| Web Authoring | Web Authoring is a time intensive, artistic process. It involves establishing with you what is appropriate content (text and graphics), how it should look, creating the web page(s) HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language). HTML design issues include utilization of tables to control the text and graphics flow, setting up links for other pages and web sites, etc. |
| Hosting Services |
Hosting Services are provided by a company that owns or rents space on one or more servers (PCs) that are accessible to the Internet community. This service provides you with all of the basics needs for your site to be on the web.
At minimum, hosting services includes giving you a directory with dedicated disk space on their server for your files. Other features often include are FTP (File Transfer Protocol) capability so that you can transfer files to/from your PC and the host company's server an E-mail mailbox along with facilities to maintain your E-mail ID and password. Advanced accounts may also allow CGI (Common Gateway Interface) capability so that you can create your own programs to handle data that users enter via HTML forms. Access for you to the Internet is not part of the hosting service. Some companies that provide hosting services can also provide you with access to the Internet for an additional charge. If a Domain Name is not desired, all of these services can be supplied by a company such as Compuserve or AOL. |
| Domain Name |
A Domain Name is an address that uniquely identifies your company/web site on the internet. All internet sites have a domain name, but there are two varieties that are associated with the type of web service you establish.
A company that has a Virtual web hosting account has paid extra money for the hosting fee and for their own IP (Internet Protocol) address, and will be assigned a domain name of their choice similar to "www.yourcompany.com". Virtual hosting costs $50 a year (pre-pay two years) and sometimes also requires a one time setup fee that varies from company to company. A non-Virtual web hosting account utilizes the hosting company's domain name and would be assigned a domain name such as "www.eckware.com/yourcompany/". This type of account meets the basic needs of a lot of companies and organizations. If you have a membership with AOL or Compuserve, you can setup a non-Virtual account with them at no cost other than what is involved in the web authoring. |
| Advertising Your Site | Advertising Your Site is done by registering your domain name or URL (Universal Resource Locator) with several of the top INTERNET search engines, such as InfoSeek. The companies that host the search engines allow you to register your site for free, placement being somewhat random based on a number of factors. For more exposure, you can also pay to advertise your site at other web sites. |
| Internet Service Providers | Internet Access can be purchased from a number of Internet Service Providers (ISP) companies. For a home, it usually consists of a dialup connection from your PC to the ISP via a modem. Companies such as AOL, Compuserve and EROL's can provide you with Internet access plus a large number of other features such as forums, chat rooms, etc. for a modest fee. Some of these companies will even provide you with disk space to use for your own web pages. |
| FTP | FTP or File Transfer Protocol is a feature that allows you to connect out from your PC to your web host site and manage your site's web files. This includes the transfer to/from the host text files (ASCII) and graphic files (binary). |
| CGI | CGI or Common Gateway Interface refers to one of many languages commonly used to program on the web for things such as counters, forms, etc. Canned procedures that are available from various sources can be used without in-depth knowledge of programming, but skills with PERL, JAVA, etc. are a plus when delving into CGI and it's utilization. |