Web hosting means storing your web site on a public server so your web site can be visible to the world.
The following three steps show how to publish your web site on the Internet:
A Web Server or an Internet Service Provider (ISP)
To publish your work, you must copy your site to a web server.
Your own PC can act as a web server if it is connected to a network.
Apache is a popular, free web server.
However, this approach is usually time and effort consuming.
Most small businesses and companies store their web site on a server provided by an ISP, such as Verizon, which usually provides web hosting too.
Registering a Domain
Domains can be registered from domain name registration companies such as Domain Name Registration.
When domain names are registered they are added to a large domain name register, and information about your site—including your Internet IP address is stored on a DNS (Domain Name System) server.
A DNS server is responsible for informing all other computers on the Internet about your domain name and your site address.
Starting Creating Your Web Site
This step is the focus of this course.
There are a wide variety of tools and languages for this step based on the host operating systems:
Windows, which includes ASP.NET and Dreamweaver.
Linux/Unix, which includes CGI, JDBC, JSP, and PHP.
Some of the software can be applied to both operating systems.
