Examples of such sites are online stores, news networks, eBay, and Youtube. Medium to small businesses generally do not require the need for dedicated hosting, however they can benefit from this option by having access to equipment that they otherwise could not afford to acquire on their own or have access to. The drawback is the website owner will be faced with a much higher cost for this type of hosting operation. Unlike Shared Server services, Dedicated hosting is accessible by only the website owner.

Shared hosting is primarily designed for websites requiring less complication, but still allow the capabilities of sending and receiving e-mail, filling out forms, requesting information and a presentation which does not require multitudes of pages and links. Although Shared Hosting is a more affordable means of hosting your website, the drawbacks are that you provide your own server equipment, which in itself can be costly. Consequently in the event of equipment failure, you the owner are responsible for cost, repair, and upgrade of your own equipment.

Before you can decide whether you go dedicated or shared, assess your needs. Exactly what will your website need to maintain functionality and image which you want to portray? A few factors that should be considered are as follows:

Usage-- why you have the website in the first place.
Storage-- how much megabyte of space will you need.
Bandwidth -- in times of heavy traffic. It is recommended that you have 10 times bandwidth of that of storage.
Web support-- a team you can turn to and count on in times of technical trouble.
User-friendliness-- remember, not all of us are IT experts!
Guarantee-- another word for assurance of support
Price-- you get what you pay for.

There are many phrases and words that not everyone understands. Here is a list of some of the things you will see on websites of web hosting companies.

Types of Server

• Shared Server

  It means really what it says. You share the server with other users. The problem with this is that web hosts sometimes put more than 100 user accounts on the same server. Often they even oversell their servers.
  
  This is similar to overselling seats in an airplane. They sell tickets and hope that some people wont make it or cancel again. So overselling servers means that the hosting companies hope that the users never will use all their space. The Shared Servers are usually cheap but can be slow. Also you are limited to what server settings you can change. Usually private people and small businesses host their websites on these type of servers.

• Dedicated Server

  This is a server that only you use. You can write websites that use all the power that the server can produce. But this comes for a price.
  
  Dedicated Servers are much more expensive but you usually have the freedom that you can do with it what you want. Websites hosted on Dedicated Servers are usually much faster than on Shared Server. Busy websites are usually run on Dedicated Server.

• Co-location

  Hosting Companies have huge data centers with many ranks (shelves for computer equipment). Not all are full. they rent you the space but you need to provide the server. This has a great advantage.
  
  You can build the server to what you need. You can upgrade and downgrade as you wish. The downside is that you require access to the server which can be tricky. Often you have to book an appointment and even pay for it.

• Virtual Private Server

  VPS are cheaper than Dedicated Servers but still more expensive than Shared Server. Actually it is a mixture of both. You share a server with a small number of users but you work independent from each other.
  
  To you it seems as if you have your own server. This means that you can make changes to the settings that you couldn't do on the Shared ones but it is still cheap. When websites get too popular for a Shared Server webmasters usually move them first to a VPS before going to a Dedicated Server.

Features

• Uptime

  Many web hosts give you a Uptime guarantee. This means that the guarantee you that your website will be available for an x% amount of time. Sometimes it is 99% sometimes it is 99.9%.

• PHP

  This stands for Hypertext Preprocessor. It is a programming language which enables you to program complex websites with databases and much more. There are many websites that help you to learn programming PHP.

• Perl

  Perl is another programming language like PHP.

• MySQL

  MySQL is a Database. If you want to offer user registration, searches or other things, there is a good chance that you need a database.

• IMAP / POP3

  These are important if you wish to use your email account from Outlook, Thunderbird or similar. You have to provide the programs IMAP or POP3 details in order for it to connect to your email account. If you use web based email software from your hosting company then you do not necessarily need them.

• FTP

  FTP is a way to connect to the web space and upload or download multiple files easily. This requires usually some FTP software to be installed on your computer.

1. Do some research

   When looking for a web host, do some research. Look what companies are around. You can find loads using search engines like Google or Yahoo. You can also often find advertisements in Computer magazines. There are also Online Directories where Hosting Companies advertise. Sometimes they have reviews and ratings attached to them. You can also ask friends and colleagues that have websites about their hosting company and how happy they are with them.

2. What do you need

   One important tip is to sit down and figure out what you actually need. Websites can be so different and have different server requirements. One site might need more Data storage another site might need more Data transfer. Keep in mind that things you want might not be things you need.

3. Shortlist companies

   From your research of hosting companies and your determination of what you need make a shortlist of companies which meet your requirements. This list can be as long or as short as you want. Then when you continue with the hunt for the right hosting companies you can cross those off that do not meet your requirements.

4. Analyze hosting companies

   By now you should have a list with possible web hosting companies. Go down the list one by one and analyze them. Things you might what to have a look at are. How do their interface look like? Is it easy to find your way around? What does the fine print say? What is their uptime guarantee? Are you able to get a refund for down-time? Do they have a trial period? How long is it? If you are not satisfied how much money will you get back?

5. The Specs

   Now the list should have shrunk a bit. Lets have a look at the packages they offer. Most websites will not need more than 100MB data storage. So choosing a package with 500MB or even unlimited (which is a joke since there is no such thing as unlimited) is pointless. What functionality do they give you? Do they give you email addresses? If so how many? Can you access them via POP3 (Outlook etc). Do you have FTP access? Do you get some form of database (only if you need one ) like MySQL or Access? Do you have server side scripting like PHP, ASP, ColdFusion ect? Check out if it is possible to upgrade to a higher package later if needed.

6. Check them out

   Now it is time to check them out. Try to contact them via an online chat on their website and see how long they need to answer it. Also ask them question and see how good hey answer them. Find out if any large company is using them. They probably have a list with reputable companies that host their website with them. Contact this company via email of phone and ask them how happy they are with the hosting company and whether they would recommend them to you. You also will have to look at the unhappy clients. Search in forums and try to find out what these unhappy clients complain about. Sometimes its nothing big but at times you will find out that something is just wrong with them.

7. Choose

   After getting rid of all the unsuitable, unreliable and useless hosting companies you have to make a decision. This decision can nobody make for you. You need to think about what you have read about the hosting companies and what they offer.

Look at their prices. Sometimes it is better to pay a little bit more and get better service.

Every time a person fills out a contest entry, sweepstakes form, survey application or joins an online community, then chances are the personal information that is used to complete these things are sold, rented or shared with second and third parties without our knowledge.

Most reputable companies or websites will have a privacy statement that explains clearly how they will use the personal information that they collect from their members or customers. Not all websites or companies are reputable, so it is extremely wise to read their privacy statements before handing over any revealing or personal information about you to strangers.

The following websites are extremely useful to help stop big brother from snooping into your personal business and private lives.

1. PGP

   PGP provides cryptographic privacy and authentication that is designed to protect email sent and received between two or more parties from being compromised by outside sources. This is an awesome email encryption program that really works great and is especially useful for sending and receiving important business email.

2. GuerrillaMail

   An excellent way to stop potentially a bunch of unwanted spam from clogging up your inbox is to use GuerrillaMail, so to get a disposable email address to use anytime your personal email address in required. The email expires in 15 minutes, just long enough to send or receive whatever is desired.

3. PookMail

   Stop sharing your real email address with every website that ask for it, but instead make up an imaginary email address using this website. Using this service for a while I have noticed a noticeable difference in the amount of spam that I have been receiving…considerably less. The email associated with your account is cleared every 24 hours allowing you to remain anonymous and still have fun.

4. Anonymous Speech

   Every time you send or receive a traditional email there are companies, governments and private individuals tracking your every move and storing these emails on both public and private servers. Anonymous Speech has an extremely secure email service that continues to provide outstanding email protection long after the email has been sent or received. This company does not share their client's personal information or email access with anyone and that does include government agencies and corporate entities. This program will not disappoint anyone who wants to remain anonymous when surfing the web.

5. Obviously

   This is an outstanding Do-It-Yourself website that shows you how to stop those pesky telemarketing phone calls and how to remove your personal information from marketing mailing lists, so to stop junk mail.

6. Double Click

   This company is the nerve center of digital marketing as the company self describes its self, but in reality, Double Click has probably collected some personal information about every person using the Internet at some point and time. They sell personal information collected to third parties for marketing purposes and the company will share the information that they collect on you with judicial or other government subpoenas, warrants or orders. Have your name and information removed from Double Click servers using the link above.

7. The Cloak

   Hide your web surfing activities from prying eyes and snoops while using this website to surf the net anonymously. The encrypted connection hides your identity from the sites that you are visiting using an http and https anonymous proxy. Your privacy is personal - get it.

8. BeHidden

   Here is another anonymous web surfing search engine that protects the surfer's person identity and web activities from being compromised by nosy webmasters, corporations, and governments. Also, BeHidden can be used to send anonymous email, so to further protect your identity. Awesome site!

9. Government Public Records Database

   Access the same databases as law enforcement and government officials do, so to request a copy of your FBI file. Yes it is true, the FBI compiles records concerning private citizens within the United States and you may be one of the people that the FBI has been watching. Excellent website tool for business operators, too.

10. Snarfed

    This is an outstanding blog about protecting your privacy when shopping on the Internet and what type of disposable credit or debit cards to use and how they work. Not all-disposable credit cards are made equally as some card programs will protect you better than others will. There is a lot of information here on this blog about privacy issues and there is a little something on here for everyone.

Remember, every time that you fill-out a contest or sweepstakes entry form or complete a survey your personal information is being collected and stored in some stranger's computer server somewhere. Each time a person joins another social network ( MySpace, Facebook ) or signs up to participate in an online forum; your personal information is being collected.

What or how these companies use your personal and private information depends on the company doing the collecting. Before doing business with or disclosing your personal information to, be sure to read the company's or website's privacy statement carefully, before disclosing anything to them. If the company or website does not have a privacy statement or the privacy statement looks suspicious, then avoid disclosing anything about you or anyone else to these types of companies and/or websites.

This guide will include the steps needed in order to get your own web server running, however this does not include adding server side scripting, setting up a domain name for your server, or for that matter connecting your server to the Internet. The reason for not including the previous is because I plan on using those for other topics.

Necessary Requirements

First of all you will need a computer running Windows XP, any flavor of the XP family will work. You will also need an Internet connection in order to download necessary files.

Getting Started

To get things going you will need to download the Apache web server software from the Apache website.

For this guide suggest using the most recent version Apache HTTP Server 2.2.4. Unless you are experienced and comfortable with compiling software, I also recommend when downloading the Apache web server software choose the “Win32 Binary (MSI Installer)” download. A note on security after the file is downloaded check its MD5 Checksum with the one provided on the Apache website, If unsure about how to do this try Google. After searching for “MD5 Checksum” the first link was to Wikipedia explaining what it is, and the second link was for a Windows program to check the MD5 Checksum of a file.

Now that the installer file is downloaded rest of the processes is merely executing the program and following the steps. The first part of information this installer requires is the Server Information, this includes Network Name, Server Name, and Administrator's Email Address. The Network Name and Server Name are mainly for DNS purposes, the Administrator's Email Address part is used on error pages and other various programs that display the Admin's Email.

If you plan on eventually having a domain name then use that information for this step. Otherwise use something simple like example.com for the Network Name, www.example.com for the Server Name, and Admin@example.com for the email. The next step is choosing “Typical” or “Custom” install, just choose typical and then resume the rest of the install. If all goes well you will eventually get a message saying “The Installation Wizard has successfully installed Apache HTTP Server...”

Testing Everything

To test your installation of Apache HTTP Server open your favorite web browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, etc.) and go to your computer's loopback address, “http://127.0.0.1”, this is an internal address in the computer reservered for itself and only itself. If your browser displays a page that says, “It works!” then your installation was successful.

Adding a Website to Your Web Server

To add your own HTML files to the server you must place the files within the DocumentRoot directory. The DocumentRoot is basically the directory from which your server will serve content from. In this version of Apache this directory is located at “C:Program FilesApache Software FoundationApache2.2htdocs” where “C:” is the drive that you installed Apache on. After adding your HTML files you can test it out by going to your loopback address in your browser again.

We all do online shopping, book tickets where we give our credit card information. This can be easily misused by hackers. Apart from this, hackers hack passwords and usernames and prove to be big threat for confidential information.

We download lot of information from the web on a daily basis and not having proper anti – virus software, can damage your computer completely and damage the information stored in it permanently.

Anti – virus soft wares are available on CD’s which can be purchased. Also, new and new virus come everyday, hence, it is essential to keep yourself updated with the potential threats and also update your anti – virus software every 15 days.

One should not reply on only one medium of storing important data. In case of a virus attack, it can prove to be very expensive. One should also store data in other devices such as a USB key, or in a back up folder on the server.