In part 1 of a series exploring how it has become so easy and so cheap
to publish a website, we considered what a webpage actually is – a
string of specially-formatted text sent to a web browser, which
'interprets' the text and displays the graphical webpage. Special HTML
Editors are used to create these webpage text files.
Now we turn to how the webpage is actually published. Having created a
webpage one way or another, what do we do with it? In short, stick it
in a webserver. A webserver is a program created to receive requests
for a webpage, find or build the appropriate page, and send it back to
the requester. There are of course many different webservers available,
but amongst the most popular are Apache (circa 80% of all webservers)
and Microsoft Internet Information Server or IIS.
In the modern way of things, the webserver provides the basic
foundation for publishing a website. Usually, a webserver will come
pre-packaged with a raft of capabilities and extensions that cater for
the majority of needs. The webserver in the Internet world is the
equivalent of Windows in the personal computer world – it provides the
ability to 'do stuff' but it is up to you to make that stuff happen. If
you only want to publish a few basic webpages, you can create them
using any HTML Editor (you can even use Word, if you have to), put them
into the webserver, and you are done. If you want to get more
sophisticated, you need to look at more complex website authoring tools
(more on those later).
But how do you “put them into the webserver”? Here we turn to the
concept of 'uploading'. Most people will be familiar with downloading
things from the Internet ; PDFs, photos, songs, emails. Normally this
happens automatically, with little input from you. However, to transfer
a file the other way ie. from your computer up to a website, you need 2
things – FTP software, and a password. Clearly, it would not be
desirable to let just anyone store files on a website, so a name and
password are necessary.
FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. FTP is simply the mechanism for
getting files large and small from one computer to another. The sender
uses a 'client' FTP program, while the receiver must be running a
'server' FTP program. The server FTP verifies that the sender is
allowed in, and then the 2 computers handle the transfer of the
file(s). There are numerous client FTP programs (CuteFTP and SmartFTP
are popular) and nowadays they make the task of uploading very easy.
So there we have it. Create a webpage or two using an HTML Editor,
upload to the webserver using FTP, and we're broadcasting to all the
world. Or are we? More next week...
For your convenience, this article and its links can be found on
merlinpacific.net - discuss this or any other IT topic online with
VIGNET (Vanuatu Internet User Group) - register free at
http://lists.spc.int/mailman/listinfo/vignet_lists.spc.int All welcome!
Any IT questions & comments? Email
- Tony
Phelps is part of the Merlin Pacific IT team, dedicated to effective
& efficient business IT.
