The Internet is a giant network of computers and electronic devices scattered around the world. They transfer data to each other. Sometimes that data comes in the form of files. Certain files (HTML, Flash, etc.) were designed to be viewed by users’ web browsers, much the same way a Word document is designed to be viewed in Microsoft Word.
So if you have a bunch of these web documents on your computer, you can configure your computer to act as a server and your friend can connect to it with his web browser and – tada! – you are now a web host. Technically, a server (or host) is just a machine that serves data to another machine, but the commercial ones do the same thing on a much larger scale, with much more bandwidth, support, redundancy, etc. The basic concept is nonetheless the same; a web host is just a specialized type of Internet data provider who takes your web documents and makes them reliably available to the rest of the world.
That was some very good bullshitting. Nicely done.
So “webhosting services” just have bigger, faster machines. Kind of like I can’t have the NBA playoffs in my living room because not enough space, ceilings not high enough for regulation baskets, not enough concessionaires (although I do have plenty of parking), so I rent a really big place owned by someone else?
Yeah, pretty much. You’re paying to have it done right.
Really, until you get to enterprise levels, web hosting is the least of your worries. Getting the site looking and behaving the way you want it to across all major browsers is going to be hard, and getting the word out (marketing) is going to be harder still. Good luck
Oh, my one suggestion to you would be to avoid re-inventing the wheel whenever possible. Whether you want to do online shopping, image galleries, forums, mailing lists, whatever, chances are somebody else already programmed it all and made it available for you to use for free or for a very low cost. Google before you buy anything or spend hours making it yourself.
Have you learned CSS? You haven’t mentioned it, and yet it’s crucially important to make a modern site.
Then learn about CMSs, Content Management Systems, a way to use an established pre-built templating system to give the site more interactivity and dynamic content.
I have learned CSS, but haven’t worked a lot with it recently. Kind of like I can carry on a rudimentary conversation in French, but couldn’t discuss a novel in detail. The last year I’ve been building web sites in Flash.
(I’m going to soapbox a little in the hopes that you’ll consider these things before you go too far down this path)
Flash is a poor choice for general web development. It saddens me that your community college is using it as its primary platform.
Flash is dependent upon a slow, buggy, insecure plugin. It breaks navigation and browser functionality. It is a closed, proprietary technology that’s against the very spirit of the web. It’s an animation and video gimmick that’s grown way beyond its scope – to the benefit of Adobe and the detriment of users. Flash is rarely justifiable except for aesthetic appeal, and it’s dangerous to get in the habit of thinking Flash first and HTML second because very few sites call for that (granted, an artist’s site might be fitting – but if and only if you can make it sufficiently unique and beautiful in a way that you can’t do with HTML and Javascript).
Flash is a fair way to create platform-independent interactive graphical trivia, but a horrible, evil way to build whole parts of a website, for many reasons, including:
[ul]
[li]It’s not accessible to non-standard readers (such as text to voice for sight-impaired visitors)[/li][li]There’s a delay while it loads. If your whole site is Flash, some people will click away before they see any of it.[/li][li]Nobody with an iPad will be able to use your site[/li][/ul]
Don’t jump to this conclusion. I was taking a class in Flash. So all of our projects were in Flash… and some were web sites. There are classes in everything. The web-specific classes were in HTML, CSS, Dreamweaver, etc.
Maybe I should mention that I’ve been studying in the art department (digital art and design) not the computer department. That’s why I’m adept at designing but not at “operating.”
Flash for art is understandable, but Flash for websites is usability genocide no matter which department you’re in. My right mouse button is still shaking from the last incident and late at night I can hear it weeping over dead context menus and young URLs that will never be born. Please don’t hurt it anymore.
