Linux Community Magazine

As Internet is becoming a best resource to run a online business and earn lot of money through online Internet activities, I have seen many people getting diverted towards reseller hosting business. The main reason behind this is 'Reseller Hosting business can be started without having any deep technical knowledge of command over support services. Many web hosting companies have a big amount of bandwidth available but the ground level customer is not in need of such a large among of bandwidth for their tiny websites. In this situation a Reseller Host who works as a middle agent between web hosting company and webmasters plays a crucial role by purchasing high bandwidth and distributing it in small among as required by small webmasters.We will find many web hosting companies encouraging the Reseller hosting business as they want their business to grow in remuneration of a tiny part of profit on sales of direct deals without webmasters. As the technical support staff of a We b Hosting company is highly expertise in handling the technical issues regarding hosting, a Reseller does not need to play any role regarding actual hosting operations. One of the part of this technical knowledge is that many people are not aware of the the difference between Linux Reseller Hosting and Windows Reseller Hosting and hence the get confused while selecting one of these two.In Reseller web hosting the reseller can use and given disk space and bandwidth as he required. It is up to him how much he want to sell to the third party customer's web hosting services at higher rates than the rate at which he has purchased it from a web hosting company and how much to keep for his own Website Hosting. As there are main two type of web hosting 'Windows Hosting and Linux hosting', both are used very widely in Reseller hosting also. If we compared these both then we will find that Linux reseller hosting is more often chosen by Reseller and the reason behind it is absence of I ncensing fee which is charged by Microsoft windows. Linux is a open source and easily down-loadable for free of cost. One more advantage Linux has over windows is that it is very reliable for various scrips of very popular languages like My-SQL, Perl and PHP. It can handle large databases without any problem and with as equal security as a Windows server provides.Now we will look at some strengths of Windows Reseller Hosting which does not comes with Linux Reseller hosting. Windows platform is known of highly supporting to ASP scripts which are Microsoft's very popular application for designing websites. The RDMS which comes under SQL is responsible for highest level of reliability can be managed with Windows Reseller hosting. Furthermore just using a single cPanel a Windows Reseller can manage many clients which is hardly possible for a Linux Reseller, and this causes making Windows Reseller hosting more time saving and effortless. Microsoft's SQL servers are better for man aging critical business application.Both Linux Reseller Hosting and Windows Reseller Hosting has their own advantageous and disadvantages. It is up to ones mind to know his own needs and comfort and choose one of these. The people who are just starting up their websites or businesses with a tight budget are more likely to go with Linux Hosting and Big and well established businesses who want to implement.NET or Microsoft applications can go for Windows hosting.

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Software for mobile devices released Android treasure: an operating system for mobile applications and an important undertaking.

To take full advantage of the Android mobile applications from scratch to relieve the developers to create a common ground to facilitate mobile applications. Android has been developed based on an open Linux kernel. It is said that the exact application may be open, as the lone address all the major cell functions such as sending text messages, calls and using the camera, which gives developers the opportunity to create a much richer, more consistent user experience. Android will continue the success of the developer group of people working mutually to get closer to the pioneer of mobile phone applications.

Android does not show favoritism between the basic applications and mobile applications intermediatory. Equipment for the Android platform will have an equal right to the use of all hand-Mobile provides users with a comprehensive resource of all kinds of applications and services. Android is full of mold bases for mobile phones handset according to their areas of curiosity.

Android tutorial contains a prologue to build applications for Android, and clean up. This guidance on how to create, manufacture, launch and modify the source code for Android.

Android tutorial includes instructions on where to start from the development of applications for Android, the creation of the first Android Activity. This is useful for both Android tutorial for people experienced in Java, as well as inept at human development and Java development.

In particular, run Mobile G1 Android mobile phone platform is a hardware built by Google with High Tech Computer Corporation (HTCC). G1 Android Phone T-Mobile was debuted at the 2008th Coming to technical aspects, the Android phone operating system Android applications, and acts as a vital undertaking. Android is based on the Linux kernel consists of Java applications and can also operate in C language applications. Android phone has some industrial goods Open Phone Alliance, which promotes the practice and further enhancement of the open-source software.

The major difference between the Android phone and other devices that use sophisticated operating software, Android. Android phone is a versatile, mobile applications, which can act as backdrop to the manifold and at the same time period. Although the fractions of the Android operating system kept a protective arm Apache License for Android phone is essential to the Sentinel, a lot of the operating system is on a rampage under the General Public License, to invite the specialized developers or hobbyists to make ingenious changes.

Android OS platform is a portable device to the motor vehicle by a driver in the Linux kernel was promoted to the phone carrier to ensure the principle of flexibility in the system.

Android OS software consists of a pile of applications for the operation of Java's object-oriented Java applications with the basic structure of the libraries functioning Dalvik virtual machine. Android OS source code contains 12 million lines, which consists of 2.8 million series C, series of XML 3,000,000, 1,750,000 lines of C + + and 2.1 million lines of Java.

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Open source applications and tools are a great alternative for web designers on a budget. There are plenty of open source applications that can help you tremendously as a web designer. Open source projects are great not only because of their price tag (free), but also because of the passionate community that typically forms around them.

Here is list of open source applications that can improve your task management and production processes.

Source Code and WYSIWYG Editors

Kompozer

KompoZer is a complete web authoring system that combines web file management and easy-to-use WYSIWYGweb page editing. KompoZer is designed to be extremely easy to use, making it ideal for non-technical computer users who want to create an attractive, professional-looking web site without needing to know HTML or web coding.

Amaya

Amaya is a Web editor, i.e. a tool used to create and update documents directly on the Web. Browsing features are seamlessly integrated with the editing and remote access features in a uniform environment. This follows the original vision of the Web as a space for collaboration and not just a one-way publishing medium.

Bluefish Editor

Bluefish is a powerful editor targeted towards programmers and webdesigners, with many options to write websites, scripts and programming code. Bluefish supports many programming and markup languages, and it focuses on editing dynamic and interactive websites.

Quanta Plus

Quanta Plus is a robust web development IDE. It's highly-extensible and is able to run custom scripts. It has an excellent visual CSS editor that has code hints and auto-completion of syntax.

CSSED

Cssed is a GTK2 application for creating and maintainingCSS style sheet. It is a small editor that tries to ease the CSS editing. It features autocompletion, CSS syntax validation, selector wizard for complex rules, color wizard, box wizard and other useful features to help web developers to create and maintain CSS style sheets.

jEdit

jEdit is a programmer's text editor written in Java. It uses the Swing toolkit for the GUI and can be configured as a rather powerful IDE through the use of its plugin architecture. It can run on Mac, Windows and Linux and has syntax highlighting for HTML, XML, CSS, JavaScript and many other languages.

Notepad++

Notepad++ is a free source code editor and Notepad replacement that supports several languages. Running in the MS Windows environment, its use is governed by GPL License.

Open Bexi HTML Builder

Open Bexi HTML Editor is a WYSIWYG HTML editor which allows you to create Web pages and generate HTML code from your browser without any HTML knowledge. It lets you create, update and remove HTML components. It is suitable for beginners and experts.

Aptana

Aptana is the leader in web application development, deployment and management solutions. RadRails is a complete web development environment for Ruby, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, ERB, and more.

Selida

Selida is an HTML editor, a program that you make web pages with. There are thousands of HTML editors on the web, some are free and some are shareware. Selida packs high end features in a very intuitive interface, and has the bestprice of them all: It's free!

Graphics/Image Editors

GIMP

GIMP an impressively powerful and freely-distributable Adobe Photoshop-alternative open-source application for digital image composition, authoring, retouching and processing.

Inkscape

Inkscape is a vector graphics editor application. with capabilities similar to Adobe Illustrator.

krita

Krita is a painting and image-editing software application for KOffice. Krita is a creative sketching and painting application based on KOffice technology. Whether you want to create art paintings, cartoons, concept art or textures, Krita supports most graphics tablets out of the box.Dia

Dia is a GTK+ based diagram creation and flowcharts tool for GNU/Linux, Unix and Windows.

Kivio

Kivio is an easy to use diagramming and flowcharting application with tight integration to the other KOffice applications. It enables you to create network diagrams, organisation charts, flowcharts and more.

Skencil

Skencil is a vector drawing application that's great for illustrations and diagrams. You can save your compositions in EPS format - a format recognized by most vector-editing applications.

OpenOffice DrawOpenoffice Draw is powerful graphics package. DRAW - from a quick sketch to a complex plan, DRAW gives you the tools to communicate with graphics and diagrams. With a maximum page size of 300cm by 300cm, DRAW is powerful tool for technical or general posters, etc

mtPaint

mtPaint is a painting program which Mark Tyler developed from scratch so he could easily create pixel art and manipulate digital photos.

FontForge

With the help of fontforge you create your own postscript, truetype, opentype, cid-keyed, multi-master, cff, svg and bitmap (bdf, FON, NFNT) fonts, or edit existing ones. Also lets you convert one format to another. FontForge has support for many macintosh font formats.

ImageMagick

ImageMagick can read, convert and write images in a variety of formet. From it you can create, edit, and compose bitmap images.

Audio Editors

Ardour

Ardour is a digital audio workstation. You can use it to record, edit and mix multi-track audio. You can produce your own CDs, mix video soundtracks, or just experiment with new ideas about music and sound.

Audacity

Audacity is a free, easy-to-use audio editor and recorder for Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux and other operating systems.

Grip

Grip is a cd-player and cd-ripper for the Gnome desktop. It has the ripping capabilities of cdparanoia builtin, but can also use external rippers (such as cdda2wav).

Hydrogen

Hydrogen is an advanced drum machine for GNU/Linux. It's main goal is to bring professional yet simple and intuitive pattern-based drum programming.

Jokosher

Jokosher is a simple yet powerful multi-track studio. With it you can create and record music, podcasts and more, all from an integrated simple environment.

MusE

MusE is a MIDI/Audio sequencer with recording and editing capabilities written by Werner Schweer. MusE aims to be a complete multitrack virtual studio for Linux.

Rosegarden

Rosegarden is a well-rounded audio and MIDI sequencer, score editor, and general-purpose music composition and editing environment.

soundKonverter

soundKonverter is a frontend to various audio converters. The key features are Audio conversion, Replay Gain calculation, CD ripping.

Streamripper

Streamripper allows you to download an entire station of music. Many of these mp3 radio stations only play certain genres, so you can now download an entire collection of goa/trance music, an entire collection of jazz, punk rock, whatever you want.

Video Editors

AvideMUX

Avidemux is a free video editor designed for simple cutting, filtering and encoding tasks. It supports many file types, including AVI, DVD compatible MPEGfiles, MP4 and ASF, using a variety of codecs.

Cinelerra

Cinelerra does primarily 3 main things: capturing, compositing, and editing audio and video with sample level accuracy. It's a seamless integration of audio, video, and still photos rarely experienced on a web server.

CinePaint

CinePaint is used to retouch feature films and in pro photography. CinePaint opens high fidelity image file formats such as DPX, 16-bit TIFF, and OpenEXR, and conventional formats like JPEG and PNG.

Jahshaka

Jahshaka is a video and film compositing, editing and special fx system that uses OpenGL & OpenML hardware rendering to give operators real time interactivity.

Kino

Kino is a non-linear DV editor for GNU/Linux. It features excellent integration with IEEE-1394 for capture, VTR control, and recording back to the camera.

LiVES

LiVES mixes realtime video performance and non-linear editing in one application. It will let you start editing and making video right away, without having to worry about formats, frame sizes, or framerates.

RecordMyDesktop

recordMyDesktop is a program that captures audio-video data of a linux desktop session, producing an ogg-encapsulated theora-vorbis file. recordMyDesktop tries to be as unobstrusive as possible by proccessing only regions of the screen that have changed.

Slideshow Creator

With Slideshow Creator and dvd-slideshow you can transform your pictures in a beautiful dvd-quality slide show rich of fashinating effects like ken burns, pan and animated transitions.

Ingex

Ingex is a suite of software applications designed to enable low-cost flexible tapeless television production.

Kdenlive

Kdenlive is an intuitive and powerful multi-track video editor, including most recent video technologies. Our software is completely free, in all sences of the expression, as defined by the GNU foundation.

Helpful Utilities

HTML TIDY

HTML TIDY is a free, open source utility for fixing and optimizing HTML syntax.

Cyberduck

Cyberduck is an excellent open source FTP client for the Mac OS. It features an easy to use interface with quickly accessible bookmarks. Its built-in support for Mosso Cloud files and its built-in Amazon S3 browser makes it a top-notch app for web designers and web application developers.

FillZillaFileZilla is a fast FTP and SFTP client. It is cross-platform compatible (available for Linux, Mac, and Windows operating systems) and has the ability to transfer files through numerous protocols.

winSCP

WinSCP is a Windows-only (S)FTP client for local to remote file transfers. It has a simple file manager to help you navigate and organize your files.

CamStudio

CamStudio is able to record all screen and audio activity on your computer and create industry-standard AVI video files and using its built-in SWF Producer can turn those AVIs into lean, mean, bandwidth-friendly Streaming Flash videos (SWFs) .

Greenshort

GreenShot is a screenshot capture program that lets you make on-the-fly text and image edits immediately after you grab the image.

ZScreen

ZScreen is an open-source screen capture program for Microsoft Windows. It can upload screenshots, pictures, text & files and put the URL in your clipboard in a single keystroke.

Xournal

Xournal is an application for notetaking, sketching, keeping a journal using a stylus. It is free software (GNU GPL) and runs on Linux (recent distributions) and other GTK+/Gnome platforms.

Firebug

Firebug is an extremely useful and versatile web page debugging tool. You can use it to learn and explore your HTML and CSS markup.

GalleryGalleryyou can take greater command of your image repository. Gallery is a web-based image gallery that you can use to store, organize, and access image assets online.

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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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