Hosting Services



Having decided that a website would be a good decision for any business to have especially in the new e-commerce world we all live in, you then have to find a domain name which is your web address or your URL address. The next step would be to find a Web Designer who is going to design a wonderful site that is going to generate you lots and lots of business. The web designer would usually provide Hosting Services; I think this is recommended as if things go wrong due to a software update a web designer are best placed to quickly get your site back up and running again.

I have outline below some of the key terminology that is used.

Disk Space: This is the amount of ' space' you can use on the server.

Your Domain Name: Domain names are disappearing fast. Don't wait to secure your name - even if you are not ready to create a Web site today, your name will be registered, and parked, ready to use at a later date.

A virtually hosted site is accessed using your domain name e.g. www.yourcompany.co.uk

FTP: FTP or File Transfer Protocol is the standard way to upload files/your web site to a server. It is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Microsoft FrontPage Extensions: A series of programs supplied on the server that serves your website, to allow active content to run. These allow sophisticated programs to be built to be included within your website.

PHP Support: PHP, or Hypertext Preprocessor, is an open source, server-side, HTML embedded scripting language used to create dynamic Web pages. (Similar to ASP and Cold Fusion, PHP is executed on the server).

MySQL Database: The most popular Open Source SQL (Structured Query Language),database management system. MySQL Server was originally developed to handle large databases much faster than existing solutions. MySQL Server today offers a rich and useful set of functions. Its connectivity, speed, and security make MySQL Server highly suited for accessing databases on the Internet.

ASP/ASP.NET Support: Active Server Pages - a specification for a dynamically created Web page with a .ASP extension, that utilizes ActiveX scripting -- usually VB Script or Jscript code.

Microsoft Access Database:

A Microsoft software product that is primarily a data management tool (database software).

Microsoft SQL Server Database: A relational database management system (RDBMS) which is part of Microsoft's BackOffice family of servers. SQL Server was designed for client/server use and is accessed by applications using SQL.

UNIX/Linux Server: Unix has become a widely used multiuser general-purpose operating system around the world.

Linux, is a Unix-like operating system that was designed to provide PC users a free, or very low-cost, operating system comparable to the traditional (and usually more expensive), Unix systems.

Microsoft Windows 2003 Server: Windows 2003 Server is a multipurpose operating system capable of handling a diverse set of server roles.

Site Backups: The servers are backed up daily.

Data Transfer per month: In general, any outward bound traffic from a web site, with the exception of e-mail, is considered to be data transfer. For example, each time a web page, image, midi file, quicktime video, etc. is loaded, data transfer is generated.

SSL Secure Server: Secured Sockets Layer is a protocol that transmits your communications, over the Internet, in an encrypted form.

Linux and Windows plans support Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) with your own certificate, if required, for a customised shopping cart. Just purchase an SSL certificate from any Internet certificate authority (such as Thawte) and we will install it on your web site.

SSL secure credit card capture: Secured Sockets Layer is a protocol that transmits your communications over the Internet in an encrypted form.

A capture page is provided with the Shopping cart system.

Email storage per mailbox: You can have web generated email associated with your domain name, storing 20MB of mail/data per mail box.

POP3 mailboxes: The number of individually named web generated email mail boxes - e.g info@yourdomain.co.uk

Email forwarding: You can forward your web generated email to an alternative email address, when/if required.

Catch-all mail box: A domain e-mail box collects all mail for all users into a single mailbox. You collect this mail with any standard e-mail program, or you can use a mail server to collect and distribute the e-mail to individual users at your end. If you need help choosing or setting up a mail server,

Virus scanned email: Domain email is scanned for viruses.

Email spam filtering: An updated spam filter checks domain mail.

Access to email via Webmail: You can log-on, and access your webmail via a browser, on a PC anywhere.