Data back-up would be the process of saving valuable data on a remote server or in some media that could be used to be able to restore them once you need to. You could face situations that your applications become corrupt or a data file becomes corrupted. Some other situations that could result in data loss would be natural disasters, intentional damage and hardware failure. In such situations, you could use the data that has been backed up in the remote server or media to restore.

Doing a periodic backup would be necessary so that there would not be too much data that would be lost in the event of a contingency. In the web hosting industry, this is very common and is an absolute must, since information face numerous contingencies in addition to the ones already mentioned. With the various viruses and worms that have been appearing in cyberspace, data loss could happen instantly so baking up would be a clever and practical idea.

The first part of this question is easy to answer, yes you can make a good quality website for free, well almost. There is one very small expense involved and that is buying a domain name. Your website address should cost you around $10 and that will cover you for one years use. I know what it’s like to be seriously short of funds but even at my lowest point I could scrape together ten bucks!

Next you need a HTML editor, which is a very convoluted title for a website builder. You will have no problem finding them, just put ‘free HTML editor’ into the search engines and up will pop a fairly lengthy list – but which, if any, are any good ? In my opinion the best of the bunch is Kompozer, downloading it is a simple process and there are no hidden catches.

So now you have the basic tool to generate web pages and to build your site, so what’s next?

If there is one phrase that strikes fear into the heart of any wannabe online superstar it’s the dreaded ‘ftp’ or file transfer protocol. This is a piece of software that takes your newly created site and transfers to your ‘hosting‘ company which, in turn, puts it onto the world wide web, a process that many find truly scary as well as technically challenging. It need not be this way, but I will get to that later.

Which free ftp program do I recommend? It is Filezilla. This guys all seem to love their ‘Z’s’

So far we have only spent around $10 and have our site created but in order for Filezilla to present your site to the world you will need a ‘hosting account’. Web hosting companies like Hostgator (one of the best) will cost you around $5 to $15 per month depending on the level of service that you need. The good news is that for most people the cost will be closer to the $5. A web host simply loads all of the elements of your site onto the internet.

Is it possible for anyone, including a complete beginner, to not only make a website for free – almost – but to monetise it, in other words make it generate a regular income? Yes it is but there is a final piece of the internet puzzle, the most vital of all, that we all need to get our hands on before our online career can really get off the ground.

This most important element is, in fact, a two part process.

You must have a step by step, non-techie guide, that shows you in plain English how to handle all of the technical aspects of not only creating a website but exactly how to use the ftp software.

Getting a good quality site online is one thing but how can you get it to bring home the bacon – is anyone going to ‘show you the money?’

Choosing a web host for your site is one of the most important steps towards creating your own Internet presence,In order to make the Good choice you should carefully follow these key points:

Researching!:

Will you need huge amounts of disk space and bandwidth? most likely not. Hosts offering these endless amounts of disk space and bandwidth are referred to as “oversellers” who promises an extremely large portion of a service (disk space, bandwidth, databases..).they load their servers with hundreds of accounts, hoping that their clients won’t use all of the available resources, because Generally Web pages (HTML) are very small – on average 40 – 50 KB. This means 25 Mb of disk space will be enough for around 500 typical web pages. also you may consider that Oversellers aren’t necessarily of low-quality, although it’s not worth taking the risk.

‘Unlimited’ Disk space or/and bandwidth ? It is simply NOT possible! After you’ve decided the amount of disk space, bandwidth, as well as other features (e-mail, MYSQL, etc..) you will require, it’s time to set a budget. If you plan on finding a quality Web Host, your budget should be no less than $5 per month so you are not leaning on the edge of quality..

Making the decision!:

Ok, so after you’ve checked and verified the following:

o The Web Hosting company isn’t “new” and they don’t have anything to hide from their whois information.

o They have had positive rankings and reviews posted here and they appear to be a good option.

o Their prices value is reasonable. They are not oversellers and their plans appear to be based on quality. After You’ve evaluated the host and it has met the discussed requirements, You should place your order! Everything appears as if it would suit your requirements. Good luck! Let your Web Hosting company make the best of you!

Other recommendations!:

oIt is important that you generate and save backups yourself. although if something goes wrong and you lose your web site data- what are you going to do?

oRead the host‘s Terms of Service and Acceptable Usage Policy to save your account from getting suspended and probably deleted!

o If you do need to move, there are critical steps to ensure you do it the correct way: you should Find a new host! Don’t cancel with your current host until you have another, first Backup your web site with your old web host and then Transfer the backup to your new Web host, Change the nameservers on your domain name to your new host and finally cancel the account with your old Web host. you should also consider allowing 24 hours before cancellation to ensure minimal downtime.

Not having to share a server with a dozen or maybe hundreds of other webmasters means that there is much less of a chance for things to go wrong. If you thing of a hundred people trying to do something on a computer as opposed to one person you can imagine what I mean. It only takes on person to install a script incorrectly or get a sudden traffic surge and not only their site goes down but every other site on that server.

With shared hosting you are very limited to what you can do. With your own dedicated server you get SSH or shell access which means you can control everything that goes on with that server.

A dedicated server is a specialist machine that is designed to do one job and one job only and that is to serve your website up to visitors. It has been optimized so that all of its functions are geared towards web hosting.

There are of course more than just one type of dedicated server. Most hosting companies offer several different hosting packages for servers. Your first decision is whether you want to use a Windows based dedicated server or one that is running Linux. This choice will depend on several factors some of which include the type of site you are running. If you have a PHP and MySQL database that needs hosting then your going to need a Linux server. If you have windows based back ends or have certain integration requirement for Microsoft software then you will need a Windows based server.

The next set of considerations are that of the specifications of your server. Do you need a server that is going to be as fast and as powerful as possible or can you get by with a lower cost server that is less powerful. You should consider the storage and bandwidth requirements. The larger the site and the more information you are going to need to store then the bigger the disk space you are going to need. There is no point in under planning and running out of storage space six months down the line.

They will be placing ads on your website!

I’m not criticizing the host because they need to survive as a business and by giving you free hosting they generate income from the advertisers. It’s just not a great way for you to function as a business unless it will be for personal use.

How serious are you about your internet business?

If you are promoting a product or service and intend to use a blog or site for your business then you must be aware of three things before settling on a free web hosting provider:

1. There will be limitations – with the constant growth on the internet you want to be able to have the flexibility to keep up with the times.

2. The quality of the service will be below average – this includes customer support which more than likely be non-existent.

3. It will be Ad Supported – there will be many annoying ad tools at work including pop-ups and a lot of flashing banners!

Are there are any free web hosts who are worth signing up with?

If you want to earn a long-term income online at some point you will want to invest in a quality web hosting service. A shared hosting account will cost you a lot less than you may think. It can go as low as seven bucks a month. Luckily, I know of one superb hosting company that offers free accounts with a lot of the bells and whistles paid hosting comes with including no advertising. Here are some of the features they offer:

- 250 MB of Disk Space, 100 GB Bandwidth – Host your own domain – cPanel Powered Hosting – Over 500 website templates ready to download – Free POP3 Email Box with Webmail access – FTP and Web based File Manager – PHP, MySQL, Perl, CGI, Ruby. – And much more…

If you have decided that you do not want to ay a single dime to have your website hosted, you need to first equip yourself with certain facts and figures as well as understand what you are getting yourself into.

First of all, it is important to understand that free web hosting could be an ideal option and hosting solution for users who own a personal website or just simple web pages that require no database interaction, large storage or transfer requirements.

The typical features of a free web hosting include minimum storage space, no MySQL databases, no databases, delayed or no customer support, and most commonly loads of advertisements (in the form of banners or text ads or flashing text ads, pop-ups, floating ads and more) on your web pages. Also, your web page may also include a footer which is essentially the web host‘s company information and equates as the company’s advertisement on your web page. This feature is the most intrusive of all and could lend a feel of unprofessionalism for your website.

Free web hosting therefore is therefore not recommended if you plan to carve a professional image on the Internet. For websites that require more features and tools, but still do not want to risk too much on a hosting package or company, then budget hosting could prove to be a safe alternative.

With free web hosting, the user may need to compromise on various aspects of a web hosting account. Free web hosting accounts are essentially restrictive and do not allow much room for growth. So if your website has a potential for growth, then even if you opt for a free hosting package, ensure that your hosting provider offers an easy and convenient upgrade of your hosting account. It is highly advisable to read the Service Agreement of the company in its entirety to avoid any kind of future complications that would lead to losses and unwanted problems.

1. With free hosting, your server is overloaded with many other free hosting accounts. It is hard to guarantee your CPU and bandwidth since dozens of websites on the same server fight against each other for CPU and bandwidth. You can image the result of your website: visitors are hard to get access to your website.

2. Low disk space allocated. You usually get a very small amount of space that not sufficient for your business expansion with free hosting accounts. Only a small traffic is supported. If there is a lot of traffic, you site is of high likely to go down. It is impossible for you to display your products or service with large pictures or video files.

3. Limited website tools. You are provided with limited tools to set up your website with a free hosting account. For example, you may have no permission to use FTP to transfer your files from or to the server. Many scripts, like PHP script and database, like MySQL may not supported, therefore you will not able to run a forum on your website.

4. You have little control. Many free hosting services require you to display banner ads, pop-up windows on your site. Nothing is annoying than these totally unrelated ads for your visitors! If you are lucky enough, you may come across companies who give you free hosting without any advertising at all. However, they might try to converting you to pay their service in the future because they need to make money. If you do not pay for it, your account could be in danger, for example, they may delete your account.

5. No customer support. With a free web hosting, it is hard for you when a problem raises you have no one to turn to. If they offer any support, this service usually is poor. The staff is not professional and it will also take you a lot of time waiting for them to solve any issue.

6. No domain name. You are not allowed to use your own domain name; only sub-domain name under that company is provided. You can image how hard for you to establish your business since no domain also means you cannot have your email address of your domain and it is also hard for the search engines to index your site.

7. Insecurity. The internet security firm, Websense Security Labs said: Hackers are using free websites to distribute malware, spyware, and viruses at a greatly increasing frequency. Therefore, website hosted with free web hosting service not only has no credibility but insecurity as well.

8. Not reliable. Free hosting services could go out of business at any time. You will never know when your provider is going to close the service. No one expect the website with your longtime efforts just disappear over one night. Free is not a very sustainable business model since no guarantee is promised.

If you are really caring about your online presence and your business, I recommend you choose a professional hosting. If you’ve decided to purchase professional hosting, hostease offer share web hosting with basic plan, blog plan, business plan, as well as dedicated server. Hope you good luck!

Free hosting

A free hosting, as a rule, allows to create only the most simple sites consisting of a set of HTML-pages. Sometimes it is possible to use the built-in forums or guest books, however, very limited on the possibilities. For example, without registration of users, without possibility to moderate a forum or a guest. Any site control systems are out of question.

One more point is that for CMS functioning php and mysql are necessary, but no free hosting provides this. Besides, more often a hosting company that is giving a free hosting, uses sites of clients for advertisements allocation. And, opening a site on a free hosting, you will have to reconcile to presence of banners and pop-up windows on it. In the end of all the domain name will belong to the hosting company. The free hosting can be used for personal pages (e.g., I and my hobby), noncommercial projects, as trial platforms. Serious projects, which aim to get income, or corporate sites in most cases use a paid hosting.

Advantages of a paid hosting

A paid hosting is a possibility to use all modern technologies for a web-resource creation and support. An inexpensive hosting allows to open a site for a small or a moderate-sized firm, or a small project. Large portals use more expensive tariff schedules. But in any case each project receives qualitative services.

Even an inexpensive hosting allows to use php and mysql (from one to several databases). This means, the project owner can install a content management system (CMS) without which customization and service of a today’s web-resource is very hard. Besides, it is possible to make a qualitative forum, the guest book, to add popular scripts (for example, voting, the form of a feedback and other). All this will make the project on an inexpensive hosting much more interesting and more attractive in comparison with the limited free hosting.

An important question is a domain name. Any paid hosting, including an inexpensive hosting, allows to use a domain name of the second level ( .net, .com, .org etc.). Thus the domain name belongs to a client of the hosting company and is his/her property. Besides, to promote a site is possible only if the site is located on a paid hosting. For promoting sites on a free hosting it is required more efforts as search engine crawlers consider them less serious. By competitive queries it is almost unreal for the sites on a free hosting to be on the top of a search engine result page.

Thus, even an inexpensive hosting gives much more advantages, rather than a free hosting. The paid hosting is a metric of solidity of a site and gravity of intentions of its owners. Also in case of a paid hosting there are defined all legal issues connected with the property right for a domain name and a web resource. If you are limited in resources, an inexpensive hosting will allow you to open and to develop successfully your own project in a network. It is good that the question price is insignificant: only 5-6 dollars a month.

The fact that iPage takes, very seriously, care of customer’s websites, their email, and their online security makes you want to be the part of their web hosting. For only $3.50 per month, you will get hosting features as unlimited disk space, monthly bandwidth and addon domain as well as free domain name, free site builder, CGI-BIN, SSI, Frontpage extension and FTP access, regardless of your subscription period.

As far as email features are concerned, users get unlimited email accounts, forwarders, auto responders and web based email. Also, aside from unlimited mySQL databases, software and plugin as Perl 5, PHP 4 & 5, Java script/DHTML, Python, WordPress, and many more are available. Their partnerships with multiple industry leaders such as Google and Carbonite supplies users with numerous exclusive deals. 2GB backup solution for free from Carbonite, a 60 days free trial on RatePoint Newsletter Manager, Google webmaster tools and Claims Google ads and Yahoo! Credits ads.

When it comes to online security, Web hosting iPage by others. They offer the scanning of malware and spam, commercial testing and a safety certificate on-line as part of their hosting plans. This includes a shared SSL, a free SiteLock Security Suite, and the option to add a GeoTrust SSL greater safety. Although the option of going for this increased security, web hosting is iPagestill affordable for type of service they provide.

Just by being a part of this web hosting provider, every user benefit a lot for affordable amount of money. This company builds their reputation on being reliable or if you want, they promise uptime of 99.9%. This is a key issue, no matter if your site is for business, personal, social or non-profit uses. Someone would think that something like this comes only as a privilege to someone who can pay extra for it, but with iPage Web Hosting, this is your right, are their subscribers.

The technical support that people really want to help their customers, is also something that they can be proud of. Technical support is available 24×7 and the most important thing is that they are friendly and polite, but also helpful and knowledgeable. In other words, they know what they say. You can obtain information on the friendly voice automated service and capability toemail. In this last option, you will be surprised to find out that they will respond relatively fast to your email. So, the help is really available.

All these things together make iPage Web Hosting one of the top web hosting companies since they are not just affordable but very affordable considering what kind of service they provide.

Operating System Common Features

There are a few common features both Windows and Linux will provide. One is how you transfer your files. Both Windows and Linux support FTP access to edit, delete or transfer files. Both operating system can render some of the same file types. HTML (.html) and JavaScript (.js) are both commonly used on both platforms. You can also run CGI in Linux and Windows. CGI is an application that is similar to writing in Perl or C#. This can help with forms and dynamic content, usually used with shopping carts. MYSQL Database and PHP can run on both Linux and Windows, but these two web development languages are more common on Linux.

Linux Operating System Server

Linux Web Hosting is probably the most used server operating system in the market. Most developers love Linux because it is open source and will support PHP and MySQL perfectly. The plus side of all of these great Features is that Linux, PHP and MySQL everything is free! They cost nothing and are all open-source applications.

PHP and MySQL can be encoded together to make everything possible. PHP can run on different platforms like Windows, but most of the time is running Linux. They use the same tags and attributes like HTML, but you can be the functions and scripts running on the Server Side Includes. Making dynamic pages, data or move data to insert or change data in a will>MySQL table. PHP can also support different tables such as Oracle, Sybase, Solid, PostgreSQL, Generic ODBC.

Linux Top Advantage – FREE & Open Source!

Windows Operating System Server

Should you go with Windows? It really matters on what coding language you are going to develop with and what your end goal of your project is. Most Web Developers will code PHP and MySQL on a Linux Server. Some have moved to ASP coding language that is only supported on a Windows server. ASP code is a very universal language coding.

Windows Web Hosting ASP has become increasingly popular as developers insight into Web ASP is a server-side programming language that supports a Windows server only. ASP stands for Active Server Pages, the XP is a free component with Windows 2000 and Windows. You can also find in Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack.

ASP coding language is very similar to an HTML file. This iscontain different tabs and attributes as HTML or XML. What makes ASP different from HTML is that the request is read through the server and executes the ASP function or script of the file. ASP can run coding languages that are similar to computer programming languages. ASP can link to different database languages.

Windows Top Advantage – Easier to Config

Security Issues and Concerns

One quick thought about both Linux and Windows servers is which is better for security. Security is one of your biggest concerns when having a website and even more when you have an ecommerce store. The sad thing about this topic is that it is an argument that will never be solved. It all comes down to if the hacker wants in or not. They both have security problems. The best way to prevent anything from happening is having a good web administrator or a good web hosting company. Having one or both of these will keep your mind at ease.

Which Web Operating System is Better?

Looking at some of the features, neither is better than the other. There are just some advantages and disadvantages of both. Finding what your website needs is the decision maker. Windows or Linux can both be used for your advantage. Some web developers love to use one or the other because of what they are used to. Some web developers only use one or the other because of the coding language they will be using. Remember there are pros and cons to both, but a website is made by the web developer, not the operating system.