The Internet has paved the way for many businesspeople to extend their line of service by reaching as many people as possible all over the world. This way, you can have more opportunities of increasing your income and providing a chance for your business to grow tremendously. One way to be known, and even to compete, is to create a website. With a website for your own home business, you can market your products and services without having to spend too much on utilities and labor. There are only two things you need to ensure, though: security and speed of communication and exchange of information. That’s where web hosting services set in. They can give you an option to store files needed for web publishing, with a no-downtime guarantee. Along with this service is the FTP service, which gives you the convenience of transferring files from your personal PC to the web hosting server and vice versa. When choosing an FTP provider, make sure you can get, among all things these:

• a disk storage of 100 MB or 2TB
• effective bandwidth
• dependable hosting platform for FTP
• SSL security
• full FTP support for both file download and upload
• sufficient file storage

There are many advantages of obtaining an FTP host. One, if you’re going to send heavy files like images and texts to your customers or vendors, then your best choice is through FTP. Moreover, your files are kept secured because a good FTP account will make it hard for hackers to penetrate and steal information from. Even if you’re only running a home based business, you still need to ensure the security of any communication exchanged. With FTP hosting, you can also provide your clients with their own FTP accounts sharing the same domain name. This is to give way for a more convenient exchange of files from PC to PC. You may also opt to limit their access to protect confidential files from being accessed. A more advanced type of FTP is called Standard FTP or SFTP, which makes use of Secure Shell. It is a program that encrypts your file’s contents and data, then uploads these to the FTP server along with a “key.” Only an authorized personnel, probably the FTP account owner, can access and use these encrypted data by decrypting them using the key. It’s understandable if FTP seems so overwhelming for you. If interested, you can inquire from your web hosting company if they can also manage your FTP account. Who knows it wouldn’t be too much of a cost.

No Comments »

One way of sending files online is through file transfer protocol, commonly called as FTP. A typical program of FTP will allow you to upload any data from your PC to a server, then vice versa. All you have to do is to drag these information from a particular window to another. If you are running your own site, then maybe you’re using FRP even if you aren’t aware of it. For you to publish your site over the World Wide Web, you need to have a server and the ultimate way to move your files is through FTP. When it comes to managing file transfer through FTP, all you need to have is a client that can give you the necessary software. This client can be downloaded online without any cost, more so if it’s only for educational or personal reasons. However, if you’re going to use it for business, it may be advisable that you purchase an FTP program. There are a lot of cheap packages as well as free trials that you can avail of. When you’re setting up an FTP account, you need to have a password as well as a user ID. This is, of course, for security reasons. Why is FTP truly beneficial? For the simple reason that transfers become convenient, whether it’s a file transfer from your PC to your web hosting server, from the server to your PC, or even from PC to PC. How to Start Your FTP ProgramHere are some steps of acquiring your personal FTP:

• You can ask first your web host if they can provide you your own FTP so you don’t have to waste time looking around for one. If they don’t, then you can go online and search for free FTP, for starters. If you desire to purchase this service later on. Make sure, however, that you get hold of their basic features on how they transfer files. This is essential so you don’t have to spend money on a program that you don’t like or too complex for you.

• Create your own FTP account. Make your own unique username and password. Ensure that your password is very difficult to hack. Utilize the alphanumeric characters available. Remember, you may be transferring files that you consider as classified. You have to secure them properly.

Yes, FTP is as simple as a two-step process. Once you can sign in, you can begin enjoying its features and other functions which can assist you in moving and storing files.

No Comments »

Even web developers can become a web host reseller. By becoming one, they can not only provide websites for their customers, but they can also offer web hosting as well. To be a reseller, you need to look for a web host that can give a lot of web hosting accounts and excellent reseller features. From there, you can decide to host the websites of your clients.

There are some things you need to have before you can call yourself an effective web hosting reseller.

One, you must have multiple domain hosting. You can utilize the spare domain accounts for your clients’ websites. For example, supposing you acquired a web host that gives at most 7 domain accounts. You can use one for your own site, and offer the rest to the clients for a fee.

Second, you should have full control of the control panel for administrative functions. Better yet, you try to look for a web hosting provider that will not only give you your own control panel but can provide your other clients with their own too. Most of all, you should have the ability to hide the true identity of the web hosts so your clients wouldn’t know that you’re simply a reseller of another third-party service. Moreover, the web host should give you a way of customizing the control panel to fit your needs and requirements.

It is also important that your web hosting can provide reliable and fast customer and technical support. Should something happen to any or your client’s website, it is vital that you can solve the problem immediately. It’s because if the clients are unhappy with your web hosting service, it will affect your other services too.

Most of all, don’t forget to send terms and conditions to your clients. If it’s too tiring for you to create your own, you can simply ask for a copy from your web hosting provider or better yet supply you of policies fit for your purpose.

Reselling will work effectively for you if you can find a dependable web hosting site. Expect, however, that it will eat a portion of your time and may also demand considerable effort. Nevertheless, just rest on the fact that aside from additional income, you’re bringing more smiles to your clients.

Perhaps web hosting is not that difficult at all. At least that is what dotster and 1and1 make it look like. Thanks to services like bluehost, now absolutely anyone can have linux shared hosting. These hosts not only provide shared hosting services but come really cheap too. Where else could one get web hosting & services in such a package.

No Comments »

With the many web hosting companies sprouting like mushrooms over the Internet, it’s no surprise if you can find packages that are cheap and full of interesting features. Yet the problem sets in when you have a number of great options and you get lost and confused as to which hosting plan will fit your needs.

When you’re still in the process of evaluating these web hosting plans, there are 4 basic things you need to consider:

The web hosting provider should not own your domain name. The domain will be considered your trademark online—it settles your identity. Without it, there’s practically no way for your visitors to access your site. If the domain gets lost, then any traffic to your site will also go along the drain, rendering your website worthless. Thus, your control should be yours. Should your provider give free domain, the administrative contact should bear your name, and you must be provided of your own control panel to oversee ownership.

They should own their own web servers. There are some resellers out there who rely on other bigger web hosting companies for their servers. If you decide to change your web hosting company, you still need to negotiate to both resellers and web server owners for that. Moreover, you need to have root access. There are available VPS (virtual private server) with their respective root access. You can go for this or, if it’s expensive, try reliable shared web hosting providers such as Lunarpages or BlueHost.

As much as possible, do not go for free hosting. Free web hosting is only ideal if you’re building your own personal website or you’re simply trying to experiment. However, if it’s for business purposes, it’s still advisable to invest a little amount for a reputable web host. You can get more free space for your files, better customer support, no downtime, your personal domain name with a couple of subdomains, and easier monitoring of your traffic, courtesy of a control panel. Most of all, you can get rid of any ads, which are very common in free hosting sites.

The web hosting company should boast of dependable customer support. Every day your system is prone to any crashes and bugs, no matter how secure a system can be. Don’t worry, it’s normal for machines to experience those. Yet what is basically important is that you have somebody to rely on should these things occur. It’s hard to understand technical problems and the more incomprehensible it will be if nobody can explain it them to you properly. Settle for those web hosting providers that have excellent customer service and can be reached in multiple ways: phone, e-mail, fax, or personal mail. It will also help if you can see them personally for technical advice. They should be available as much as possible for 24 hours a day and can provide you of detailed report should you ask for the status of your account.

You deserve something grand for every penny you spend on your web host. However, don’t be apprehensive about it. When you learn to convert traffic from your well-hosted site, you’ll realize your unlimited income potential.

No Comments »

Which is a better web server: the Internet Information Server (Windows) or Apache (Linux)?

There are many areas in which you can compare them. After you read them, you make your own judgment.

Security. IIS security model is considered to be one of the best, and is based on Windows NT and 2000 security model. You can also use Apache on Windows as well. Yet, IIS is also subject to some susceptibilities, which have caused some major concerns. It’s normal to patch the IIS once a month or to set up recent service release at least 2 times a year. Any bugs were already fixed by Apache, though.

Convenience of Use. IIS is excellent for any new systems administrator as they can easily maintain it with easy-to-use forms and screens. However, the operating system such as Windows 2000 may be quite more expensive than Linux or Unix. Apache, meanwhile, needs more comprehension and learning before you can fully operate it and administer. Most of the text files are quite obscure, and configurations should be set up manually. Should you wish to use Apache, there are some add-ons that you can purchase, which allow you to enter information from forms and screens.

Efficiency. Majority of systems administrator say that IIS is performing more efficiently than Apache. However, they may likely give the same kind of efficiency with regards to static pages. When it comes to scripting, PHP, used by Apache, is known to be better than ASP, the scripting system of IIS.

Disaster Recovery. It’s normal for web servers to malfunction. However, between the two, Apache is taking the lead. This is because the backup solutions of IIS are, sad to say, weak. There’s no method of creating a backup for the metabase, which contains all configuration parameters for IIS. Apache is more bent into saving all configuration files.

Stability. You cannot doubt the stability of both these servers. Apache can stay running for more than a year without any rebooting, while IIS can run with minor rebooting during security patch updates. Both are strong enough to prevent any crashdowns due to bugs.

Scripting Language and Other Support

Both Apache and IIS can fully support PERL, SSI, and CGI scripts, though ActivePerl works perfectly with IIS. However, PERL, SSI, and CGI scripts are susceptible to security breach for these two web platforms.

Now who won? The most important thing is it’s you who gets the most benefit.

No Comments »