Friday, April 30, 2010

Web Hosting Technologies

Windows Hosting

Windows hosting means hosting of web services that runs on the Windows operating system.
You should choose Windows hosting if you plan to use ASP (Active Server Pages) as server scripting, or if you plan to use a database like Microsoft Access or Microsoft SQL Server. Windows hosting is also the best choice if you plan to develop your web site using Microsoft Front Page.

Unix Hosting

Unix hosting means hosting of web services that runs on the Unix operating system.
Unix was the first (original) web server operating system, and it is known for being reliable and stable. Often less expensive than Windows.

Linux Hosting

Linux hosting means hosting of web services that runs on the Linux operating system.

CGI

CGI scripts are executables that will execute on the server to produce dynamic and interactive web pages.
Most ISPs offer some kind of CGI capabilities. ISPs often offer preinstalled, ready to run, guest-books, page-counters, and chat-forums solutions in CGI.
CGI is most common on Unix or Linux servers.

ASP - Active Server Pages

ASP is a server-side scripting technology developed by Microsoft.
With ASP you can create dynamic web pages by putting script code inside your HTML pages. The code is executed by the web server before the page is returned to the browser. Both VBScript and JavaScript can be used.
ASP is a standard component in Windows 95,98, 2000, and XP. It can be activated on all computers running Windows.
If you want to learn more about ASP, please visit our ASP tutorial.

PHP

PHP is the widely-used, free, and efficient alternative to competitors such as Microsoft's ASP.
PHP is perfectly suited for Web development, and can be embedded directly into the HTML code.
The PHP syntax is very similar to Perl and C.
PHP is often used together with Apache (web server) on various operating systems. It also supports ISAPI and can be used with Microsoft's IIS on Windows.
PHP supports many databases, such as MySQL, Informix, Oracle, Sybase, Solid, PostgreSQL, Generic ODBC, etc.
If you want to learn more about PHP, please visit our PHP tutorial.

JSP

JSP is a server-side technology much like ASP, developed by Sun.
With JSP you can create dynamic web pages by putting Java code inside your HTML pages. The code is executed by the web server before the page is returned to the browser.
Since JSP uses Java, the technology is not restricted to any server-specific platform.

Cold Fusion

Cold Fusion is another server-side scripting language used to develop dynamic web pages.
Cold Fusion is developed by Adobe.

Chili!Soft ASP

Microsoft's ASP technology runs only on Windows platforms.
However, Chili!Soft ASP is a software product that allows ASP to run on UNIX and some other platforms.

Microsoft FrontPage

FrontPage is a website design tool developed by Microsoft.
FrontPage allows users to develop a web site without any deep knowledge of web development.
Most Windows hosting solutions support FrontPage server extensions for users that use FrontPage to develop their web site.
If you plan to use FrontPage, you should look for a Windows hosting solution.

Adobe Dreamweaver

Dreamweaver is a website design tool owned by Adobe Systems.
Dreamweaver allow users to develop a web site without any deep knowledge of web development.
Dreamweaver has support for web technologies such as CSS, JavaScript, ASP.NET, ColdFusion, JavaServer Pages, and PHP.
Dreamweaver is available for both Mac and Windows operating systems.

Secure Server

A secure server can transmit data encrypted.
If you plan to do online creditcard transactions, or other types of web communication that needs to be protected against unauthorized access, your ISP must provide a secure server.

Web Hosting E-mail Services

E-mail Accounts

Hosting solutions should include e-mail accounts for each person in your company.
E-mail addresses should appear something like this:
john@mycompany.com
john.doe@mycompany.com
jdoe@mycompany.com

POP E-mail

POP stands for Post Office Protocol. POP is a standard client/server protocol for sending and receiving e-mail.
The e-mails are received and held on your internet server until you pick it up with a client e-mail program, like Microsoft Outlook or Mozilla Thunderbird.

IMAP Email

IMAP stands for Internet Message Access Protocol. IMAP is another standard protocol for sending and receiving e-mail.
The e-mails are received, and held on your internet server, until you pick it up with a client e-mail program, like Microsoft Outlook or Mozilla Thunderbird.
IMAP represents an improvement over POP because e-mail stored on an IMAP server can be manipulated from several computers (a computer at home, a workstation at the office, etc.), without having to transfer messages back and forth between computers. POP was designed to support e-mail access on one single computer.

Web-based E-mail

Web-based e-mail services enable you to access your e-mail via a web browser. You log into your e-mail account via the Web to send and retrieve e-mail. Being able to access your e-mail from any browser anywhere in the world is a very attractive option.
Examples of web-based e-mail services are Gmail and Hotmail.

E-mail Forwarding

E-mail forwarding allows you to have multiple e-mail personalities.
With e-mail forwarding, you can setup aliases for other e-mail accounts like:
postmaster@mycompany.com should be forwarded to peter@mycompany.com
sales@mycompany.com should be forwarded to mary@mycompany.com

Mailing Lists

Some service providers offer mailing list capabilities. This is valuable if you plan to send out e-mails to a large number of users.