If you sign up with a web hosting company that provides a good selection of software along with tutorials, forums, and an email support system, you can get an education in web development that rivals that of any computer science degree. This is because if you get into developing your own site and become addicted in the process, there are plenty of people out there on the web who love to show off what they know and are willing to take a few minutes to answer questions from the newbies. Even if you start off with a free site builder and have no knowledge of web design whatsoever, you can become a self-taught web master if you have the desire.
A cheap web hosting education begins with an understanding of how your web hosting company sets up its equipment. The main piece of equipment that a web hosting company uses in order to make your site available on the Internet is called a web server, which is actually the computer where the operating system is loaded, along with all of the information for your web site. If you have a shared hosting plan, your site, along with many others will be on the same server. If you have a server all to yourself, then you have a dedicated hosting plan, which is usually for a larger site. A virtual server plan is somewhere in between, with multiple sites sharing one server, but with the same security benefits as a dedicated server. The operating system will usually be Linux or Windows. Linux is the most popular because it is open source and the least expensive, but a Windows operating system is preferred for Microsoft Products. That’s the edited version on equipment set up, but it will gives you a quick list of the basics.
Now, let’s look at how your account is set up. A web hosting company will price your account based on how much disk space and bandwidth they give you. Disc space is the amount of storage space that a web hosting company will let you have on their server, and bandwidth (data transfer) refers to the amount of data that viewers can download per month from your site. If you buy an all-inclusive cheap web hosting package, the amount of bandwidth you receive per month usually corresponds to the amount of disk space you are purchasing. This kind of hosting package also includes features to get you started like a free domain name (your Internet address), a free point-and-click-site builder (if you don’t know HTML), and a control panel so that you can manage your site. This is enough to get you started, and since all of these features also come with installation wizards, there isn’t a lot to learn. Your education really begins with the software that your low cost web hosting company has hopefully included in your package.
The included scripting languages and software is important if you want to learn how to become a web developer more quickly and affordably. It is better to pay a little bit more per month for some decent software than it is to save a few bucks and think you can find it free later. This is because any scripting languages or software that is in your package is set up to work with that operating system. If you introduce either licensed or bootleg third party software later on, you may find that there are mysterious glitches that no one can explain, even if the web hosting company claims that there should be no problem. You should look for computer languages, scripts, and software like PHP, MySQL, FTP, Apache, Python, Perl, Java, Joomla, Cron, Fantastico, ASP, CGI, and Ruby on Rails. You generally won’t see any free Dreamweaver or FrontPage programs, but look for extensions so that you can add them yourself if you want to build your site using them.
These are the building blocks of any web site, and although most of them work together, they all do something different. Google any of these terms and you will find definitions, tutorials, and forums on any one of them. Think about what you want your website to accomplish and see if any one of these computer languages provides a solution or shortcut. Talk to your web hosting company about it. After that, you are on your way to becoming a self-taught web master. There are a lot of developers who are doing some exciting things with computer languages and creating a lot of interesting solutions for existing challenges. So find the right web hosting company, get started with your own site, and see where it goes from there.
