Illusion Technologies: Web Development

Web Hosting & Web Development
By Daniel Punch

If you've ever browsed the World Wide Web and wondered how you
could stake your claim on the Internet, like the millions of
others that have done so already, then web hosting can provide
you with the services to do just that. The Internet is a great
way of sharing information and it is possible for you to take a
portion of the web and make it your own. This article introduces
the term "web hosting" and provides some useful tips for web
development once you've obtained some web space.

What is the World Wide Web?
The "World Wide Web" is the network of computers from all over
the world that communicate with each other using the HTTP
protocol, a language that allows the transmission of web
documents. Be careful as this term is not synonymous with the
"Internet" because it is defined as a network of networks, where
the computers communicate with protocols other than HTTP. The
web is what you see on your Internet browser, the web pages
complete with graphics, sound and other information. All this
has got to come from somewhere, and this is where web hosting
comes in.

Web Hosting
The information that you see from your web browser is contained
in web pages. These web pages are kept on computers called web
servers. Web hosting is about the storage of the web pages so
that people can access them. It is possible to host your own
websites yourself but the reasons stopping most people doing
this is that there are issues to consider with having the right
hardware and software to successfully host your web pages. Your
web pages will take a certain amount of space, users will need
to download each page to view them and your Internet connection
needs to be fast to offer good performance to your viewers.
Using specialised companies that offer web hosting capabilities
on their web servers will take most of these worries away from
you but you will need to choose wisely and weigh up the costs
and your needs. In addition to having access to a web server,
you will also need to register a domain name (for a cost) that
uniquely identifies your website.

What Web Hosting Can Do For You
The most basic service that web hosting offers is that it
exposes your web pages for others to see. The other services
are: email capabilities that allow for email to be received and
sent from your server; database capabilities that allow for
large amounts of information to be updated and accessed on the
web; and dynamic content which allows for users to interact with
the web pages you've made.

Website Development
Poorly designed websites will most likely turn away users and
harm the credibility of the information it contains. Thought
should be put in on the way it looks and the way you intend your
users to interact with the content. It is also recommended for
more complex websites, a structured development process should
be followed. Here is a guide to the logical steps of web
development:
* Requirements Analysis: What is the purpose of the website?
What content should it contain?
* Design: How should the pages be linked? What structure should
they take? How should the pages interact with the user?
* Implementation: This step is the actual coding of the
websites in accordance to the previous websites.
* Testing: Does the website do what it should?
* Maintenance: Is the information on the website up-to-date?

Some useful hints for web development below are taken from
software quality aspects but they apply to the development of
websites as well. They are described in terms of web
development:

Reliability: Is the website reliable? Do faults allow for the
system to continue running?
Robustness: How does the website respond to incorrect input?
Performance: How fast does the web page respond to user's
actions? Is it efficient in processing requests and inputs?
Usability: Is the website easy to navigate and understand?
Maintainability: Is the website easy to change? Can new
functionality be added?
Portability: What software requirements does the website
require? Will this limit the amount of potential users?
Understandability: How well do you understand the website
you've developed?

When designing your website, keep these quality aspects in mind
as they will help you develop pages worth visiting. How to
choose the way to host your website is half of the problem, the
other half is to create a website that people would want to
visit and come back to. Knowledge of producing a good design can
help you get the most out of your creations.

William Ly
M6.Net
http://www.m6.net

Source: http://www.isnare.com