OK, now it's time to talk web hosting. So far, all we've done is secured the domain name and pointed any browsers to a generic "Under Construction" type of page. The first question is, "Who should I use as a web host?" Selecting a web host should be the result of finding the best match between the requirements of your site and the hosting company. This is largely dependent upon the technology that will be used in developing your site. Here are two main considerations:
- Environment: Linux vs. Windows Most hosting packages are offered in either Windows or Linux based hosting environments. LAMP (Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP) is a commonly used collection of open source software that offers inexpensive web hosting. Windows hosting is generally a combination of Windows Server, Internet Information Server, SQL Server and ASP.NET technologies that are more expensive to license and, therefore, generally cost a little more for hosting.
- Add-On Applications There is a growing list of applications that web hosting providers offer and in many cases they're free! Two of the more popular categories of add-ons are blogs and content management systems. I'll cover both of these in more detail in future posts, but these technologies make it incredibly easy (and cheap) to build powerful, professional looking web sites without anyone having to write a single line of computer code. If you plan on using on of these for your site, it's important to choose a provider that specializes in hosting that particular application. The service and performance will typically surpass those of a provider that specializes in either something else or nothing else.
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