How do I go about uploading my design onto the world wide web? Is it enough for me to register a net address or do I necessarily need the services of a web hosting company (what exactly is a web hosting facility)? Are there any free providers of a counter facility of which you are aware? Once my site is up and running can I change the details easily or must I upload new information to the site each and every time I change something? Given the cost differential between a .ie and .com address is there any real advantage of having a .ie address over a .com one? - YH, via e-mail
Hosting is the business of housing, serving and maintaining files for one or more websites. Its most important function is not, as you might think, the provision of space for website files, but fast connection to the Internet.
Hosting services use connection lines that would be too expensive for most companies and individuals. Using a hosting service allows several users share the cost of fast Internet connection. There are hundreds of websites which will give you free space and act as a web host for your site. GeoCities (www.geocities.com), owned by the Yahoo search engine company, hosts millions of individuals' sites. They say that whether you want to create an online family photo album or your own entertainment site, they provide you with all the tools you need to create and maintain it.
They allow each site 11 megabytes of server space, and to help you promote your site they will incorporate it into one of their "neighbourhoods", or virtual publishing communities, which means it will be listed alongside sites with similar interests.
The main way to upload information to a hosted website is through a process called File Transfer Protocol. The use of this is explained at GeoCities.
There are lots of other sites offering free space for sites too. Tripod (www.tripod.com) has what it calls a site builder which claims it will show you how to "build a complete website online in no time." Escalix (www.escalix.com), FreeServers (www.freeservers.com), and Virtual Avenue (www.virtualave.net) are other examples.
You can also find out more about HTML (Hypertext Markup Language - the technical language of the web) and building a site at sites such as Learn the Net (www.learnthenet.com), Builder.com (www.builder.com), HTML Center (www.htmlcenter.com) and HTML - An Interactive Tutorial (www.davesite.com/ webstation).
As for .ie versus .com, hopefully you will have seen last week's article about the bottleneck that is happening with .com addresses. If not, it boils down to this: you are far more likely to get the address you want with .ie.
