Jul 21 2008
New domain names are registered all the time, and ones previously registered expired. Sometimes that’s the result of simple neglect. The owner of the name chose not to renew his or her ownership, so the name became available for someone else to use. In rare cases, a highly original mind managed to think of a new one. In the other common scenarios, someone chose to just let it go or sell it.
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Jul 20 2008
Among the more useful innovations in computing, actually invented decades ago, are the twin ideas of redundancy and failover. These fancy words name very common sense concepts. When one computer (or part) fails, switch to another. Doing that seamlessly and quickly versus slowly with disruption defines one difference between good hosting and bad.
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Jul 20 2008
You can often get a substantial discount off web hosting fees by sharing a server with other sites. Or, you may have multiple sites of your own on the same system. But, just as sharing a house can have benefits and drawbacks, so too with a server.
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Jul 19 2008
Few things are less exciting than managing the disk space that always seems to be in too short a supply. But few things are more important to the health and well being of your site. Continue Reading »
Jul 16 2008
Are you a fan of Justin Timberlake? Don”t worry, you don”t need to be one to make money from his tattoo - if that sounds bizarre to you, then read on to see how it can be done, and for free…
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Jul 15 2008
When you build a web site, you often provide a means for users to communicate with you. One of the most common “add-ons” to a web site is the addition of some kind of email access. Email is used to sign users up for newsletters, provide communication for administrative issues and a hundred other uses. But, as everyone sadly knows, email problems can occur.
Virus infection is among the most common, though the situation is actually better today than in the past. Huge efforts, and some progress, has been made over the past 10 years to reduce the number and severity of virus attacks. Hackers haven”t surrendered, far from it. But they”re on the defensive like never before.
Many of those viruses were (and are) spread through email, usually in the form of email attachments. That’’s the source of the now-common advice never to open an attachment from someone you don”t know. Professionals will often extend that advice to suggest you never open an attachment that’’s unexpected, even if it’’s from someone you know. Well-meaning, but computer-challenged friends often accidentally forward virus infected emails.
Spam has taken over the top spot for email annoyances. It’’s estimated by various different professional sources that 92-97% of all email sent today is spam. While the definition varies, spam is generally regarded as any unwanted commercial email sent by someone whom the recipient doesn”t know or have a business relationship with.
Spam clutters email inboxes, requires people to sift through to find valid messages, and often contains offensive messages in some form. But, it’’s a fact of life and isn’t going away anytime soon. Even though laws are in place, thousands of spammers continue to risk fines or jail for the chance of making money from that small percentage who will open the unwanted email.
Other forms of email problems are even more severe for many web site owners. When the mechanisms fail that they rely on to send and receive messages to and from their users, that’’s a problem. Dealing with those problems can range from sending an email or instant message to an administrator, to tracking down the right person to get your site removed from a blacklist.
Email is the communications vehicle of choice for millions everyday. When the system burps, someone has to take time to do something about it. Often, that means relying on a person who is already overburdened with too many issues to resolve.
The Complete Guide to E-mail Marketing: How to Create Successful, Spam-free C...
Jul 12 2008
Database is one of the most commonly used terms that one encounters in web site design. Yet, what they really are and whether they”re essential is often not clear to novices.
A database is a collection of organized data, stored in files that have a specific structure. It’’s that organization and structure that allows for easy and rapid storage and retrieval.
The need for a database generally only arises when you have a certain amount of information and that information needs to have some structure. If you have a half-dozen names and addresses to store, a database is usually overkill. If you have a blob of data with no relationships between any of the items in that blob, maintaining a database is usually more trouble than it’’s worth.
Maintain a database? Yes, like other complex systems a database, to be effective, needs to be designed properly at the outset then kept ”tuned” for good performance. The alternative is to gradually allow the database to become more and more disorganized. That leads to difficulty in use, poor speed of retrieval and more frequent failures.
With MySQL, Access or MS SQL Server, the three most common choices of database product for web sites today, setting up a database is relatively simple. Even those with limited technical skill can get one up and running just by following some simple instructions. But some thought should be given to how you want the information organized, and to maintaining the system during its lifetime.
Suppose you have a set of names, addresses, email addresses, products purchased, date purchased and amount. If you have only a few dozen records it matters very little how these pieces are arranged and related. A database usually isn”t even warranted in this scenario. Once you have several thousand or more records, it matters a lot. Speed, the ease of expanding the set of attributes (like adding, say, product category), and other issues come into play.
Even those with little technical expertise, but a willingness to exert logical thought and invest some time, can build a very robust database. Think about how you would organize a set of data (called “tables”). Should Name, Address, and Product be in the same table? Or should the personal information be stored in one table and any product information (product, price, …) in another?
Some experimentation may be needed to get it right, but the choices have an impact on how easy the tables are to maintain. It also affects the speed with which programs can fetch old data and store the new.
Having a database also introduces new maintenance issues for the server administrator, since backups usually need to be done differently. Recovering a failed database is usually more complicated than simply re-copying files from yesterday. Ask your hosting company what tools and skills they have for dealing with any database system you consider.
It’’s true that introducing a database creates more complexity and the need for additional thought and administrative effort. At a certain level, professional expertise will be needed. But clearly the advantages outweigh the costs in many cases. Companies large and small eventually use databases to store and organize data. At some point, you may be fortunate enough to be one of them.
PHP and MySQL Web Development (4th Edition) (Developer's Library)
Jul 09 2008
Two key performance metrics will impact every web site owner sooner or later: bandwidth and server load.
Bandwidth is the amount of network capacity available, and the term actually covers two different aspects. ”Bandwidth” can mean the measure of network capacity for web traffic back and forth at a given time. Or, it sometimes is used to mean the amount that is allowed for some interval, such as one month. Both are important.
As files are transferred, emails sent and received, and web pages accessed, network bandwidth is being used. If you want to send water through a pipe, you have to have a pipe. Those pipes can vary in size and the amount of water going through them at any time can also vary.
Total monthly bandwidth is a cap that hosting companies place on sites in order to share fairly a limited resource. Companies monitor sites in order to keep one site from accidentally or deliberately consuming all the network capacity. Similar considerations apply to instantaneous bandwidth, though companies usually have such large network ”pipes” that it’’s much less common for heavy use by one user to be a problem.
Server load is a more generic concept.
It often refers, in more technical discussions, solely to CPU utilization. The CPU (central processing unit) is the component in a computer that processes instructions from programs, ordering memory to be used a certain way, moving files from one place to the next and more.
Every function you perform consumes some CPU and its role is so central (hence the name) that it has come to be used as a synonym for the computer itself. People point to their case and say ”That is the CPU”. But, the computer actually has memory, disk drive(s) and several other features required in order to do its job.
Server load refers, in more general circumstances, to the amount of use of each of those other components in total.
Disk drives can be busy fetching files which they do in pieces, which are then assembled in memory and presented on the monitor, all controlled by instructions managed by the CPU.
Memory capacity is limited. It’’s often the case that not all programs can use as much as they need at the same time. Special operating system routines control who gets how much, when and for how long, sharing the total ”pool” among competing processes.
So, how ”loaded” the server is at any given time or over time is a matter of how heavily used any one, or all, of these components are.
Why should you care?
Because every web site owner will want to understand why a server becomes slow or unresponsive, and be able to optimize their use of it.
When you share a server with other sites, which is extremely common, the traffic other sites receive creates load on the server that can affect your site. There’’s a limited amount you can do to influence that situation. But if you”re aware of it, you can request the company move you to a less heavily loaded server. Or, if the other site -which you generally have no visibility to- is misbehaving, it’’s possible to get them moved or banned.
But when you have a dedicated server, you have much more control over load issues. You can optimize your own site’’s HTML pages and programs, tune a database and carry out other activities that maximize throughput. Your users will see that as quicker page accesses and a more enjoyable user experience.
PC Magazine Windows Vista Solutions
Jul 06 2008
An operating system functions largely out of sight, or at least is supposed to. It doesn”t matter to non-geeks how a file gets stored, or how memory is used, or how simultaneous processes share the limited resources available on a computer. These are among the basic functions of any operating system.
Yet, you can find very passionate supporters - who offer very detailed lists of pros and cons - for every operating system. Why? Because, though the low-level functions of an operating system do their work out of sight, there are many other features that rise to visibility. Sometimes, they do so when they”re not supposed to.
Weighing the pros and cons objectively could consume a book. But to select a web host operating system, a manageable level of considerations apply. They can be weighed even by those who don”t know a processor queue from a pool cue.
Learning Curves
For most web site owners, administering the site/server is just overhead. It’’s not something they take pleasure in doing and they have plenty of other things to worry about. Many wouldn”t know how and have no interest in learning (rightly so, given their priorities). Consequently, ease of administration is paramount for such people.
Whether a Unix-based site (usually Linux these days) is easier to administer than Windows depends on your current skill set and the type of tools and level of access the web hosting company provides. But in general Linux is more difficult to install and maintain than Windows and the learning curve is steeper.
FTP and Control Panels
Often, you don”t have to care. For many, the operating system is fairly transparent. FTP file transfers to get a new web page up to a Windows server are very much like they are to a Linux-based site. The user/administrator simply doesn’t see what’’s behind the curtain.
Many companies provide other utilities that completely mask any awareness of the operating system underneath. When that’’s the case, the web site owner has no reason to care, until or unless they need or want to go ”inside the black box”.
Performance
Performance issues can be relevant in selecting which operating system host type to choose. But for the most part, that aspect is outside the web site owner’’s control. Overall performance can be good or bad on either system, depending on many factors that the publisher will rarely see. The issue is a wash, as far as tipping the scales is concerned.
What is more likely to be seen by a web site owner, at some point in their (and their site’’s) development is the database product that can be used to store information.
Databases
Microsoft SQL Server is relatively simple to use, yet extremely powerful and can deliver great performance. But it doesn”t run on Linux. At least, not without special software to emulate Windows, which usually kills performance. On the other hand, with a bit of time invested, MySQL isn”t significantly more difficult to learn than MS SQL Server and there are many free installations. Cost may well outweigh other considerations for most on this issue.
Programming Languages
Last, but not least, there are differences in programming languages that can be (or at least typically are) used on Windows vs Unix. If you have programmers who are skilled in Visual Basic, ASP and other Microsoft technologies, then a Windows-based host will be your preferred choice. For Perl and PHP programmers, Linux is the more common platform of choice.
Run Your Own Web Server Using Linux & Apache
Web Hosting Platform Face-Off: Windows, UNIX, and Linux
Jun 29 2008
Everyone likes to get something for free. But as the existence of spam shows, free isn”t always good. Sometimes, it’’s downright harmful. Deciding whether it’’s worth the cost to pay for hosting involves a number of complex considerations.
Hosting companies that offer free services obviously can”t stay in business from the money they make from you, since there isn”t any. So why do they offer free hosting and how do they make money? Why should you care, so long as you get yours? Because, in reality, there’’s a price of some kind for everything, even something that’’s free.
Free hosting may come from a company doing a promotion to attract business. They expect to demonstrate their value, then charge an existing customer base fees to make up for what they lost by the (short term) offer. It’’s in essence a form of advertising.
But free hosting is offered by lots of companies that are not dedicated to managing servers for websites. Google, Yahoo and thousands of others provide a modest amount of disk space and a domain name on a server for free. Users are free to do anything they like with it, though if the load becomes excessive you can be shut down.
That introduces one of the more obvious drawbacks to free hosting: resource limitations.
Typically free hosting offers a relatively small amount of space. That’’s often enough to host a few dozen pages. But an active site can quickly run out of room.
A more serious limitation is load.
Free hosting often places strict limitations on the allowed amount of bandwidth consumed. If you become a well-visited site, when users start banging away on the server, you can be asked to leave or simply be blocked for the rest of the month. Or, you may be permitted a certain quantity of total bandwidth use per month. Once it’’s reached, no one else can reach your site until the beginning of a new month.
At the same time, you will certainly be sharing equipment with thousands of other sites. Their load can affect your performance, prompting you to move. Migrating an established site brings with it a number of thorny issues that might be better avoided in the first place.
Free hosting has another potential downside: lack of support. When you pay for hosting you typically get, at least in theory, a certain level of support. Backups in case of disaster recovery from a hack or server failure, assistance in analyzing connection problems… the variety is endless. With free hosting you usually get none of that.
A company or site that offers free hosting will usually recover a disk or server that fails completely and you”ll be back up when they do. But if only selected portions of the drive fail, or you lose a few files through a virus attack or accidental deletion, you have to rely on backups to recover. A free service will usually come with no such option.
That may not be a problem if you have a small site. You can make copies of everything at another location and simply recover the site yourself - if you have the discipline to keep it current and the skills to make and restore the copy.
Free hosting will typically come with a few email addresses, intended to be used for administration and other tasks. But if your needs grow beyond that, you”ll need to seek another option. The email service also comes with minimal oversight. The server may be protected against spam attacks and provide virus scanning. But few free services will provide even minimal help with any issues that arise.
But the most serious limitation may have nothing to do with any technical issues. Free hosting services often require that your site’’s pages carry some form of advertising that pays the host, not you. That may be fine for you, or it may not. Individual circumstances vary.
On the other hand, if you”re just starting out, a free hosting option can be a great way to learn needed skills and a few of the potential pitfalls. You can set up a site, learn how to maintain and improve it, and not care too much if it gets hacked. Freely hosted sites can be a great platform for learning the ropes.
Free services don”t usually offer any of the features that an active, commercial site will need sooner or later. So if you plan to grow, it may be reasonable to get the free service for a while, knowing you”ll have to migrate when you become popular. But in the long run, you get what you pay for and you may need to pay for what you want.
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