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Browse the front page of the website of any web hosting company and they will all be trying to persuade you that they are the best and that youshould sign up with them. Their prices and features will proudly be displayed in big bold text, like a Boy Scout who has just earned his first badge. Trouble is, most web hosting companies have failed to understand the most important thing not all prospective customers are computer experts!Its true. They list their features in a big list; things like bandwidth, FTP access, MySQL, Sub Domains, CGI, CPanel, Linux, Forwarders, etc, but what does it all mean? You browse their website to find the answers, but they are not there! No explanations can be found. I will list the MOST IMPORTANT web hosting features that you should look out for as well as some features you should AVOID, alongside a full explanation of what they mean.

Webspace / Data Storage / Disk Space:

This is the allocation of space (measured in megabytes) on a web hosting account for you to upload your files and folders. Most web hosts will have a number of different web hosting plans, with accounts with more webspace being more expensive. These can be 100MB,200MB and so on, Now, an average personal homepage, made up of a few pages may not even exceed one megabyte, but, if your website is going to be made up of hundreds of pages, or if you have large files such as digital downloads, MP3s or videos, you will need an account with a lot more webspace. Be careful not to underestimate how much webspace you will need. Your website, at first, might not take up that many megabytes, but, as your website grows in size, it will take up more space. The best thing to do is to purchase a web hosting plan with a LOT more webspace than you initially require. Webspace is stored on a server, similar to the hard drive on your computer, so even the biggest server will have a storage limit . Companies that offer unlimited webspace cram as many accounts as they can on their servers, which will undoubtedly overload their servers and may cause your website to run slow or even crash!

Bandwidth / Data Transfer:

Bandwidth is the measurement of traffic and data transfer your website can handle per month. Bandwidth is used during page views, website usage, mail and downloads from your website. When a user views a web page, the data of that web page (text, pictures, etc) are transferred from the internet to their computer. As this data transfer uses the resources of a web server, then a web host will allocate each web hosting account with a certain amount of bandwidth per month. The more visitors your website attracts, the more bandwidth your account will use, so always make sure that you choose a web host that gives you a lot of bandwidth to play with, especially if you are lucky enough to eventually entice thousands of visitors every day or if you allow users to download files from your website.

UNIX/Linux or Windows Hosting:

Although most web hosts these days offer only UNIX or Linux hosting packages, some web hosts also offer Windows hosting. Now, as most advanced websites use the PHP language to power scripts such as ecommerce stores, then you will NEED to opt for a UNIX or Linux package, because websites that use PHP will not work properly on a Windows server. Incidently, I MUST clear up a bit of confusion about Windows and UNIX/Linux servers. This has NOTHING to do with what operating system you have on your computer. Most computers have Windows as an operating system, but the majority of web hosts run on UNIX/Linux servers. Basically, if you have your website files already built and ready to upload and your page files end with.asp, then you will need Windows hosting. If your files end with.html, then ANY hosting package will do. Whereas, if your website files end with.php, then you must choose a UNIX/Linux package.

Control Panel:

All web hosts will boast a Control Panel as part of their package. This does exactly what it says on the tin. It is a web-based control panel which include all the tools you need to operate your website, all in one place, for your convenience. These tools will include a file manager for editing or uploading files, a mail server for sending and receiving emails, a database manager and many more tools. There are many types of Control Panel, but, in my opinion, CPanel Control Panel is, by far, the best and the most widely used. It is easy to use, everything is laid out nicely and it includes the best features and technology. Most other Control Panels are basically emulated versions of CPanel, but, sadly, they dont even come close. In my opinion, ALWAYS look for a web hosting plan that offers CPanel as its Control Panel. MySQL Database and PHPMyAdmin: In my opinion, these are the BEST database management tools on offer.

Email Accounts:

This might seem unimportant for me to explain about email accounts, as you know what they are, but it does in fact require a small explanation. This feature has nothing to do with your home email account, i.e. Outlook Express, for example. In fact, this feature is, quite basically, your own web-based mail server, where you can create email accounts and send and receive emails. The great thing is%u2026 your email accounts will match your domain name. i.e. All web hosts boast emaiI account management, but not all of them are the same. For example, some web hosts only allow to to create a handful of emaiI accounts, while others give you the option of creating more. e.g. 200 email accounts. Your choice of web host should take number of email accounts into consideration. With a personal homepage, you might not need many, but if you are planning an online business, you will need a lot of different email accounts. Examples will include info@, sales@, support@ and many more. A la rge business may even require that all members of staff have their own email address too.

Email Forwarders and Autoresponders:

An Email Forwarder is a great tool that will save you from having to keep logging into your mail server to check mail. Instead, this allows you to set your server to also forward a copy of all your emails to your home email client such as Outlook Express. An Autoresponder is a tool that automatically sends an email reply to anyone who contacts you through your website. Of course, it doesnt reply to the query for you! Instead, it sends them a brief message, pre-set by you, which could be something like Thank you for your email. Our staff will respond to your query as soon as possible.

Full FTP Access:

This is a must have for those of you who plan on regularly editing and uploading your website files. Most web hosts have web-based file management tools (File Manager) included, but they are always very basic and restricted. You should make sure that FTP Access is allowed too. FTP (File Transfer Protocol) Access means that you are allowed to use FTP programs to upload files quicker and easier to your web server.

PHP, Perl and CGI Support:

Although not important for personal homepages, having a web server with support for PHP, Perl and CGI is absolutely essential for a website if you are planning on using even the simplest of tools on your website, such as a contact form. PHP, Perl and CGI are all advanced scripting languages that power features such as online forms, shopping carts, autoresponders, mailing lists, messageboards, ecommerce stores, links pages and, basically, ANY type of script or software that is CGI, Perl or PHP based. Forget a web host that doesnt have support for these scripting languages.

Password Protection:

This feature enables you to assign a username and password to any folder on your website, such as an admin folder for example. Your visitors will be prompted for the login details when trying to enter. This prevents prying eyes from accessing private areas of your website.

Website Statistics:

This web-based tool enables you to view the user statistics of your website, such as page views, number of visitors, file useage, where your users came from, browser types and other statistics.

Add-On Domains:

This is where you can use several domain names with one web hosting accounts, but this is NOT advisable.Although, this feature may work with smaller HTML websites, most ecommerce or other advanced PHP websites will NOT work properly on hosting with add-on domains. This is because add-on domains are only virtual domains. You see, only one domain can truly be associated to one web hosting account. An advanced PHP website or script will normally only work on a hosting account with only one domain name associated to it as the mechanics of a PHP website need to call to one domain only for it to function properly. The confusion of calling to multiple domain names may break the website. In my opinion, steer clear of hosting plans that boast add-on domains.

Sub Domains:

NOT to be confused with Add-On Domains, because Sub Domains are completely different. This feature allows you (if needed) to split your website into different sections. Ideal if different parts of your website are for different things. e.g. something.yourwebsite.com

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Before you start searching for a web host, you must familiarize yourself with the terminology used in this field. The following terms are also considered key factors in deciding the suitable hosting plan that meets your requirements. You can start learning what does each term mean and how does it affect your selection.

Web Host

A web host, also known as web server, is a computer connected to the internet. This computer is more powerful than normal PCs and is set up to serve up websites. Your website content will reside on this computer, which will give people who surf the internet a way to access your website.

Web hosts can be categorized into three main categories based on the price range and common features for each category:

1. Free Hosts: limited in space, bandwidth and other features. Suitable for personal websites or for temporary usage. Usually enforce pop-up, text or banner ads. They do not provide the best performance and/or reliability. They provide minimum or no customer support. If you register for a free host, your domain will be something like yourname.freehost.com or [/yourname].

2. Shared Hosts: most websites are using this type of hosting. Suitable for personal, small and medium businesses. Prices range from $1 to about $25 a month. Features also range from very limited space/bandwidth to semi-dedicated servers. Your website has its own top level domain (e.g. []) The number of websites on a server affects its performance and availability, more websites usually means less performance. Servers hosting less number of shared websites are more expensive, but more reliable. Some companies allow customers to host multiple websites with different domains under a single account.

3. Dedicated Hosts: A full server dedicated to a single customer. Usually used by large businesses and very active websites with thousands of daily visitors. The customer will have full control over the server, and can create as many websites as he likes. Customer can have his own hosting company run on a rented dedicated server. Prices depend on the specifications and services provided with the server, starting from about $100 up to about $800 dollars a month.

4. Colocated Hosts: very similar to dedicated hosts, but the customer owns the server hardware instead of renting it. The server will be housed in provider's data center. Prices are a bit higher than dedicated servers.

5. Reseller Hosts: providers offer web server storage to customers, who then resell the web server storage to their customers. Providers usually offer resellers a discount price.

6. Other Hosts: there are few other types of hosts such as email hosts, media hosts, data hosts, etc but these are out of the scope of this article.

Domain Name

[] is an example of a domain name. It's a name that points to where your website is physically located. The actual address of your website is a set of numbers that looks like (70.86.135.242). This address is unique for every web server. Domain names are just pointers to the real addresses. It's easier to remember the domain names than the IP addresses.

Space / Storage

The amount of web server's disk space available for customer's website files, images and databases. It can be as small as 5MB in some free hosts and as big as 300GB for some dedicated servers. Space prices reduced significantly during the last few years. Customer can find hosting plans offering 3GB of space for less than $10 a month.

Bandwidth

Bandwidth is the amount of data transferred from web server to clients' internet browsers. Each time a person view a page data is transmitted from the server to that person's PC. Audio, video and images contents consume much more bandwidth than text. Bandwidth can be as low as 100MB a month in some free web hosts and as high as 2000GB a month in some dedicated servers. Customer can find hosting plans offering 75GB of monthly data transfer for less than $10.

Server Type

Usually means the operating system than runs the web server. Common types are Windows, Linux and UNIX. Server type determines the server side scripting and database types. Windows usually runs ASP and ASP.NET with Access or SQL Server databases. Linux/UNIX servers usually runs CGI, PHP or JSP with mySQL or Oracle databases. Windows servers are usually more expensive than Linux/UNIX servers.

Databases

As you have seen in server types, there are different types of databases. The most commonly used is mySQL because its an open source GPL (free) software and can serve a lot of online applications' requirements such as forums, content management, mailing lists, etc. MySQL, however, has some limitations in its features. Complicated large business sites will need more powerful databases such as Oracle or SQL Server.

Server Side Scripting

Most new users prefer to use PHP as server side scripting. The reason is that there are hundreds of open source (GPL) PHP scripts that can meet a lot of webmaster's requirements. Similar to mySQL, PHP has some limitations in features required by advanced websites, which makes some senior web developers prefer to use ASP.NET or JSP. Other developers still prefer to use Cold Fusion, CGI, ASP or PERL.

Email

Most hosting plans include the feature of having some email accounts with customer's domain (e.g. ). The number and size of email accounts depends on the hosting plan. Free plans do not usually have this feature, small plans give about 10 accounts where big plans do not limited the number. Those email accounts are usually web based and accessible through POP3 clients as well.

File Transfer Protocol (FTP)

A standard way of transferring files across the Internet. Most webmasters upload and download their websites contents using FTP. The upload or download processes are usually performed using FTP client software. To access their web servers, webmasters need FTP username and password. Some hosts give more than one FTP account to their customers. FTP can by anonymous as well, but its not recommended for security reasons.

Control Panel

Most web hosting companies provide their customers with a control panel, a web based application that helps in managing websites. Common functions in control panels are: managing email accounts, providing statistics, managing FTP accounts, managing domains and subdomains and managing databases. The most commonly used control panel application is cPanel. Some companies develop their own control panel application.

Uptime

An important feature of web hosts is their uptime, which is usually measured in percentage. A server that goes down for an average of 30 minutes a day will have an uptime percentage of about 99.98%, which is acceptable for most small to medium business websites. Anything less than this percentage is not suitable for a business website. Mission critical sites cannot tolerate frequent outages, thus they may use web monitoring services to notify web administrators immediately when an outage happens.

Price

With the wide range of options available for customers, the price is also ranges from 0 to $1000 a month. Most personal, small and medium websites shouldn't cost more than $15 a month. It's not recommended for business website owners to go for very cheap plans (less than $5) because this price usually means a compromise in the quality of support and reliability of the server.

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have just got a Reliance Wimax Connection here at Bangalore. My apartment is in Whitefield, Bangalore. As Reliance has a tower near ITPL; I have not encountered any problems with the connection so far and the connection is very fast.

The problem is configuring my Belkin Wireless router to this Wimax connection. I had gone through the other thread and tried to follow the instructions given for configuring the wireless router for D LINK, Linksys and Net Gear routers; but did not get any success. I gave the Dynamic IP address for the WAN connection and hard coded the DNS servers. I found four DNS servers when I gave Ipconfig/all for the connection. However, there was only provision to provide two in the router settings. I gave the first two and later on tried different permutations and combinations but to no avail.

I appreciate if anyone can help me in this regard.lso having a similar issue, I came from the US and got Reliance Wimax installed at my parent's house, I am not able to get the wireless router working. For some reason, reliance internet needs us to enter userid/pwd at and then the internet works on a PC/laptop, but with this I am able to use only one PC at a time, I need PC and wireless router and possibly another laptop to be all on the internet at the same time. How do I get this in order? In the wireless router, the only place it prompts to enter a userid/pwd is when you select a PPoE account, that' didn't work. I selected Dynamic IP address option, but that doesn't have any user id/pwd option in the router.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.Reliance folks are not allowing sharing of the 'Wimax' connection. Pl. note that this applies only to Wimax connections. They allowed it initially and later stopped. And new development is that they are blocking even Linux boxes. I tried to use a Linux box as a Wifi router (I had a spare laptop which I converted into a Wifi router). Now the Linux box too doesn't get DHCP address.. I am planning to modify my Linux DHCP Client to fake that it is a Windows box. Will post you once I am done..

Belkin Wireless Router for Reliance Wimax Connection

In the meantime I begged my neighbor to open his BSNL wifi to me so that I won't lose my job.. You can't depend on Reliance connection for anything serious like connecting to your office VPN etc.. Their customer care told me that they provide internet connection to the consumers for 'entertainment purpose only' :-)

Belkin Wireless Router for Reliance Wimax Connection

Coming to the Login part, in the good old days - i.e. a few months ago - when they were allowing Wifi routers, you could login from any of the workstation behind your wifi router and that's sufficient. There is nothing like router authenticating as in PPPoE with Reliance Wimax setup..

Best solution : Somehow go get an Airtel or BSNL connection so that your parents will be happy forever.. so, go get it by hook or crook - after all "Ends Support Means" !!have just got a Reliance Wimax Connection here at Bangalore. My apartment is in Whitefield, Bangalore. As Reliance has a tower near ITPL; I have not encountered any problems with the connection so far and the connection is very fast.

The problem is configuring my Belkin Wireless router to this Wimax connection. I had gone through the other thread and tried to follow the instructions given for configuring the wireless router for D LINK, Linksys and Net Gear routers; but did not get any success. I gave the Dynamic IP address for the WAN connection and hard coded the DNS servers. I found four DNS servers when I gave Ipconfig/all for the connection. However, there was only provision to provide two in the router settings. I gave the first two and later on tried different permutations and combinations but to no avail.

Belkin Wireless Router for Reliance Wimax Connection

I appreciate if anyone can help me in this regard.lso having a similar issue, I came from the US and got Reliance Wimax installed at my parent's house, I am not able to get the wireless router working. For some reason, reliance internet needs us to enter userid/pwd at and then the internet works on a PC/laptop, but with this I am able to use only one PC at a time, I need PC and wireless router and possibly another laptop to be all on the internet at the same time. How do I get this in order? In the wireless router, the only place it prompts to enter a userid/pwd is when you select a PPoE account, that' didn't work. I selected Dynamic IP address option, but that doesn't have any user id/pwd option in the router.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.Reliance folks are not allowing sharing of the 'Wimax' connection. Pl. note that this applies only to Wimax connections. They allowed it initially and later stopped. And new development is that they are blocking even Linux boxes. I tried to use a Linux box as a Wifi router (I had a spare laptop which I converted into a Wifi router). Now the Linux box too doesn't get DHCP address.. I am planning to modify my Linux DHCP Client to fake that it is a Windows box. Will post you once I am done..

In the meantime I begged my neighbor to open his BSNL wifi to me so that I won't lose my job.. You can't depend on Reliance connection for anything serious like connecting to your office VPN etc.. Their customer care told me that they provide internet connection to the consumers for 'entertainment purpose only' :-)

Coming to the Login part, in the good old days - i.e. a few months ago - when they were allowing Wifi routers, you could login from any of the workstation behind your wifi router and that's sufficient. There is nothing like router authenticating as in PPPoE with Reliance Wimax setup..

Best solution : Somehow go get an Airtel or BSNL connection so that your parents will be happy forever.. so, go get it by hook or crook - after all "Ends Support Means" !!

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iPods have become a very famous portable media player that is being used worldwide nowadays. It was designed and marketed by Apple Inc. These are new generation devices that have made the conventional world proud. Let us take a look.....................

iPods - A Quick Look:

iPods are nothing but portable media players that are used worldwide today. They store media in a internal hard disk. Other iPods store information in a Micro drive Miniature hard disk. The hard disk based ones include the iPod classic, iPod Touch which involves a touch screen system. iPod nano which is capable of storing videos. Others include iPod shuffle and iPhone. The iPod Shuffle has no screen so it cannot store videos. Also iPod mini and spin-off iPod Photo were used previously.

iPods - Are they Reliable?

However they have been sometimes subject to criticism for their life spans and for their hard disks which are not good enough. Their failure rate too is very high as found in a recent survey. They are mostly due to the reasons of poor durability of the hard disk which is the essential part of the iPod. Also the other reason why iPods are not suggested is their screen which can get affected by rough handling.

iPod Hacks:

If you want more from your iPod, more than music and multimedia, then you can go for hacking. An iPod hack is nothing but changing the inner workings. In broader terms, for hacking an iPod, you need to change its hardware, software, firmware or operating system. Though it is not advisable to do so, but it is still being done to bend the iPod to cater to one's needs. Most of the hacks are carried out by changing the operating system LINUX, which is an open source one. The LINUX user interface called podzilla helps LINUX to be ported in an iPod manually. By this way the iPod is made to play media files like Ogg files.

Also one can download the schemes and modules for the podzilla from the internet. The schemes allow the user to change the appearance of the podzilla. The Modules are important and are used with iPod LINUX operating system. You will feel that with LINUX installed, your iPod will become more like a handheld computer than a good MP3 Player.

This hacking process has been carried out only in the first, second and third generation iPods, but reports also assert say that these are now being carried out in fourth and fifth generation ones as well. To stop this process of hacking, nowadays iPod companies clear state that installing LINUX means "NO WARRANTY". Well as seen earlier, installing LINUX opens a new world of operating an iPod. The possibilities are endless and to make use of these possibilities, hacking is carried out.

Play games:

If you love playing games, then now you can plan in your iPod too. With these LINUX modules, now you can play your favorite games. The LINUX module iDoom allows the users to play a game called as Doom. Besides there are various other modules which allows the users to play games like iGems, Invaders, Magic-8 Ball, iPod MAME, Pod Pod Revolution.

Other Applications:

Looking for something better other than games, you can manually change your iPod's functions and make it look the way you want it to be. The iPodWizard now lets you change the style and icons in your iPod. With it you can also remove some of the error messages that may annoy you.

Also now you can turn your iPod into a virtual Remote Control that can be used anywhere. Just attach an infra red device on to your iPod's headphone part and software too is needed. By recording the Infra Red Pulses from the remote, you can now control your iPod the way you want.

Also if you thought hacking is a crime or something bad, think again as this method can save your data from getting lost. The Module Podsmith unlocks the screen, files and applications in your Macintosh Computer. So rest assured that your data and privacy are safe by carrying out this process and many say it is a very effective one.

Also now with this hacking process, you can make changes to the software options that you have in your iPod. You can now install software that is good to make your iPod rock!! For example you have software like TrailRunner, VoodooPad and Apollo. The TrailRunner software helps you keeping your personal agenda. The VoodooPad software helps in writing like it provides an interface similar to Notepad. The Apollo Software is used as a video converter and it helps in optimizing the video for playing in iPod.

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Who is bothering to get a domain for their website by paying a ransom? Who wants to maintain old procedure of owning the domain for their websites? Besides, there is a new way to make the websites accessible through the internet. Web hosting service is a technique to make the websites available in the internet for lease or under an agreement of ownership for a certain period. It is provided as a general Internet access plan. There are many web hosting service providers who are ready to give you domains at very competitive prices. Make use of this facility and launch your website in an efficient prospect.

The current "use and throw" approach among the people on everything leads to the promotion of the web hosting network. There are many web hosting networks in the market today which help the individual or the organization by providing the domain name for their website, memory space for data, email services and bandwidth as a single package. Some companies offer free web hosting services with limited resources like memory spaces and bandwidth and they may support advertisement supported hosting. Shared web hosting is a technique where a website can be placed in the same server along with many other sites. This service enables shared usage of CPU, memory and other resources.

Ajax hosting is the practice which allows faster development and healthy applications. Some of the shared Ajax web hosting services is only enabled in windows platforms as they mainly require Windows servers. Almost all the Ajax web hosting companies provide money back guarantee. In competition with the Ajax hosting companies are the linux hosting service providers. Linux web hosting services are appropriate for websites which use linux hosting features like MySQL database, PHP programs and Perl programming. Linux web site hosting is powerful and reliable and also, it is open source software. Hence, cheap linux hosting services with better quality and reliability are available in the market. Another concept of Virtual dedicated servers or virtual Private servers use divided server resources into virtual servers. The resources are allocated in such a way that it does not directly reflect the underlying hardware. Dedicated hosting service provides the user the full control o ver the web server. The user is responsible for security and maintenance issues. Self managed service is a classification of dedicated service which is more accepted due to its less expensive schemes. Cluster hosting, as the name suggests, has several servers hosting the same content in order to utilize the resources in a better method.

Another new technique called cloud hosting permits reliable, scalable and powerful hosting and is clustered and balanced servers and follows utility billing system. So, if you have to avail for internet access for your website, then choose the web hosting service that best suits your budget and the website requirements. For a personal web page it is recommended to go for single page hosting services. For a website representing an organization, the complete package including database support, bandwidth, and email services and other resources is a wise option.

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