Tag Archives: web server

01.22.13
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SITE CREATION


A website, also written as Web site, or simply site, is a set of related WebPages containing content, including text, video, music, audio, images, etc. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet address known as a Uniform Resource Locator. All publicly accessible websites collectively constitute the World Wide Web.

Website builders are tools that allow the construction of websites without manual code editing. They fall into two categories: on-line proprietary tools provided by web hosting companies, typically intended for users to build their private site; and software which runs on a computer, creating pages off-line and which can then publish these pages on any host.
Later software was written to help design web pages and by 1998 Dreamweaver had been established as the industry leader; however some have criticized the quality of the code produced by such software as being overblown and reliant on tables. As the industry moved towards W3C standards, Dreamweaver and others were criticized for not being compliant. Compliance has improved over time, but many professionals still prefer to write optimized markup by hand.
A website contains webpage; a webpage is a document, typically written in plain text interspersed with formatting instructions of Hypertext Markup Language (HTML, XHTML). A webpage may incorporate elements from other websites with suitable markup anchors.
WebPages are accessed and transported with the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), which may optionally employ encryption (HTTP Secure, HTTPS) to provide security and privacy for the user of the webpage content. The user’s application, often a web browser, renders the page content according to its HTML markup instructions onto a display terminal.
The pages of a website can usually be accessed from a simple Uniform Resource Locator (URL) called the homepage. The URLs of the pages organize them into a hierarchy, although hyper linking between them conveys the reader’s perceived site structure and guides the reader’s navigation of the site.
Some websites require a subscription to access some or all of their content. Examples of subscription websites include many business sites, parts of news websites, academic journal websites, gaming websites, file-sharing websites, message boards, web-based email, social networking websites, websites providing real-time stock market data, and websites providing various other services.
Many web hosting companies and domain sellers offer website builder programs and templates in their packages. If you use the website builder provided by your web host, be sure to try out the many different templates offered so you can more effectively relay your web page’s image to your viewers.

01.22.13
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WEB PAGES


A web page is a document or information resource that is suitable for the World Wide Web and can be accessed through a web browser and displayed on a monitor or mobile device. This information is usually in HTML or XHTML format, and may provide navigation to other web pages via hypertext links. Web pages frequently subsume other resources such as style sheets, scripts and images into their final presentation.

Web pages may be retrieved from a local computer or from a remote web server. The web server may restrict access only to a private network, e.g. a corporate intranet, or it may publish pages on the World Wide Web. Web pages are requested and served from web servers using Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP).

Web pages may consist of files of static text and other content stored within the web server’s file system (static web pages), or may be constructed by server-side software when they are requested (dynamic web pages). Client-side scripting can make web pages more responsive to user input once on the client browser.

Web pages usually include information as to the colors of text and backgrounds and very often also contain links to images and sometimes other types of media to be included in the final view. Layout, typographic and color-scheme information is provided by Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) instructions, which can either be embedded in the HTML or can be provided by a separate file, which is referenced from within the HTML. The latter case is especially relevant where one lengthy style sheet is relevant to a whole website: due to the way HTTP works, the browser will only download it once from the web server and use the cached copy for the whole site. Images are stored on the web server as separate files, but again HTTP allows for the fact that once a web page is downloaded to a browser, it is quite likely that related files such as images and style sheets will be requested as it is processed. Web browsers usually render images along with the text and other material on the displayed web page.

A web page, as an information set, can contain numerous types of information, which is able to be seen, heard or interact by the end user.
Information provided:

      • Textual information: with diverse render variations.
      • Non-textual information:
        1. Static images may be raster graphics, typically GIF, JPEG or PNG; or vector formats such as SVG or Flash.
        2. Animated images typically Animated GIF and SVG, but also may be Flash, Shockwave, or Java applet.
        3. Audio, typically MP3, or various proprietary formats.
        4. Video, WMV, RM, FLV, MPG, MOV.
      • Interactive information.
        1. Interactive text.
        2. Interactive illustrations: ranging from “click to play” images to games, typically using script orchestration, Flash, Java applets, SVG, or Shockwave.
        3. Buttons: forms providing alternative interface, typically for use with script orchestration and DHTML.
        4. Hyperlinks: standard “change page” reactivity.
        5. Forms: providing more interaction with the server and server-side databases.
      • Internal (hidden) information:
        1. Comments
        2. Linked Files through Hyperlink.
        3. Metadata with semantic meta-information, Charset information, Document Type Definition (DTD), etc.
        4. Diagramation and style information: information about rendered items (like image size attributes) and visual specifications, as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).
        5. Scripts, usually JavaScript, complement interactivity and functionality.

When creating a web page, it is important to ensure it conforms to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards for HTML, CSS, XML and other standards. The W3C standards are in place to ensure all browsers which conform to their standards can display identical content without any special consideration for proprietary rendering techniques. A properly coded web page is going to be accessible to many different browsers old and new alike, display resolutions, as well as those users with audio or visual impairments.

01.22.13
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SHOPPING CART HOSTING


Shopping cart software is software used in e-commerce to assist people making purchases online, analogous to the American English term ‘shopping cart’.
The software allows online shopping customers to accumulate a list of items for purchase, described metaphorically as “placing items in the shopping cart”. Upon checkout, the software typically calculates a total for the order, including shipping and handling charges and the associated taxes, as applicable.
The development of web shop systems took place directly after the Internet or the World Wide Web had become a mass medium. This was a result of the launch of the browser Mosaic in 1993 and Netscape in 1994. It created an environment in which web shops were possible. The Internet and WWW therefore acted as the key infrastructure developments that contributed to the rapid diffusion of the e-commerce. E-commerce describes all computer-aided business transactions. The two terms ‘’online shop‘’ and “electronic‘’ or ‘’e-shop‘’ are used synonymously. In order to enable ‘’online shopping‘’ a software system is needed. Since ‘’online shopping‘’, in the context of the B2C business model, became broadly available to the end consumer, WWW-based ‘’online shops‘’ evolved. For online shopping systems in this context the narrower term ‘’web shop‘’ is used. No term has become solidly established for a B2C e-commerce software system. Whereas in the German-speaking region terms such as ‘’web shop software‘’ or ‘’online shop software‘’ are used, the term ‘’shopping cart software‘’ has become established in the USA.
Shopping cart software can be generally categorized into two main categories.

  • Licensed software: The software is downloaded and then installed on a Web server. This is most often associated with a one-time fee, although there are many free products available as well. The main advantages of this option are that the merchant owns a license and therefore can host it on any Web server that meets the server requirements, and that the source code can often be accessed and edited to customize the application.
  • Hosted service: The software is never downloaded, but rather is provided by a hosted service provider and is generally paid for on a monthly/annual basis; also known as the application service provider (ASP) software model. Some of these services also charge a percentage of sales in addition to the monthly fee. This model often has predefined templates that a user can choose from to customize their look and feel. Predefined templates limit how much users can modify or customize the software with the advantage of having the vendor continuously keep the software up to date for security patches as well as adding new features.
  • Shopping cart Hosting Account includes:
  • Powerful servers specially administered to ensure greater security for e-Commerce web sites;
  • 24/7 Technical Experts ready to assist you;
  • Free installation of Shopping cart software;
  • Ecommerce hosting pack;
  • Shared or private SSL Certificate
  • More Features: FREE domain name, unlimited space, unlimited traffic, and MySQL db’s, PHP, FTP and more
  • Low Price: $3.95/mo only.

A Shopping cart is an application that allows clients shopping on a website to accept orders for multiple products. It automatically calculates the total price including shipping & handling. Some HTML code has to be inserted in the website and the shopping cart has to be installed on the host server or on a secure server that accepts ordering information.

01.20.13
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Drupal Hosting


Drupal is a very powerful and easy to use CMS application and blogging engine. It is mostly used for creation and management of diversity content such as news portals, FAQs, knowledge bases. It can be used both for personal and corporate websites. If you have chosen Drupal CMS for your website, it is very important to find a reliable Drupal-specialized host.
For running Drupal it is necessary to have a Web Server that can execute PHP scripts. Recommended is Apache, but Microsoft’s IIS is adequate as well. Furthermore, you will need PHP and PHP-supported Database Server, like MySQL or Postgres. When you search for the most suitable hosting provider for your Drupal website there are few things you should check. First you must make sure that the company servers are configured properly and meet all Drupal requirements. Next we would advise you to check whether their support team is qualified enough to help with your site. Just go and ask them few Drupal-related questions. Another thing you should be asking is a free or one-click Drupal installation – it just saves time.
One of the very efficient ways of finding out the authenticity of the web hosting company is reading the online hosting reviews. You will get the most trustworthy and valuable information from the hosting reviews. The online reviews will cover factors like web space provided, uptime, pricing and customer comments. You must also check the web hosting forums regularly for getting more updates information and it is also good to participate in these forum discussions. In this way you can come to know the market standing of the companies that you wish to sign up with. It is always better to sign up with a reputed web hosting company as they will have a better experience of managing the servers. Moreover a Drupal hosting plan must be considered as an investment instead of an expense. This is a long term investment that will provide you with numerous business benefits.

01.20.13
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Uptime in Web Hosting


Uptime is a measure of the time a computer system has been “up” and running. Uptime is a great measure of how good a Web hosting provider is at keeping their systems up and running. If a hosting provider has a high uptime percentage, then that means that their servers stay up and running and so any site you host with them should stay up and running too. Since Web pages can’t keep customers if they are down, uptime is very important.
There are 2 types of uptime in web hosting industry. One is the Network Uptime, and the other one is Server Uptime.
Network uptime is talking about the availability of the network, which including the network within the data center and the connection out to the Internet. Network is usually very stable, so a lot of web hosting service providers would like to give you a guarantee on it.
And server uptime refers to the availability of your web hosting server from outside the data center. This will directly determine how possible your site will be accessed without any problem.
Considering the fact that most uptime guarantees are given on a monthly basis, if your website was down 10% of the time, it means if was down for about 3 days. If you run a decently visited website a 10% downtime costs you (in loses) way more that the monthly cost of web hosting.
Searching for a 99% uptime guarantee hosting provider is not an easy work on web. As there are a lot of companies who says they offer 100% uptime guarantee which is not possible. So, don’t go with their promotion offers which are made to market their product. Uptime is a reflection of how long the machine that is running your website stays up and running. But that machine can be up and working and your website down. If you aren’t maintaining the Web server software (and other software like PHP and databases) for your site, you should make sure that your hosting agreement includes guarantees for the software running time as well as hardware uptime.

01.20.13
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Shopping Cart Software


Shopping Cart Software acts as a new gateway for success to everyone who wants to venture in the world of internet marketing. Once an internet guru said that if you have a website and if you want to design then it is a commandment to have a shopping cart, and of you go to success. Your online business will surely be a blast. Online Shopping Cart Solution automates one’s business in a full package with maintenance and credibility to handle orders. You just need to check it for a while. Many Successful Internet Marketers owe their success to their shopping carts. You can be one of them too or even better than them.

Typical shopping cart software must incorporate features from the point of view of the merchant who would be managing the online shop and using it to upload/edit/delete items and the area of the online store which would be accessible by online visitors must also be designed with the end-user perspective. You can build and manage your online store at very affordable rates these days, as e-commerce hosting has become extremely affordable due to high competition in industry. Shopping cart hosting also provide technical support if you face any problems in website maintenance or installation. A good host usually offers technical support round the clock to resolve your queries.

E-commerce Software shopping carts are equipped with a database which stores all transaction related information like customer details, order details along with the product details. There is also a storefront facility available here with the functionality of storing visitor details. Besides, you can manage your stores using the administration panel that allows you to add new products, set up an account, to process orders and manage payments and include shipping options. Indeed, having a shopping cart is the internet marketing strategy of the new era.

In this way, when a customer requests for a specific web page, all the real time information about the item or a product is displayed by the shopping cart software. This is done by retrieving the required data from the database which is generated by the web server based on the customer’s request, with the updated information that is currently available. This process if what you called e-commerce web site hosting.

01.19.13
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WEBSITE


A website, also written as Web site, or simply site, is a set of related web pages containing content such as text, images, video, audio, etc. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible through a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet address known as a Uniform Resource Locator. All publicly accessible websites collectively constitute the World Wide Web.

A webpage is a document, typically written in plain text interspersed with formatting instructions of Hypertext Markup Language (HTML, XHTML). A webpage may incorporate elements from other websites with suitable markup anchors.

Webpages are accessed and transported with the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), which may optionally employ encryption to provide security and privacy for the user of the webpage content. The user’s application, often a web browser, renders the page content according to its HTML markup instructions onto a display terminal.

The pages of a website can usually be accessed from a simple Uniform Resource Locator (URL) called the web address. The URLs of the pages organize them into a hierarchy, although hyper linking between them conveys the reader’s perceived site structure and guides the reader’s navigation of the site which generally includes a home page with most of the links to the site’s web content, and a supplementary about, contact and link page.

Organized by function, a website may be

  • A personal website
  • A commercial website
  • A government website
  • A nonprofit organization website.

It could be the work of an individual, a business or other organization, and is typically dedicated to some particular topic or purpose. Any website can contain a hyperlink to any other website, so the distinction between individual sites, as perceived by the user, may sometimes be blurred.

Websites are written in, or dynamically converted to, HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and are accessed using a software interface classified as a user agent. Web pages can be viewed or otherwise accessed from a range of computer-based and Internet-enabled devices of various sizes, including desktop computers, laptops, PDAs and cell phones.

A website is hosted on a computer system known as a web server, also called an HTTP server, and these terms can also refer to the software that runs on these systems and that retrieves and delivers the web pages in response to requests from the website users. Apache is the most commonly used web server software and Microsoft’s IIS is also commonly used. Some alternatives, such as Hiawatha or Cherokee, are fully functional and lightweight.

There are 2 types of websites static and dynamic websites.

A static website is one that has web pages stored on the server in the format that is sent to a client web browser. It is primarily coded in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML).

Simple forms or marketing examples of websites, such as classic website, a five-page website or a brochure website are often static websites, because they present pre-defined, static information to the user. This may include information about a company and its products and services through text, photos, animations, audio/video and interactive menus and navigation.

A dynamic website is one that changes or customizes itself frequently and automatically, based on certain criteria.

Dynamic websites can have two types of dynamic activity: Code and Content. Dynamic code is invisible or behind the scenes and dynamic content is visible or fully displayed.

They are edited using four broad categories of software:

Text editors, such as Notepad or Text Edit, where content and HTML markup are manipulated directly within the editor program

WYSIWYG offline editors, such as Microsoft FrontPage and Adobe Dreamweaver, with which the site is edited using a GUI interface and the final HTML markup is generated automatically by the editor software

WYSIWYG online editors which create media rich online presentation like web pages, widgets, intro, blogs, and other documents.

Template-based editors, such as RapidWeaver and iWeb, which allow users to quickly create and upload web pages to a web server without detailed HTML knowledge, as they pick a suitable template from a palette and add pictures and text to it in a desktop publishing fashion without direct manipulation of HTML code.

Some websites require a subscription to access some or all of their content. Examples of subscription websites include many business sites, parts of news websites, academic journal websites, gaming websites, file-sharing websites, message boards, web-based email, social networking websites, websites providing real-time stock market data, and websites providing various other services.

01.19.13
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WEBNAME


Individual content items on a web site have discrete web addresses. Many website creates these automatically, based on the Title that you supply. The Title of content items, including folders, images, pages, etc., can be anything you want — you can use any keyboard characters, including blanks. Titles become part of web address for each item.  Web addresses, also known as URLs, are what you type in a web browser to go to a specific location in a web site.

Web addresses do have restrictions on allowed keyboard characters, and blanks are not allowed.

The WebName property is the same as the Name property. WebName returns an IANA-registered name for the encoding. The HeaderName property defines a different encoding that might work better for e-mail headers. However, most applications should use WebName instead.

This property defines the name that is appropriate for passing to Get Encoding. This name is the same as the name represented by the WebName property. Your applications should use DisplayName for a human-readable name.

A web name such as nutrition.tufts.edu is considered a “high-level” name and requires authorization from University Relations.

Don’t confuse the web name, which is called an alias or C-NAME in the DNS world with HTTP configuration issues. A web name cannot point at a particular page, it points to a machine. How that web name is handled by the web server on that machine depends on the available configurations of the particular software and the person who configures and maintains the web server software.

A CNAME record or Canonical Name record is a type of resource record in the Domain Name System (DNS) that specifies that the domain name is an alias of another, canonical domain name. This helps when running multiple services (like an FTP server and a web server; each running on different ports) from a single IP address.

A computer hosting a Web site must have an IP address in order to be connected to the World Wide Web. The DNS resolves the computer’s domain name to its IP address, but sometimes more than one domain name resolves to the same IP address, and this is where the CNAME is useful. A machine can have an unlimited number of CNAME aliases, but a separate CNAME record must be in the database for each alias.
Each service can then have its own entry in DNS.

CNAME records are handled specially in the domain name system, and have several restrictions on their use. When a DNS resolver encounters a CNAME record while looking for a regular resource record, it will restart the query using the canonical name instead of the original name. The canonical name that a CNAME record points to can be anywhere in the DNS, whether local or on a remote server in a different DNS zone.

The canonical name itself must be defined by a record other than a CNAME or DNAME record.

A DNAME record also known as Delegation Name record. A DNAME record creates an alias for one or more sub domains of a domain. In contrast, the CNAME record creates an alias only of a single name. Like the CNAME record, the DNS lookup will continue by retrying the lookup with the new name. If a DNS resolver sends a query without EDNS, or with EDNS version 0, then a name server synthesizes a CNAME record to simulate the semantics of the DNAME record.

While CNAME is short for canonical name, use of the abbreviated term implies that one is referring to the canonical name record, not simply the canonical name.

01.18.13
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WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT


Website development is a broad term for the work involved in developing a web site for the World Wide Web or a private network. This can include web design, web content development, client liaison, client-side/server-side scripting, web server and network security configuration, and e-commerce development. However, among web professionals, “website development” usually refers to the main non-design aspects of building web sites: writing markup and coding. Website development can range from developing the simplest static single page of plain text to the most complex web-based internet applications, electronic businesses, or social network services.

People who develop websites are called web developers. For larger organizations and businesses, web development teams can consist of hundreds of people. Web development may be a collaborative effort between departments rather than the domain of a designated department.

Web Development can be split into many areas and a typical and basic web development hierarchy might consist of:

Client Side Coding

  1. Flash Adobe Flash Player is a ubiquitous browser plug-in ready for RIAs. Flex 2 is also deployed to the Flash Player.
  2. JavaScript is a ubiquitous client side platform for creating and delivering rich Web applications that can also run across a wide variety of devices.
  3. JQuery Cross-browser JavaScript library designed to simplify and speed up the client-side scripting of HTML.
  4. Microsoft Silverlight Microsoft’s browser plug-in that enables animation, vector graphics and high-definition video playback, programmed using XAML and .NET programming languages.
  5. HTML5 and CSS3 Latest HTML proposed standard combined with the latest proposed standard for CSS natively supports much of the client-side functionality provided by other frameworks such as Flash.

Server Side Coding

  • ASP (Microsoft proprietary)
  • CSP, Server-Side ANSI C
  • ColdFusion
  • CGI
  • Groovy (programming language) Grails (framework)
  • Java, e.g. Java EE or WebObjects
  • Lotus Domino
  • Perl, e.g. Catalyst, Dancer (all open sources)
  • PHP (open source)
  • Python, e.g. Django (web framework) (open source)
  • Real Studio Web Edition
  • Ruby, e.g. Ruby on Rails (open source)
  • Smalltalk e.g. Seaside, AIDA/Web
  • SSJS Server-Side JavaScript, e.g. Aptana Jaxer, Mozilla Rhino
  • WebDNA (WSC proprietary)
  • Websphere (IBM proprietary)
  • .NET and .NET MVC Frameworks (Microsoft proprietary)

Web engineering is multidisciplinary and encompasses contributions from diverse areas: systems analysis and design, software engineering, hypermedia/hypertext engineering, requirements engineering, human-computer interaction, user interface, information engineering, etc. Web engineering is neither a clone, nor a subset of software engineering, although both involve programming and software development. While web engineering uses software engineering principles, web development encompasses new approaches, methodologies, tools, techniques, and guidelines to meet the unique requirements for web-based applications.
Client Side + Server Side

  • Google Web Toolkit provides tools to create and maintain complex JavaScript front-end applications in Java.
  • Opa is a high-level language in which both the client and the server parts are implemented. The compiler then decides which parts run on the client and which parts run on the server. The developer can tune those decisions with simple directives.
  • Tersus is a platform for the development of rich web applications by visually defining user interface, client side behavior and server side processing.
  • However languages like Ruby and Python are often paired with database servers other than MySQL. For instance some developers prefer a LAPR (Linux/Apache/PostgreSQL/Ruby on Rails) setup for development.

Website development takes into account many security considerations, such as data entry error checking through forms, filtering output, and encryption.  Malicious practices such as SQL injection can be executed by users with ill intent yet with only primitive knowledge of web development as a whole. Scripts can be exploited to grant unauthorized access to malicious users trying to collect information such as email addresses, passwords and protected content like credit card numbers.

01.17.13
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WEB SERVERS


Web server can refer to either the hardware (the computer) or the software (the computer application) that helps to deliver web content that can be accessed through the Internet.

The most common use of web servers is to host websites, but there are other uses such as gaming, data storage or running enterprise applications.

The primary function of a web server is to deliver web pages on the request to clients using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). This means delivery of HTML documents and any additional content that may be included by a document, such as images, style sheets and scripts.

A user agent, commonly a web browser or web crawler, initiates communication by making a request for a specific resource using HTTP and the server responds with the content of that resource or an error message if it is unable to do so. The resource is typically a real file on the server’s secondary memory.

While the primary function is to serve content, a full implementation of HTTP also includes ways of receiving content from clients. This feature is used for submitting web forms, including uploading of files.

Many generic web servers also support server-side scripting using Active Server Pages (ASP), PHP, or other scripting languages. This means that the behavior of the web server can be scripted in separate files, while the actual server software remains unchanged. Usually, this function is used to create HTML documents dynamically as opposed to returning static documents. The former is primarily used for retrieving and/or modifying information from databases. The latter is typically much faster and more easily cached.

Apart from serving the World Wide Web, They can also found embedded in devices such as printers, routers, webcams and serving only a local network. The web server may then be used as a part of a system for monitoring and/or administering the device in question. This usually means that no additional software has to be installed on the client computer; since only a web browser is required (which now is included with most operating systems).
Web servers are able to map the path component of a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) into:

  • A local file system resource (for static requests)
  • An internal or external program name (for dynamic requests)

For a static request the URL path specified by the client is relative to the web server’s root directory.

The web server then reads the file, if it exists and sends a response to the client’s Web browser. The response will describe the content of the file and contain the file itself or an error message will return saying that the file does not exist or is unavailable.

Web server has 2 modes Kernel mode and User mode i.e.  A web server can be either implemented into the OS kernel, or in user space.

Features of web servers

  • Virtual hosting to serve many Web sites using one IP address
  • Large file support to be able to serve files whose size is greater than 2 GB on 32 bit OS
  • Bandwidth throttling to limit the speed of responses in order to not saturate the network and to be able to serve more clients
  • Server-side scripting to generate dynamic Web pages, still keeping web server and website implementations separate from each other