Welcome to www.astralcomputing.net
Web Hosting - Look Before You Leap
Companies that offer Internet-connected servers that provide space and bandwidth for a domain, for one or more web sites, are called Web Hosts. Large companies have private networks that allow them to host domains on their own equipment and IP address range. But for the majority of those who want an Internet presence, a 'rented' web host is a necessity.
There are a wide variety of hosting plans available. Some are free, others charge up to a $100 or more per month. Some provide nothing but a tiny amount of disk space and minimal network bandwidth. The web site owner is on his or her own for any thing else. Others offer a range of services, including server and email administration, backups, web site design assistance, troubleshooting and many others.
In the world of web hosting, you may often find yourself sharing a server with anywhere from one to a thousand or more other web sites. That allows the web hosting company to keep equipment and staff expenses lower. Many web sites are simple and low-volume enough that the arrangement works fine. When you or one or more of the others grow, it may be helpful to consider a dedicated server.
A dedicated server, as the name suggests, hosts only your domain. You can put one web site on it, or as many as you wish. You control the access. You may also, as an option, take over much of the server administration yourself. That may save you money on support costs, but cost you considerable time. If you don't have the expertise, you can end up costing yourself much more than you save.
In order to carry out those administrative functions yourself, even if you hire help, it's desirable to have some technical knowledge under your belt. Some of that knowledge will be useful, even for day-to-day tasks apart from dealing with emergencies. FTP, email administration, backup methods and other technical areas are among the more common areas you'll need to be at least somewhat familiar with.
When your web site grows to a certain size and level of complexity, you'll begin to find it worthwhile to look at implementing a database. But that brings with it a still higher level of ability, both technical and logistical or creative.
Implementing a database can be relatively simple. Designing one that provides what you want, with decent performance and maintenance that doesn't become a nightmare, will take some careful thought. Not everyone has the temperament for that type of work, especially those who prefer graphical design, content creation or development, and the many other web site tasks that are part of every implementation.
There are other, more low level administrative matters. Managing disk space, maintaining domain names, dealing with registration and changes, and a number of other 'utilitarian' tasks are also not everyone's cup of tea. Some understanding of how DNS works, as well as the design of the Internet itself, are helpful. That provides a good context for understanding the role of some of those tasks.
When you begin to seek out a web host to implement a web site, consider all these factors and look in the mirror. What kind of web hosting you should pursue is determined by a combination of who you are and what's being offered. Look before you leap.
Software copyright sample Software Copyright Sample Builds Loyal Customer Bases When choosing software copyright sample many before focusing on one or two. It is impossible to try every piece of software that exists in the world of software today. There are so many pieces of software currently on the market and new software being created as I type this. With so many new and different, competing and interesting software programs so widely available you might find something wonderful and unique available at a wonderful price or better yet, for free in the open source arena. Open source software isn't exactly software copyright sample material. This software is occasionally used as a testing ground for unproven versions of software, for software testing, or simply to determine the demand for a particular type of software. Chances are pretty good however; that if you've ever thought, "I wish I could find a program that did (insert whatever here)" someone else has had the same thought and created a program that will do just that. Perhaps the greatest beauty of a software copyright sample is that you get a taste of what the software can do without the expense of purchasing to find out whether it is right for you or your needs. There are actually many ways that companies both for profit and open source companies allow potential customers or converts to sample their products. Linux is a great example of this. They have gone from an open source nuisance to a viable competitor to many larger software companies by providing free software or a software copyright sample to consumers in order to whet their appetites for future offerings designed with profit in mind. What has developed is a viable (and growing) source of competition for Microsoft. Many open source developers are operating very much like Linux and starting out by offering a free software copyright sample to those who will try them out and give them feedback. They use the feedback to make improvements and build better products while making a name for themselves, their customer service, and the quality of the products they build. It's a win-win situation for many consumers and businesses that are just starting out and operating on a shoestring on both the part of those that offer the software copyright sample and those that are benefiting from the sample. Other companies are not as altruistic or are not as willing to wait for the payoffs. Instead of offering a completely free software copyright sample, they will offer you a free trial to their software that will either end at the end of the trial period and require a new subscription or automatically begin charging your credit card. Both of these practices have proven themselves to be highly effective methods of winning not only new customers but also seemingly unshakeable customer loyalty on the part of those that purchase software from these developers or companies. If you do an Internet search for open source software I think you will be astounded at the quality and selection that exists. There are programs that exist to do almost anything. My favorite (I must admit) are the game, but there are also many wonderful programs that can do amazing things like track your golf score, convert currency, help you organize your kitchen more effectively, figure out how much tile you need in a room. Almost anything that needs to be done, there is a piece of software that can do it-open source. The important thing to remember is that you won't find these programs in your local software store but you may find something similar to your copyright software sample that will cost considerably more money than the finished and polished version of the software that you are able to sample free. The Top Virtually Bug-free Free Email Services on the Net Virtually bug-free e-mail services are available actually from several places. Many of these service providers are big names, known by many, especially Internet users. The difference between the different e-mail providers lies in several things. These differences include but are not limited to plenty storage space, effective spam filtering, a fast user-friendly interface, desktop e-mail program access and much more. Currently in the United States and the rest of the world, the best offer for free e-mail comes from Gmail. Gmail is part of the Google business enterprise (the search engine most of us know) and offers the most features and storage space for their users for free. With virtually unlimited storage capacity for e-mails, a user never has to delete any e-mails of the server and can collect all the messages. Gmail offers a simple user-friendly interface, which also includes an excellent search function that lets a user find messages instantly and precisely. Another great feature of gmail is the POP and IMAP access features. This gives the user the possibility to download the e-mail from the server with any e-mail program that the user generally would use. The program can then also automatically download the e-mails into the program ready for the user to read. Gmail is funded by displaying advertising next to the e-mails read. Next on the worldwide list would be GMX, a German provider that offers many of the features gmail offers, but with limited storage space. This program also has the POP feature and can therefore be used in conjunction with any of the common available PC e-mail programs. Right after gmail it is one of the most reliable e-mail services, but unfortunately they discontinued the English user face and only offer a German version now. Thereafter on the top free e-mail services providers is AIM Mail. It is the free web-based service from AOL. Like gmail it offers virtually unlimited online storage, excellent spam protection and a simple, easy to use interface. Unfortunately, AIM Mail lacks proper productivity, such things as labels, smart folders and message threading is not available. AIM Mail also offers a very functional POP and IMAP access. Yahoo! Mail would be the next e-mail service that should be mentioned on the list of the top virtually bug-free services on the Internet. Yahoo also offers virtually unlimited storage space for e-mails and a few other nice features, such as Short message services for texting to friends and family, instant-messaging features for the internet and up to date news feeds. What Yahoo! mail lacks is a really good spam filter. It offers a spam filter, but it is not effective enough. Also nice to have would be labeling options as well as smart folders. The Yahoo! Interface is just as easy and user-friendly as the other providers and fairly reliable. To complete the list we need to mention the following three services, Inbox.com, FastMail and Hotmail. Inbox.com offers e-mail users 5 GB of free space to store e-mail online. Despite the limited space, this service is outstanding due to its high-speed accessibility. Web access and POP access are very fast and even the search functions are faster than with most other services on the market. The drawbacks of Inbox.com are the missing IMAP access, only POP is provided and the organizing of mail is slightly unorganized due to missing smartfolder technology. FastMail on the other hand offers users only IMAP. It has many useful features and has one of the best web-based e-mail interfaces. It also generally displays fewer ads then the other services do. And lastly, Live Hotmail should be mentioned here, since most PC users that have a Windows based operating system will have heard of hotmail. This program offers 5 GB of storage for e-mails online. It has a fast search option, a solid security feature and the interface is as easy as the ones users are used to on their desktop. Even though security is great, the spam filter is not quite as effective as some of the other e-mail providers. Also missing with this provider is the POP and IMAP access as well as smartfolders and other great e-mail organizing features. |