Recent Posts

FrontPage is a program developed by Microsoft to simplify the process by which people can make webpages. Driven by a WYSIWYG editor, FrontPage lets you easily create webpages as you want them to appear.

FrontPage also offers extensions - many web hosts support an extended feature set utilized by FrontPage. These are aimed to extending some web features (such as forms and auto-updating) directly into FrontPage.

As a problem faced by most WYSIWYG editors, the quality of HTML generated by FrontPage is sub-par. This can mean longer loading times for web surfers. While FrontPage is a good tool to use while learning the ropes of running a website, anyone serious about their website should utilize more advanced tools and/or use a professional.

It is a hassle to have to download a video (or audio) clip before being able to view it. Streaming video/audio allows you to send information to the end user such that they can watch/listen while it is being downloaded (instead of having to wait for the complete download).

While HTTP streaming is relatively trivial (often used in conjunction with Java - it sends the data to the end user, where it is immediately decoded), support for streaming formats such as QuickTime and Realvideo need to be supported by the web host.

Most web hosts do not offer this feature due to the costs associated with streaming video (licensing fees, increased server load, increased bandwidth consumption, etc). You will have to talk to your web host to see if they support this feature.

A database is a way of organizing information. Imagine it as tables of information from which someone can extract information from. SQL is a specialized language that is used for sending queries to databases. Do remember that data stored in databases also count as part of your disk space usage.

In most cases, yes.

You should first try to optimize the graphics on your website. Many GIFs look just as good with fewer colors, and many JPEGs look just as good with a higher compression level.

You should also analyze the HTML of your site. Make sure you use relative paths, so that images are not downloaded more than one time. Remove any extra spacing and when linking to other pages, use relative paths and not absolute links.

While many hosts already have it, you could also see if your host has mod_gzip installed. This can save you a lot of bandwidth.

Best of all, optimizing your page like this makes the user experience better as your site will load faster for them!

Diskspace is the size your website can be. Every single letter on your website has to be stored somewhere on your web host's server. Each letter is one byte, and a megabyte is roughly one million bytes. HTML pages are usually very small, but it is the extra images, scripts, and even databases that can take up large amounts of disk space.

Bandwidth/Transfer is the amount of data the server will allow your site to send in a month. Transfer is usually measured in gigabytes - billions of bytes. Once you go over your monthly limit, a host may either shut your site down for the remainder of the month or it can charge you 'overage.' This overcharge is usually about N500-N1000 per extra gigabyte of transfer.

cPanel (with its backend WHM) is the most popular control panel currently used by web hosts.

cPanel is able to successfully do everything in regards to what a control panel is, and a whole lot more. Providing instant information on the server and account sattus, cPanel lets an end user easily and quickly manage their website.

cPanel's is backed by WHM, which is the automated backend to the system. WHM allows the web host (or reseller) to create domains, manage nameservers, and a whole lot more.

There are three primary bottlenecks: CPU, memory, and hard disk.

CPU:
The CPU bottleneck occurs when the CPU can no longer keep up with the demand of various programs on the server. This can happen when too many users are requesting pages (and there is not enough RAM to store the data), when intensive programs are run (often times with statistics), or when an errant application consumes too many resources (as happens on a desktop computer also).

There is no real solution to an overloaded CPU - due to the wide range of potential causes, solutions can range from requiring a separate server for the database to simply getting more RAM. One recommendation is that Hyper Threading (found on Xeon servers) can often be detrimental to performance. Adding a second CPU can also result in much better performance.

Memory:
The primary bottleneck faced here is lacking enough memory. Memory can become a huge bottleneck when only 512 MB, or even 1 GB of RAM is present. With enough user requests the RAM gets overwhelmed and ends up straining the CPU. Always have an abundant amount of RAM to keep things running smoothly.

Hard Disk
The most often overlooked bottleneck, servers with IDE hard disks often get bogged down with requests and cannot keep up. In this situation the server bogs down due to I/O wait - the server slows down as it waits for the hard disk to get it the data it needs.

When it comes to the actual server hardware, a lot of importance (rightfully) is given to the CPU(s) that drive the server.

Both of the big chipmakers, Intel and AMD, provide server-specific CPUs meant to perform better in server operations. Both of the companies' server-CPUs are very close to their desktop counterparts

Intel offers the Xeon CPU for servers, and have certified them for single-processor and multiprocessor designs. The Pentium 4 on the other hand has been certified for single and dual CPU systems. The Xeon CPUs all have a minimum of 512 kb, whereas some of the Pentium 4 CPUs only feature 265kb.

Similar to what Intel has done, AMD offers the 'Opteron' brand for servers. Similar to its desktop counterpart, the Athlon64, the Opteron is different such that it is designed for multi-CPU situations and can also access greater amounts of RAM than its little brother. Again like the Xeon vs P4 comparison, the Opteron comes with a 1mb cache, whereas the Athlon64 can vary with 1mb, 512kb, or 256kb.

When it comes down to it, it is likely better to get the CPUs (Xeon and Opteron) that are built specifically for servers. While very much like their desktop counterparts, they do have some hardware features meant to be taken advantage of in a server situation.

One most also very acutely aware of what the actual bottleneck is on a server. In almost all cases it is one of the following - CPU, memory, or disk I/O. We have a page explaining server bottlenecks.

The hard disk is where all data is stored - the operating system, ancillary programs, and HTML/images/movies/etc for every webpage.

The hard disk is an often overlooked bottleneck in the server architecture. While many people correctly focus on the CPU and memory constraints, they incorrectly only focus on the hard disk size. This is a misunderstanding of how a hard disk operates.

Just like RAM, a hard disk not only varies in size, but also in speed of data accessed. Unlike RAM, hard disk space is cheap - Adding another hard disk or getting a bigger hard disk is not a big expense. What is really important is how fast the hard disk responds.

A hard disk has three main stats - its storage space, its seek time (how long it takes to find data), and its RPM (how 'fast' the hard disk operates). In a server situation, the seek time and RPM become increasingly important.

PHP/ASP.NET/Perl/Python

Applications that run on the web have specialized needs when compared to normal desktop-based applications. To that end, while more open-ended languages such as Perl and Python were popular in the initial development of the web, specialized languages like PHP and ASP.NET are fast becoming the de-facto programming languages.

As the web stands, there is no dynamic interaction on a page itself. Once the HTML is received by an end user, the server no longer receives any information until another page is requested. While client-side programming using JavaScript can emulate some nifty features, it is easily disabled.

To do anything dynamic server-side (such as creating a page tailored to a user's needs), a page must be created. This creation is done using a programming language such as PHP and ASP.NET.

Due to the ease of use of these languages, there are many scripts and software solutions available on the web, both free and commercial. While ASP.NET will require a Windows web hosting account, all the other popular programming languages will work on almost any operating system.