BleepingComputer.com: First Time Building Website

Alright, I always turn to the masters here, whenever I have difficulties in my not-so-hi-tech brain...

Alright, I know some HTML, tidbits of CSS, and should be able to learn some basic javascript and SQL online.

The scenario is, I bragged to my dad that I can build an offline website. My dad was pretty surprised that I could, so he asked me to try and build him a website for his company [Not so big, from a far away country in the southeast Asia]

Now, I'm all in for building this website, even if I am going to learn some more

However, I'm pretty concerned about the security of this website.

1. How do I get it online? Yeah, it's a stupid question, I know, but, I looked in the w3school where I learnt html, and i don't think they said anything about it there.
2. Is the website going to be safe from hackers ? I've heard about websites getting defaced..
3. What exactly are the things that I need to learn, in order to make a secure website, that can be brought online?
4. If indeed I should use webhosting, which one should I use ? I mean, I currently live in the USA, but my parents are having their business far in the southeast Asia, and I should be expecting more visitors from there.




Thanks guys !!

1. Use an webhosting, make sure your files are .html or .php or anyother index types, if your trying to make an webpage under Microsoft Front page, or anyother program.. some webhosts won't be able to upload that. i'll refer to some hosts later on in this post.

2. It's quite rare to see hackers around, I have about 12 sites up at the moment, and only one of the sites has been hacked, thats becuase of the server it was hosted on.

3. Well, thers notthing to learn there, it depends on what webhost your purchase, for example if you get paid.. some offer free DODS attacks ect.. but they usualy cost.

4. If you live in Egypt for example, you can still use USA hosting, it won't make an diffrence only that it's further away and your website is registered there.. for some Webhosting examples here are a few..

4a. http://plans.0lx.net/
4b. http://byethost.com/
4c. http://freeweb7.com/
4d. http://x10hosting.com/
4e. http://www.4realhost.com/

.. and theres loads more.. i'll try and get more up for the time search google.

That cleared up quite a bit of the fogs in my head

I'm gonna use dreamweaver to build the website. Why can't the webhosts upload the files created by these programs? I'm gonna be going through hell without a WYSIWYG program. I was thinking of maybe using dreamweaver, and then edit it to make it as if I made it in a notepad. Do you think that would solve the problem?

And about the webhosting proximity. That's exactly what I mean. In my hometown there, Indonesia, internet is not usually too fast. In fact, most of the users are still using dial-up. Therefore, if the webhost is too far away, wouldn't the client side browser be experiencing any connection difficulties ?

and another stupid question... The server is not going to be my computer, is it? I mean, the users aren't going to browse to my computer, in order for them to access the website, are they?

When you have someone host your website, all of your files are on their server.

Webhosts don't upload anything. In fact, pretty much all they do is provide hosting space, and maybe some help getting your site set up, and maybe some security features. It is your job to upload the necessary files and administer your website. Dreamweaver makes HTML files... that is what a web page is. The server has no idea if it was created in Dreamweaver, notepad, or a TI-83.

You are also confusing how things work. Just because the users are on dialup, the server is not. A web page request can be sent halfway around the world, and the resulting web page returned, in seconds. Nobody outside of the country is likely to notice any difference.

I think that clears everything about the webhosting

However, now I've got another thing in my mind, since I haven't start on building the website yet. :D


I'm wondering of which one to use. I'm pretty comfortable with html, but am interested in learning new stuffs. However, there are just too many of them, I don't know where to start. I'm thinking asp and php. I see a lot of these extensions in a lot of sites, along with cgi.

What are these?

I read around, and a lot of them said that asp and php makes a website "dynamic". What exactly do you mean by "dynamic" ? How is it different from html ?

I read around again, and found something that somehow clears some fog about asp, but still...

How do you test an *.asp file ?

I mean, you can test how a html file would look like right? Like you save them in your pc, and then run it with your browser.

How about an *.asp file? I tried saving the text as test.asp, but it prompts me with the question on what should I open it with. I'm confused. Can I just use the browser to "test drive" the asp file?

Quote

I'm not sure if I understand what that means. Web pages are HTML, period. CSS is used to tell how an html page should be displayed, and Javascript is used to add programming functionality to web pages.

In order to "test" .asp pages. you need (if I recall correctly) Internet Information Server. Basically you need the proper software to convert the .asp file to html so that your browser can display it.

Dynamic web pages are created "on the fly". That is, the web page does not exist until it is requested. Bleepingcomputer.com is a good example of a dynamic web site. At any given time, any number of people may be responding to posts. Whenever a user loads the webpage, the page reflects any new posts. When someone requests the web page, scripts on the server pull information from the database, apply it to a template, and the template generates an html page that is displayed in your browser. Dynamic web pages have the advantage of being up to date, can not really be defaced, and are easy to maintain. However, that means that there is more effort in creating the programs that generate the web pages, which means one needs to know about real programming, which HTML is not (although javascript comes close).

KIDRoach, on Nov 11 2007, 02:35 AM, said:

You'll want to learn what you think you will use. Look to see what your dad wants for his company. ASP, PHP, and CGI, are what you've found as dynamic languages. You can create forms, sell things, have comments, things of what groovicus has mentioned. So, if you want to know where to start, ask your father what he'd like on his site. Have a plan first, then learn the necessary languages if needed.

You asked also about loading it to your server? You'll want to look for programs like Filezilla, where you can sign into your server and load or remove files. Since you're using Dreamweaver, you can also use that to upload files to your server.

I asked around, and one of my friend said that php is better than asp. Is that true? He said that there are more web hosts that support php rather than asp.

I'm leaning towards learning php now, I'm thinking I wouldn't put extensive use of php in my website, but maybe just to display time and date, and maybe some news about the company.

I went to w3school, and they told me to install php, apache, and mysql. What are these? Why do they refer to the computer as server in there ? http://www.w3schools.com/php/php_install.asp
Isn't the web host acting as the server for my website?





And another thing. How do you create those news pages? Is there any "shortcuts" to update the news? Or do you have to modify the web page to display the news about the company?

KIDRoach, on Nov 11 2007, 02:20 PM, said:

You only need to install things if your server doesn't support it. Most servers support those, so there isn't a need to install anything. w3school mentions:

"If your server supports PHP - you don't need to do anything! You do not need to compile anything or install any extra tools - just create some .php files in your web directory - and the server will parse them for you. Most web hosts offer PHP support."

All you have to do is save a page in .php format and it'll do everything for you.

What do you mean, news pages?

yeah, news pages, erm.... it's pretty difficult to explain.

Like, when you have an event in the company, and you wanna put the event up in your site, but you don't wanna modify the html file. Is there any way to do this, without having to directly modify the html file, or you just have to modify the html file, and then reupload it again ? I mean, is there a program or something, so that we can update the webpage, without having to modify the html directly? [I hope it's clear, it's difficult to explain]

Yes, it is possible to dynamically generate web content. I can't think of any software that will do it for you. I'm sort of glad because I get paid to do that from time to time.

You are either going to need some sort of website builder software, or get someone to create an app for you that allows you to update your web content. With the first option, you use the builder to simply create an updated version of your webpage and upload it. The second option isn't really going to be an option unless you have the ability to create a custom package for you.

If you're really into wanting to buy software that will update news and stuff, I know someone who is a webmaster at an online news paper and I can ask him what he uses. I know they use a program to update many of their dynamic websites, like their main news sites and they do updates for local dealerships and there's a different program they use for that.

So, if you're serious about using something like that, I can ask and get prices for it and you can talk with your dad about it.

Well, I guess it's not that difficult to update it manually, but I'm just curious if such software exist :D

I might consider buying it if it's not difficult to use, and the price is viable [is that the right word ? ], since it'd be a lot easier then for my dad to update the website instead of me.