Hosting TutorialPlease use this tutorial to resolve any myths you've heard or questions you may have regarding hosting before continuing your search for a hosting provider.Chapter One - Overview Chapter Two - Relative Pricing Chapter Three - Space Requirements Chapter Four - Bandwidth Requirements Chapter Five - Email Information Chapter Six - Counters and Statistics Chapter Seven - Real CGI-Bin Chapter Eight -Control Panel Chapter Nine - Mailing Lists/News Letter Chapter Ten - E-Commerce Chapter Eleven - FTP Chapter Twelve - Connection and Reliability Chapter Thirteen - Support Online Storage SpaceOverviewHow much is enough? Calculating Overhead Expansion Economy Overview Space is fundamental to your web presence. This is where you place files you wish to make available on the Internet. This space will also hold programs and scripts associated with your account, like shopping carts, mail, and statistics. The adage that more is better, would seem to make sense, but many unscrupulous Internet Service Providers use big numbers to lure unsuspecting first-timers to their shoddy hosting service. All hosting is NOT created equal, and the numbers associated with the size of the storage space, do not tell the whole story. Oversized hard drives on undersized processors result in slow service, many hosting companies overcrowd their machines with too many clients, resulting in unstable operation. The big numbers are essential to sites containing Warez, mp3, and video downloads, which can slow down every site on the machine. Shop for a quality service first, and don't buy more space than you need. Read on to learn more about calculating your needs. Back to the top How much is enough? Well, I'm of the opinion that more is better, for me, but I shy away from places that overemphasize the excesses; these tend to attract abusers of processor time and network speed. Large downloads themselves, don't take much processor time, but when these attract bunches of users at once, the hard drive is always busy, and a couple of cable, or xDSL users can choke the network, slowing all access to the machine. So after balancing out the need for space, future expansion, and overhead usage, more is NOT necessary. Back to the top Calculating Store your files in folders, exactly the way they will be stored on the web server -- you need the back-ups! This helps eliminate duplicates, old versions, and makes judging total size easier. Folders only take 1K a piece (use as many as you like -- they don't hurt) I open a folder, single click on 1 item and hit "ctrl A" for "all" The explorer information tells me how many files there are and their total size. I write this down and move on to the next folder. Add them all up and you have the actual storage size of your website. Add your needs for expansion and overhead and you don't need 1 byte more from your hosting account. Back to the top Overhead Overhead is the space required in your account for the daily functions and accessories you have added you have added to your account. If you use the formmail, sendmail, counters and so forth already installed on the machine, these won't count against your storage space, they're located in a "global cgi-bin." Yet, if you install scripts, or optional programs associated with your account, these will be installed to your allotted space. Your statistics are kept in log files in your space, detailed log files are kept for 1 month then just the highlights are saved. After some time even these highlights can add up to several megs. Give yourself extra room for overhead but not more than a few megs. Back to the top Expansion What is your site about, and is this site due to need extra space for more information or more graphics? You may find that you have plans to add a whole new sideline to your site. Will that sideline benefit from it's own domain name or can it exist on your present site? If it would need it's own domain then don't calculate it's size for expansion -- it will need it's own web site. If the 2 can co-exist then by all means figure in enough space for the new sideline. You have already seen how much space your type of site uses, judge the space your new site will need based on that rate of consumption. And, add this to your previous figures to determine your total requirements. Back to the top Economy A faster loading page is very important to the success or your web site. Don't judge by how fast it loads at home -- it's coming from your hard drive -- not the Internet. Don't judge by how long it takes you to get it from the web space, you may still have it in cache -- it's still coming from your hard drive. And many people with older machines or living in areas with no fast access will receive the files much slower than you. As a general rule, keep each page to 50k or less (graphics included) this makes it more like "turning pages" than " starting Windows!" Always use compressed graphics, gif, jpeg etc and keep them as small as possible, typically graphics will use 4 times the space (and time) as the HTML. I use the same graphics over and over, only putting one copy on the machine. Use just one button, as all the cells backgrounds and write the function in over each. Eliminate font tags by using cascading style sheets. Trim your Code of non-functional tags placed there by generators. Back to the top
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