. Therefore, making a website have change into something different compared to the old times where web sites are complicated. With the increasing demand, web hosting companies must be able to offer various types of service to meet the customer’s expectation. If they don’t, other companies will. Therefore, it is a constant battle in this industry that is worth billion in dollars today.

So, this industry has really no hidden secret because it is basically based on the service provided by companies to the customers. With so many services out there, there is definitely a service that can meet someone’s preferences. Since, 1991, this industry has change a lot and we can truly say that web hosting company is now in control of the internet industry.

What is the Weakness of Free Web Hosting?

Posted by on July 14, 2010 - 8:50 am

There is nothing called cheap and best and that is very true as far as free web hosting services are concerned. Even though free hosting provides lots of great features and benefits, there are also some disadvantages which one should be aware of before registering for these web hosting packages.

The disk space is limited with free web hosting. There are free hosting providers who provide a disk space of only five to ten MB while there are some who go up to thirty MB. There are a few who also go up to one thousand MB but that is really an exception and you would not find many people offering such disk space.

The bandwidth is also limited and it would be usually in the range of three to five GB per month. And if there are any free hosting providers found guilty of allocating more than this space, then there is a good chance of them being shut down by the concerned people.

There are strict rules and regulations as far as CGI scripts execution or installation is concerned. There are some free hosting providers who provide pre-installed CGI scripts like guest book, clock, form processor, etc. But most of the free web hosting service providers do not allow the running of such CGI scripts.

There are some restrictions on the file types to be used with these free hosting service providers as well and not every file type is supported by them. HTML, Flash, Java, etc. are some of the file types that are being supported. It is therefore important that whenever you sign up for the service of such free hosting service providers, you are very sure as to what are the types of files that are being supported by these service providers.

There is also a limit to the size of the file and it is usually in the range of three to five mega bytes. These free web hosting services are not reliable and that could be seen in the kind of speed they provide. Not only are they slow in their speed but there are also very good chances of the service being shut down without appropriate warnings. Such shut downs are very rare though.

Moreover the customer service is also not that great and one should not expect to get proper responses from such free hosting providers if they experience problems with their services in the future.

Needed Features in Small Business Web Hosting

Posted by on July 14, 2010 - 8:50 am

There are many options available for small business web hosting. Many plans are being offered by a lot of different companies. Price ranges from free to the most expensive. As for features, the more expensive it gets, the more loaded it will be with features and benefits.

Aim to get the best mix of features at the best price. Don’t just go for cheap. You could end up with poor web hosting features, which could ultimately be of no use to you. Remember that with web hosting, you secure an online address for your business. Good representation is important if you want to attract (and keep) a clientele.

If possible, get a package that has the most features (quality features, of course). Some features you ought to look for would be sufficient disk space and good bandwidth. You need enough space to load all your data in. If you’re stuck with a small disk space, then you could only post limited information about your company, products, and/or services. Check packages for disk space and go with the largest you can get that fit your budget. As to bandwidth, choose the highest one you can get that would also fit your budget. Getting maximum bandwidth is important since it will limit the number of visitors that can visit and browse through your site. Low bandwidth means low business traffic.

Make sure that the service provider can really provide you with a secure server. Your business will primarily involve financial transactions. If they cannot ascertain the security of your website, how can you expect them to do online business with you? Choose companies that can deliver an https:// feature.

A good email service is also very important. You should be provided with your own email address. This allows your present and potential customers easy communication with you. Look for a hosting package that offers a good number of email services like numerous mailboxes, emails, auto responders, etc. The ability to easily connect with people is the key to online business success.

A good customer service support is extremely important. When something goes wrong with your site, it should be fixed promptly. Online unavailability of your site means loss of income. Make sure their technicians can be reached anytime. The web can be a complicated place so make sure that help is readily available to you. Check a company for customer satisfaction before getting a package because technical problems may very well occur at some point.

Some companies offer free online hosting. However, this kind of plan normally suits the simplest of all businesses and that of the smallest scale. Online web hosting is a plus to any business. If you don’t have the means now, you should save for it. It will definitely boost your sales. In the meantime, you may try out the freebies. However, expect unsolicited advertisements to pop up here and there.

A Few Useful Coding Tips For PHP – MySQL Hosting

Posted by on July 14, 2010 - 8:49 am

Due to the simplicity and effectiveness of PHP and the functionalities of MySQL, PHP-MySQL hosting solution becomes the favorite choice for many website developers. However, many PHP programmers, mostly the inexperienced website developers may face different kinds of problem because they are lack of understanding about some tips and tricks to improve their PHP hosting performance. Going through the contents of this article will help you learn the top five most useful tips for your website development.

Use the quotes effectively
To output a string, you can use double quotes inside echo to accomplish it.String variables should be quoted with single quotes, while there should not be any quotes around numeric data.

Turn on PHP error reporting
In case that you may run into some PHP error, it is advised to turn on PHP error reporting so that you can get some clue from it. To display error messages caused by your PHP script, you need to configure your php.ini file. You can include the following line of code:

error_reporting = E_ALL

Pay attention to file extensions
There are basically three extensions available for PHP files:
.php
.php3
.phtml

Many new programmers take this lightly and face problem in the future. You need to keep in mind that you should use any type of these three extensions for your PHP file, that is.php or.php3 or.phtml extension.

Locate your PHP files correctly

After you have successfully installed the PHP on your server, you will find out that there is a file named htdocs in your installation directory. It is just this htdocs file that you should locate your php files.

Start and end the PHP script rightly

The standard starting and ending tags in PHP coding are tag. Even though some servers might also support shorter hand tags ( for ending tag). But it is not a good practice to use the informal one tag set. You are highly recommended to use the standard tag set. for starting and ending.

Commenting tip for PHP script
It is very common that sometime you may need to include comments within your code for better understanding. There is a bit differences if your comment has simply a single line or multiple lines. For a single line comment, you only need to add ” // ” before your comment. For multiple lines comment, you will need to put your comment explanation between ” /* ” and ” */ “.

Finally, there is an array of web hosting options in the web hosting industry and PHP-MYSQL solution has won an accolade for its effectiveness. Here I would say that hostease is a top ranked PHP-MYSQL hosting provider and it offers extremely fast and reliable PHP web hosting service at very affordable price.

What is Clustered Web Hosting?

Posted by on July 14, 2010 - 8:48 am

There are many different types of web hosting, but one that is not well-known is clustered hosting. This unique form of web hosting differs from the shared and dedicated web hosting, most notably in the fact that it spreads the hosting of websites across several machines. The reason it does this is that it can decrease the chances of one service of the web hosting from affecting another. An example of this is if you have your FTP, e-mail and website all on one server, and that server goes down, you lose all your capabilities. However, if they are spread over three servers, and the website server goes down, your customers and employees can still contact you through e-mail and access files on the FTP server.

Large websites that get a great deal of traffic or have a lot of users will use clustered web hosting so that they can run at peak efficiency and not worry about one server cutting them off from the world.

Another plus of clustered web hosting is that with hosting off a single server, there is only a certain amount of bandwidth available for the website, database, e-mail, FTP and whatever else is included. This can be a problem if a website is especially busy. By spreading out all the services of the web host to several servers, there is a great deal more space available on each server to handle the website traffic.

The problem when everything is on one server is that there is a single point of failure. If that server goes down, everything goes down. It is like old Christmas lights that would all go off if one light didn’t work based on how they were made. By balancing the load with cluster hosting there is no single point of failure, and that helps to keep your website running even if your e-mail is down.

Many larger companies are looking to clustered web hosting as a way to handle a great deal of their traffic and website solutions. With several servers devoted to them, they can be confident knowing that the likelihood of everything going down is very remote. In a way, these companies are choosing not to put all their eggs in one basket, choosing instead to spread them out. That way, if one thing goes down, they don’t all go down and the business can keep making money while one server is repaired.

How to Choose Best Web Host Package

Posted by on July 14, 2010 - 8:48 am

Web space

Contrary to what you may believe, generally more is not better!. Many websites offer extremely high or unlimited web space. Usually company’s that offer a large amount of space do so knowing that it is highly unlikely that you will ever use all of that web space, and if you do you can expect to be penalised somehow.

Many individuals out there incorrectly believe that the web hosting segment provides the same kinds of services but its not the fact. Web space will vary according to needs, depending on how many pictures your pages use, whether you need sound files, video clips, etc.

Bandwidth you need

If your site becomes popular then your site will likely be penalised for excessive bandwidth usage, which can mean that your site being deleted without notice.Even a well visited site, is unlikely to generate more than 1 gigabyte of bandwidth in the first few years of operation. Thus going for 50gigabyte or more accounts is a complete waste of money.

Most hosting companies offer a variety of bandwidth options in their plans. So exactly what is bandwidth as it relates to web hosting.

You should plan for more bandwidth if you plan to use a lot of images, very high volume email accounts or audio/video on your website.

FTP access

FTP, or File Transfer Protocol, is a method used to transfer a file from one computer to another across the Internet.

Technical support

Technical support (also tech support) is a range of services providing assistance with technology.

support function 24 hours a day, 7 days a week is best.

Dedicated Server Hosting Plans

With dedicated hosting you are in the driver’s seat and can specify everything that is installed on the server, including the operating system, software and other scripts that you need to use.

SSL (secure server)

Secure Sockets Layer, predecessor of Transport Layer Security.

SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is a commonly-used protocol for managing the security of a message transmission on the Internet.

Price

You should realise that you often get what you pay for, although it’s not necessarily true that the most expensive hosts are the best.

Resellers Hosting

Choosing Your Reseller Hosting Provider Choosing a hosting company that will meet your needs is very important.

International

Hosting it in USA has the advantage of faster access for what is probably the largest number of your overseas visitors.

Reliability and Fast Access Speed

The web host be both reliable and fast, and it should also guarantee its uptime. Look for an absolute minimum uptime of 99%. In reality uptime would be expected to be higher. The host should offer some sort of guarantee for the minimum uptime, which acts as an incentive for the host to ensure that its servers are running all the time.

Linux Vs Windows Web Hosting – Does it Make a Difference?

Posted by on July 14, 2010 - 8:47 am

One of the most difficult decisions any new comer will need to make is which web hosting platform would he or she wants their server to be on. Two of the most popular choices are Linux and Windows web servers. Before we can tell which web server is more appropriate for our website, it is worth-while to research some of the key functionalities, advantages and weaknesses of these 2 types of web hosting platforms in advance to facilitate the necessary selections.

• Cost – as Microsoft owned the Windows operating system, it is much more expensive to setup up and run a Windows server as compared to Linux, which is an open source operating system which is free of charge, available to anyone.

• FTP commands and control panel – Both Linux and Windows servers support these well, however some of the FTP commands are slightly different between 2 operating systems because some of the FTP programs are designed with one or another in mind. That’s the reason why occasionally you will get error messages running some of the FTP commands on your server.

• Support – compared to Windows, Linux has limited support for some of their technology which proved to be expensive and limited at times. Linux is running on much specific technologies as compared to Windows which is much more generic.

• Security and reliability – As Windows is widely used for home PC, there is a tendency that the security features incorporated for this operating system is not as high technology as those for Linux, which are mostly used by developers and system engineers only. The probability of successful hack attack on Windows OS is a lot higher than Linux OS may also be contributed to their end users as people tend to look for flaws in these common systems.

• Performance – Linux has been reported to be of high performance mainly due to the way Linux servers are packaged. Linux plans are more specifically designed for their target customers. On the other hand, Windows usually offer an ” all in one ” package to their users as general. Thus, with Windows, the users get most of the features, if not all, from the Windows OS, while for Linux, their customers will only get what they specifically have called out for.

• Conversion – if there are plans for you to change your OS in the near future, then having a Linux web server now is fine as this conversion should be smooth and easy to have your website converted from Linux hosting to Windows hosting. On the contrary, it is indeed a nightmare for anyone who wished to convert their website from Windows hosting to Linux hosting.

• Ease of interaction – if there are any needs for interactions between your website and the visitors or customers, it is more suitable for your website to be with Windows hosting as this OS support online chat services and messaging services much better than Linux hosting.

• Level of expertise – Windows hosting is more user-friendly and it is suitable to be used by anyone, even those with no experience find Windows hosting service easy to learn and manage, while for Linux hosting, it is designed for those with extensive experience and knowledge on web hosting and technical back-ground.

When you are searching for web hosting, reverse researching is important where you should find out the complaints about the host. Which field they are weak in? What mistake they always do? This can give you a clear picture on their performance. For more information, check out webhosting reviews.

How to Find the Best Web Hosting Service Among All Web Hosting Geeks

Posted by on July 14, 2010 - 8:46 am

How to find the best web hosting service for your website? is one of the very complicated and tricky question for a webmaster. It is as important as your website related other works like website design, Website link structure etc. It is complicated because there are thousands of web hosting geeks around, who are offering their hosting services and all calming that “We are the Best Web Hosting Service Provider”. This crowd of thousands of web hosting service providers make your decision complicated and can get you guessing and wondering around.

But you can choose and select the best suitable for you easily if you follow few steps and if you access your requirements. First of all you need to access your needs. Most of the hosting provider is good but the best is the one who is providing and serving all your needs within your budget. Just by accessing your hosting needs you can get to the best hosting service among all web hosting geeks.

First you need to decide which operating system/platform you need for your website. If you are looking forward to have a simple website with few pages you can go for both types of hosting Windows Hosting or Linux Hosting. For such a small website you must not worry a lot just be sure that the web host you are choosing is reliable and comes with 99.9% guarantied up-time. But if you are looking for an interactive website and using languages like.PHP, Ruby on Rails, My SQL etc you can look for Linux Hosting, but if you are using Ms FrontPage, ASP.NET, MS SQL, Ms Access you must look forward to find the best windows hosting provider.

When you done with the operating platform for your site then look for or access your other needs like Amount of web space you will need for your website, Bandwidth/Data Transfer, FTP access, Control panel, multiple email accounts, user friendly website stats, E-commerce, Website Builder, Database and file manager.

You must know how much web space needed for your site? How much data transfer your website will need every month? How many ftp users you are looking for? What will be your control panel? Or which control panel you prefer to use? How many email accounts you will need? Are you getting free stats counters? Or which stats counter you are going to use to track traffic at your website?
Now you are done with your needs but last one missing that is your budget!

If you are looking for simple family website for fun, or something else just for fund you must go for low cost hosting provider, even be sure of up-time guaranty. On the other hand if you are looking for a web hosting more professional, important for your business, or want to reach your customer and looking for a online web business, you must go for reliable web host, must not go for shared hosting, can start with a Virtual Dedicated Package or directly go for Dedicated Servers. It may cost you quite a lot more than shared but it will emphasis your website performance & security as well. Even you can start with shared hosting as low as $20-$50 for one year. But be sure you will get good speed, enough bandwidth and must support other needs for your website.

Now you are done with your needs so you can go and search for the best hosting service for you among the thousand s web hosting geeks. But few more point you must look before buying web hosting services.

Reliability and Speed
The best hosting service provide offers up-time guaranty. Look for clients review around the web by Google the service provider, you will get to know if the provider is reliable or not. The following is also important to access the reliability of a web host.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Types of Web Hosting

Posted by on July 14, 2010 - 8:45 am

There are many different Web Hosting options available. Three of these are Shared Hosting, Managed Hosting and Colocation Hosting. This article looks at these three hosting options and there advantages and disadvantages.

SHARED HOSTING

Shared Hosting is where different sites share a server provided by a hosting company. This is the most basic hosting option and also the cheapest.

The main selling point of shared hosting is the cost. As the server is shared between different servers the hosting company can split the cost between all of the clients using the server. This option is suitable to small businesses that do not have the requirements of a more advanced type of hosting. Multiple software options are available with Shared Hosting.

There are restrictions though. The flexibility of other hosting types are not available. There is restriction to the amount of bandwidth available. The amount of bandwidth and RAM that is available is shared between all of the sites sitting on the server and therefore is limited. Although there is technical support there is a limit to the amount of support clients will get from the hosting company.

Due to the price, Shared Hosting is the best option for many businesses. If it is only basic web hosting that is needed, shared hosting is sufficient. For those who require more from their hosting, though, the service provided by Shared Hosting may not be enough.

MANAGED HOSTING

With Managed Hosting a client leases an entire server from the hosting company. Therefore they effectively have their own server to host their site on. The server is still owned by the hosting company but it is not shared with any other websites.

Managed Hosting is most suitable for large websites that expect a high amount of traffic or require large databases. It is much more powerful than a shared server and there are almost an unlimited amount of software solutions. The amount of bandwidth available is also much higher. The client can have multiple domain names on the server if required. One of the main selling points is that the client has full control over the server, although there is still support available from the hosting company.

One of the main disadvantages of Managed Hosting is that it expensive. As a whole server is being rented, the cost is quite high. More knowledge is also required when compared to Shared Hosting. Although there is much support available, knowledge of hosting is required to get the most out of Managed Hosting.

COLOCATION HOSTING

Colocation is when a client has their own server, but they store it at a colocation centre owned by the web hosting company. Colocation host’s rent rack space for companies to use for their servers. In many ways it is the same as a client hosting their own website except the server is stored elsewhere.

Colocation has many of the same advantages as if the client hosted their own website. They own the server so they can do with it as they please. They have full management of the server. With Colocation there tends to be high bandwidth availability and high uptime, although it is still limited compared with Managed Hosting. Colocation centres have high security and a controlled environment suitable for hosting needs.

Price wise Colocation is quite expensive, although cheaper than Managed Hosting. A client has to purchase their own server and then rent rack space on top of that. The skills level required to run the server is high. As the client owns the server they have to sort out any problems themselves and the support available is fairly limited, although there are sometimes packages available which come with support.

Colocation is mainly for anyone who wants to run their own server but do not have the space or budget to run it from their own premises. They therefore can store it at a Colocation centre, while still being in control.

How to Keep Your Web Hosting Costs Down

Posted by on July 14, 2010 - 8:44 am

Getting your website up and running for the first time in your new speedy hosting provider can be really exciting. The tools available give you a lot of flexibility in customizing your website, whilst the bandwidth and space should be enough for larger personal sites and some business sites to be hosted without any signs of performance degradation. However, as your site continues to stay online, you may find yourself struggling with the web hosting costs. Here are some ways to keep these web hosting costs down so you can enjoy more uptime for lower costs.

Start with a Low Cost Web Hosting Plan

If you haven’t decided where you wish to host your website, start off with a low cost web hosting plan. Before accepting the plan, read the specifications and make sure your website can support these specifications. See if the amount of space provided is reasonable and if the bandwidth is sufficient. Many of the best hosts offer unlimited space and bandwidth which are excellent choices. If you are spending more money on excess bandwidth, the next four methods can help greatly.

Design and Code Web Pages to be Faster to Load

If you have experience with web development, try to analyze your site code and optimise it using the latest CSS and AJAX techniques. Utilising these techniques can not only reduce the size of your pages for bandwidth savings, but also make the site more attractive and accessible to visitors. Also try to substitute Flash elements with other web techniques if possible.

Use the Best Format and Compression Level for Images

If your site is heavy on images and graphics, you can reduce the file sizes of these files as well to save bandwidth by using any image editing software like Adobe Photoshop to slightly reduce the quality of JPEG files. The difference in quality may not be noticeable if you add a little bit of compression, but the lowered file size can save a ton of bandwidth during heavy traffic situations. You can also try converting some graphics to GIF format if there are only few colours being displayed.

Use File Hosting Services when sharing Larger Files

If your website has a ‘downloads’ section where people get retrieve large documents and other types of media, that may cost you big on the bandwidth. Fortunately, there are plenty of free file sharing sites that offer unlimited bandwidth. Upload the files in these areas and copy the link to your download’s page.

Restrict Certain Areas to Registered Members Only

If you maintain a large website aimed towards a specific audience, valuable bandwidth may be wasted on people that just browse around and do not do anything productive. Add a registration script to your site or blog so that only quality visitors that really want to read your content can get in. This keeps other unwanted visitors at the home page which shouldn’t consume as much bandwidth.

Keep track of your bandwidth and see how much you have saved after trying these tips. If you are confident that you can keep the bandwidth low, you can possibly switch to a lower costing web hosting plan to minimize the heavy costs

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