Content management systems (sometimes referred to in the abbreviated term ‘CMS’) are systems that allow you to manage the content, and dependent on what options you have chosen for your CMS system, additional features which affect your website. If you plan to update both the content and design of your website on a regular basis, then your website is a more likely candidate for use on the basis of a CMS system; this is because most CMS systems provide you with a web based administration interface to help you manage the content and features which are relevant to your website on the fly from any internet connected computer or location. CMS systems are generally feature rich since there is normally a large community of web developers who actually develop these systems, which means that they are highly reliable in most cases; most high profile CMS systems are open source, which means that they are free for use by the general public and also means that the developer community which is behind the actual piece of software is normally one which isn’t paid, and the developers of that community generally give up their own time to aid in the development of the project. Most large scale websites are based on CMS systems, since the expanse of them is so large and new information is always being added to them - if they were to use regular static HTML pages then it would be more or less impossible for them to maintain the websites concerned to the extent that they do with the CMS systems that they use; you will also find that larger websites use their own custom built or premium CMS systems since they are after a system which is both secure and scalable so that it is able to keep up with the demand that their website will continue to get over time, and will also most likely increase. You will find that most smaller websites that are using CMS systems are using open source ones; this is because they are free, and the developer community behind them normally provides a good level of support for free through public forums - this also means that members of the general public are able to aid in the support of people who have problems with a certain piece or section of the CMS system, you will also find that open source CMS systems have a large add-on respitory which means that you can customize your open source CMS installation to the way you want it to be - this also means that you can carry out many activities from within one application which without would mean that you would have to install many separate systems to help meet the same level of functionality that the one CMS system is able to provide you with in terms of what you can do with it and scalability. CMS systems are generally written in the PHP server side scripting language, and are supported by a MySQL database back-end to ensure that all the data connected to them can be stored within one central and easily accessible location to ensure the greatest flexibility with your website.

Features

Many CMS systems provide you with a web based administration panel with a built in WYSIWYG (What You See is What You Get) editor to ensure that you can view and edit the content which you have added to the system effectively; the editor also means that you can add multimedia articles such as images and flash videos into your CMS pages and view them in real time without the need to have to save the content and actually reload the web page concerned to actually make sure that the content you have added will display correctly within the page that you have created - one thing to note if you are new to the concept of CMS systems is that all the information that you are adding to the system is stored in a central MySQL database which in some cases might be automatically generated when you install the system within your website hosting space. Most systems also allow for the functionality of add-ons which have been designed by third persons, although this will be discussed further on in the article; but in basic this means that you can extend the functionality of your CMS system install to ensure that it runs the way that you want it to run and that it contains the custom features that you want it to have. You will also find that the CMS system which you have chosen to use will allow for you to modify the links that are shown within the menus that are located within the system; this means that if you want to link to external websites or web pages that are not contained within your CMS system or under your domain then you can with ease, and can even place the links where you want if you style your system and manage it correctly. Most CMS systems provide some sort of login functionality which gives you the ability to create password protected areas for your website, which are only accessible if you have a username and password which are authorized for entry to the part of the website concerned; this also means that you can create multiple account to allow many people to add an edit the content of your website and CMS system, although this may prove to be a disadvantage if they end up changing something which they were not meant to have changed - one thing to note is that although not all CMS systems may provide a visitor login functionality for your website, all should provide a password protected administration interface which you can create many accounts for so that other people as well as yourself can manage the content of the CMS systen as well as the settings which it possesses. You will also be given the ability to theme or skin the CMS system that you choose, so that you can style it to look the way that you want it to - this feature is general of most CMS systems that are available, both open source and commercial; this means that even if you do choose to use a third party CMS system to base your website on, you can still skin it and theme it to ensure that it matches both the colour scheme of your company and is laid out the way you want it to be - this sort of functionality is normally achieve by the use of CSS, so knowledge of the CSS style language is a must have to theme or skin a CMS system.

Add-Ons

Most CMS systems allow you to create and add add-ons to them to help you expand the functionality of them, which means that you can get a lot more out of one system than you could with having multiple open source or commercial applications installed to carry out the different tasks which you may expect from both your website and the internet, and in some cases the web hosting that you have chosen to ensure that either you or your business has an online presence to sell products and services that you may want to provide over the internet. Add-ons for most CMS systems cover a wide range of categories, which means that you can use your CMS install to base almost any type of website on - the options are more or less endless when it comes to choosing add-ons for your installation; for example you might want to install a shop within your CMS installation - this should be easy since all you have to do in most cases is upload a few files and run a setup page that will then integrate the add-on into your CMS system in terms of databases and other functions which might be needed in order to allow the add-on to run efficiently. Add-ons don’t always have to be functions to help with the interactivity that users are able to have with either your website or your CMS install; some add-ons can help you on the administration side, for example in the case of Joomla, there are add-ons which are able to replace the advert management system within the administration panel - this is because it contains lot more features than the advert system that comes built in with Joomla, you might also find other add-ons which are able to replace certain features of the administration panel of the CMS system which you have chosen to use, the main reason being that they possess a lot more features than their counterparts which come built into the CMS system which you have chosen. Other CMS add-ons might also help you monitor the visitor activity to your website; for example there might be an add-on for use with the CMS system that you have chosen which can monitor the pages within your websites that visitors look at, the feature might also choose to log more intimate details about visitors such as their location and the IP address which has been assigned to either their internet connection or the computer that they have chosen to use.

Conclusion

In conclusion, content management systems provide you with many features which you can use to aid in the management of the content which you have displayed on your website; you can use them to edit and manage the content that you have contained within your website on the fly via the use of the web based administration panel that is provided with most CMS systems. If you feel the need to expand your website, then you can use the add-ons feature of the CMS which you are using to expand the use of your system via the use of add-ons which you have either developed yourself or have either purchased or downloaded from the websites of third party developers. If you have a static HTML based website which contains many pages, then you should consider a CMS system since it means that you and others can easily manage the content for your website without the need for any desktop website editor such as Adobe Dreamweaver or Microsoft Frontpage - it also means that the people who are managing the content require little to no technical knowledge since most CMS systems can be classed as ‘idiot proof’. You might also find with the ability to expand the use of your website, that you can expand the use of the administration area that you are using to manage your website; this is because the administration area and the features that it contains which are part of most CMS systems are very basic, and you can normally get third party add-ons which can improve on the built in features, and can help make the management of the system easier for you. If your website is only a small one, then you should only consider an open source CMS system if you are looking to make your website more dynamic; if you want a more scalable system because your website receives many visitors, then you should consider a commercial CMS system since these are normally very scalable since they can handle many users and are normally more dynamic and the support for them is normally much more helpful.

Plesk is a web hosting control panel that is available for both Windows and Linux, and helps many web hosts provide customers with both standard shared web hosting as well as reseller hosting. Plesk was developed by a company known as SWSoft, who also own other industry leading web hosting controls panels such as Helm and HSPComplete. The interface for Plesk has been designed around the look of Windows XP, to help give users more confidence in using the control; this is because since the control panel has more or less the same look as the customer or user’s operating system, the customer or user might find it easier to get around the control panel and in turn, make it easier for them to use in general. Plesk is generally used for Windows hosting by most web hosts, since cPanel is the preferred choice for Linux hosting for both the host and its clients and customers. You will generally find Plesk bundled with VPS hosting plans provided by web hosts that use Virtuozzo as their VPS hosting software; this is because Plesk and Viurtozzo are both produced by the same company - SWSoft. Plesk has many features packaged with it which helps make it superior over other web hosting controls panels, most specifically the SiteBuilder application which customers can use to build their own websites. For our example, we will be basing this article on Plesk for Windows since that is what eUKhost use for Windows shared, reseller and semi-dedicated web hosting. Plesk, like cPanel, allows people to manage many different aspects of their shared website hosting, which can be based either on Linux or Windows; this compability with both systems means that if a user wanted to move from one type of hosting to another, they won’t end up having a new control panel that they’ll have to start working out from the ground up again. Plesk also gives webmasters the ability to control and change many different aspects of their website hosting account without the intervention of others. Plesk gives you the abilty to manage many different parts of your web hosting account from the ability to see how much bandwidth your website has been using as well as when, you can also manage the DNS entries that are functioning under your account - this is perfect for you if you need to add custom DNS entries so that you can utilize the services of other web hosts or servers that you might be using.

Other features in Plesk allow you to avoid any images or other files in your website being linked to which could inturn mean that you bandwidth is in affect ’stolen’ if files you have hosted in your account are displayed on another website which is busy; you will even be able to change the PHP settings if you happen to be hosting any PHP files that require custom settings within your shared website hosting space. Other included features allow you to setup directories which you can then restrict access to with the use of the protected directories feature that is built into Plesk. You are also given the ability to manage any scheduled tasks which you might need to setup in order to allow your website to function corrcectly; this can be very helpful for you if for example your website is running something such as a billing system where it is important that certain tasks are scheduled to run automatically to ensure that requests are fulfilled on time without the need for any manual intervention. You will also be given the ability to manage any databases that you choose to create in your Plesk account; this includes the management of MySQL databases, as well as MSSQL databases if you happen to be coding in classic ASP or ASP.NET and are hosted on the Windows version of Plesk. If you are hosted on the Windows platform then ODBC data sources will also be discussed to aid in the activity of connecting to databases from dynamic web pages. The ability to manage SSL certificates will also be discussed, since this is one of the most important features and can make or break the control panel choice for someone when they are looking around at web hosts.

Mail

The mail feature of Plesk allows you to manage all the different email aspects of your website through Plesk; this feature allows the control of individual email accounts as well as that of mass mailing lists that you might have configured within your shared Plesk website hosting account. When modifying individual email accounts, many different options are presented to you to ensure that you are able to configure your emails accounts the way that you want them to be; you are able to disable a mailbox so that you can just use it as a forwarder address, as well as setup an auto-responder for the email account concerned. If needed, you can also choose for the owner of the email account to have the ability to login to the Plesk control panel so that they can manage aspects of their own email account; you as the web master as well as the owner of the email account can also setup custom spam and anti-virus rules for individual email accounts if you find that you may need them for whatever reason. A preference panel is also provided for each individual email account so that you can reset the password if needed or even change the actual email address of the account, this means that you can change the actual address but still retain any email that it contains. You can also set up the account to ensure that any email received can be retained in the actual email account, and at the same time be forwarded to another email account of your choice - if you disable the mailbox feature of the email account but retain the redirect address then the email account will act like a forwarder. You can also setup multiple email aliases for any email account; this means that any email account can accept email for any aliases that you have attached to the email account that you have setup within your Plesk control panel. As the web master you can also set the size of each individual email account to ensure that one email account doesn’t end up using up all the space that you have assigned to your Plesk shared website hosting account. You can also setup multiple mailing lists through your Plesk control panel website hosting account which gives you the ability to communicate with a large group of people without having to enter each individual email address every time you want to send a message to all the people who are contained within the mailing list.

DNS Settings

The DNS settings feature of Plesk allows you to manage all the different DNS settings that you might have attached to your domain that you have hosted under your shard Plesk website hosting account. DNS allows you to control where requests for certain services for your website; you can set where visitors looking for your website are sent to in terms of the server that they reach - as long as the server that you point your domain to hosts a copy of your website then your website will be displayed if you have entered the correct IP address when setting up the ‘A’ (address) records. You can also define where email for your domain is sent to, if you are wanting to utilize the mail services of another web host or that of an external mail server that might be run by you; this is perfect for you if you are looking to use some sort of enterprise email service such as Microsoft Exchange Server or Zimbra, both of which aren’t available within a Plesk environment since they won’t work along side the mail server that is installed along with Plesk. The fact that you can setup address records from Plesk gives you the ability to setup subdomains for your website but then point them to other servers; this is different from the subdomain feature that is built into Plesk since the Plesk feature sets the address records up but points them all back to the same server that you are hosted on, therefore meaning that the files for the subdomain will also be hosted on the same server as your main website at the end of the day. If your host has not already done it for you, you can use the DNS settings feature of Plesk to setup a TXT (text) DNS record in the form of an SPF record; this ensures that email sent from your domain can be verified and received by email recipients who are utilizing free email services such as Hotmail and Yahoo! - this is especially important if you run a website such as an online shop which requires easy interaction with any email address, whoever hosts it.

Databases

Plesk gives you the ability to create MySQL databases in both its Linux and Windows forms; if you purchase the necessary add-ons then it can also connect to PostgreSQL and MSSQL servers to create both types of database; PostgreSQL is only normally found on Linux, and MSSQL is for Windows hosting only. Third party web based database control panels are built into Plesk and Plesk automatically logs you in to the relevant one when you want to administrate a database over the internet from a location that might happen to not be your own computer; in the case of MySQL databases, PHPMyAdmin is supplied to allow you to manage any MySQL databases that you might have hosted within your shared Plesk website hosting account - if you are hosted on the Windows platform and are utilizing Microsoft SQL databases then ASP.NET Enterprise Manager is supplied to allow you to view and manage any MSSQL databases that you have hosted under your account. In most cases you will be using a database along with a dynamic web page language within your website so that your website is able to communicate with the database so it can pull data to be displayed, as well as store it within the database so that it can be easily accessed again. Plesk also gives you the ability to create users so that the databases you create can be accessed by the scripts that you have created within your web space; without these database users, scripts and other programs that you want to use to access your database or databases won’t be usable since they won’t be able to access the database. Since Plesk gives you the ability to create multiple databases under many different database platforms, it gives you the ability to host many different web applications in a number of dynamic server side scripting languages so that the applications that you do create can easily interact with the databases that you have created within your shared Plesk website hosting account.

Certificates

Plesk gives you the ability to generate the needed codes for as well as the ability to install SSL certificates within your shared website hosting account without the need for any intervention from your web host, or the administrator who is responsible for the server that you are hosted on. SSL certificates encrypt any information that is sent between your website and the computer of the person that is visiting your website; they are highly recommended for situations in which the data being transferred is of the utmost confidentiality, and an example of this situation would be an online store where confidential information such as credit card details is being transferred over the internet - if information such as this was to fall into the hands of fraudsters then the results for the owner of the credit card could be disastrous. Since Plesk generates the needed codes for you such as the CSR and the private keys, all you have to do is copy the relevant information over to your certificate supplier then download and then upload the certificate once the relevant processing has been done; this process doesn’t require any intervention from your web host since most of the processing is done automatically by both your web hosting server as well as the servers that belong to the company that you are buying your SSL certificate. The only manual intervention that might be needed from your web host will be the assigning of a static IP address to your website; SSL certificates can’t run on shared IP addresses, meaning that you must purchase a dedicated IP address from your web host before you can actually install and run your certificate within the environment of your own website. The assigning of the IP address can only be done by your web host since they are the ones who retain ownership of the IP address, since you are only renting it. If you don’t need a dedicated SSL certificate, but still want to make use of secure web space then most web hosts provide shared SSL space within Plesk web hosting accounts which you can then utilize as per your need.

Subdomains

Subdomains are domains that you can create under your hosted domain name; they take on the form of a new name as the forename, and then the second part of the address is your main domain name. Subdomains are a good way to section your website off into different parts if you are providing many different services, or if you want to give different parts of your website their own identity without the need for directories which can easily become very messy. Search engines can also favour subdomains in some situations because they see them as separate domain names, and will rate them above directories in most situations. If you are wanting to sell different products or services under the same company name, but don’t want the websites for each product to be collectively dumped under one domain name, then you should try and utilize subdomains within your website setup where possible. Subdomains are basically address DNS records that have been automatically setup by Plesk to point back to the same server that your website is hosted on; however, you can also utilize the advance DNS settings feature if you wish to use subdomains but want to have the content that they are going to display or the service that they are going to be used for hosted on another server - this will be done via the setup of advanced address records and with the use of IP addresses of other servers through the Plesk control panel. However, most people rarely use subdomains since they are seen as ‘tacky’ by some and others prefer to just use the simple structure of directories when they are designing and building their website which they will then host within their Plesk shared website hosting account. The good thing with subdomains though, is that like directories you can choose what you want the name of the subdomain that you are setting up to be - this means that you can use subdomains for hosting absolutely any content you want.

File Manager

The file manager section of Plesk allows you to view and manage all the files that you have stored within the web space that has been assigned to your shared Plesk website hosting account; you can manage both the files in your directories that are accessible from the main internet as well as the directories which aren’t accessible from the internet - also known as the private directories. The file manager feature differs from the web directories feature in the way that it allows you to manage all the files that you have stored under your web hosting account, whereas the web directories feature only allows you to manage the files and directories within your web space that are directly accessible by all computers on the internet. The file manager allows you to differentiate between files and folders via the use of icons which are individual to each different type. The management abilities of the file manager allow you to remove/delete files and folders which you feel that you no longer need; you can also create new files and directories within directories that are below your ‘main’ or ‘parent’ directory which is where your website and all the files which are related to it physically reside on the main website hosting server’s hard drive - this means that you can create new web pages or other files which you may need others to view quickly and on the fly which means that you can do it from any internet connected computer which has a web browser installed on it. If the size of a particular directory or file is not displayed in the file manager within Plesk then a calculator is built in which you can use to calculate the sizes of certain files or directories automatically without the need for any hard technical work or any head scratching. You can also copy and move directories and files between directories if you feel the need that you want some files or other content to reside in other directory so that it can be kept more private or so that you can remove content from your website which you no longer want to display for your visitors to see.

Protected URLs

The protected URLs feature of Plesk allows you to setup directories within your website that you can restrict access to via the use of login credentials such as usernames and password; this means that people will require a username and password to be able to gain access to a protected directory. When a user tries to access a protected directory, a login box will popup from within their web browser; there is certain text that goes along with the login box which will normally appear above the option boxes which users enter their usernames and passwords into - Plesk gives you the option to set the text that is designed to appear above the two mentioned text boxes. You should use the password protected directories feature if you want to store certain documents or files within a directory, but don’t want the general public to have access to them; in this situation you could assign usernames and password to the people who will need access to any files that you choose to store within a password protected directory. Password protected directories can also be used in the case that you want to offer a private membership area on your website that users must pay to be able to access; although this will mean that you have to set up the accounts for users manually, you will still be able to provide the membersip area that you want without having to pay for a more expensive server side scripting language based solution. The protected directories feature is available in both the WIndows and Linux versions of Plesk, which means that you can move between the two different platforms but still retain features of your website that might help make it distinct, such as the protected directories or password protected membership area that you provide your visitors with. The protected URLs feature is only good for a certain amount of users, which in most cases is 50; if you intend to setup more user accounts than this then you should invest in a more stable and scalable system that utilizes a database backend to make sure that it is always accessible. One thing to note is that on Linux systems, you can use the .htaccess file of your website to ensure that certain directories are password protected.

Domain Templates

The domain templates feature of Plesk allows you to set up web hosting plans for domains to enable you to start selling hosting on your Plesk based Linux or Windows VPS or dedicated server. This Plesk feature gives you many configurable options besides the standard bandwidth and disk space options to ensure that you are able to allocate the domains that you are going to host on your Plesk web hosting server with the correct amount of resources such as the number of databases that one is allowed to host under one of your packages as well as the number of email accounts that you want to limit your customers to within their shared Plesk website hosting account. If you are selling hosting on a Windows based server, and you have purchased the necessary MSSQL server add-on for Plesk, then you will be given the option to choose how many MSSQL databases that you want customers under your web hosting plans to be able to create; this option will be there automatically for MySQL databases on both the Windows and Linux versions of the Plesk web hosting control panel system - if you have the PostgreSQL add-on for Plesk for Linux then you will also be given the option to limit the number of PostgreSQL databases that people hosted under your hosting plans will be able to create. Other options given to you allow you to choose whether or not people under certain plans can run web pages or scripts that have been written in certain server side scripting languages; for example you are able to choose whether or not people under a certain plan have access to the ASP programming language, if you choose to disable this option then people under the web hosting plan concerned will not be able to run scripts or web pages which they have chosen to code in the classic ASP programing language. You are also given the option to limit the amount of CPU usage that websites under the hosting plan concerned can use; this means that you can put a cap on the amount of CPU used to ensure that people with CPU hogging websites will have to upgrade to the next plan above the one that they are on currently to get their website back online since the amount of CPU that they are able to use will increase as they upgrade their website hosting plans. If you have multiple versions of PHP installed on the server that you want to use for selling hosting, you will be given the option to choose which version of PHP that you want websites which are hosted under the plan concerned to run; this means that you can design one plan with the intention of allowing people who want to host their PHP applications in a PHP 4 environment the ability to, and then providing another package for people who want to host their PHP website or application in a PHP 5 environment. You can also limit the amount of visitors that websites are allowed to have connected to them at one time; this option shouldn’t be used in most situations since your customers could find themselves not being able to access their websites after a certain amount of visitors have connected to view it. Another option within this Plesk feature allows you to limit the size of the data pipe to the websites which are hosted under the package concerned - this means that if you make the pipe smaller, then websites will load slower - the opposite is applicable to a larger data pipe.

Web Directories

The web directories feature of Plesk allows you to view and manage all the folders and files in your Plesk shared website hosting account that are viewable and accessible from the internet. This feature can be helpful for you if you need to navigate through some of the files that you stored within your web space, but only need to view and edit the ones which are actually part of your website - files that are part of your website will be viewable from the web directories section of Plesk. If you are on the road and need to edit certain parts of your website by don’t have access to either a WYSIWYG editor or aren’t able to establish an FTP connection to your web hosting space, then you can use this feature to edit your files, and since you are editing them online, you won’t have to upload any changes that you make since they will be automatically applied when you click save after you have made the necessary edits. With the use of this feature you can also set custom settings for PHP and ASP.NET, both of which are server side scripting languages that you can use more dynamically to carry out tasks such as interaction with databases which would not be achievable with regular static HTML based web pages. You are also able to setup new physical directories as well as virtual ones; the difference is that physical directories are ones that actually exist on the server, and virtual ones generally link back to other directories which might still be hosted within your web space but aren’t accessible from the internet. The ability to setup custom error documents for your website is also provided through the easy to use web directories interface; this can be handy for you if you want to make sure that your website still retains its identity, even if errors occur when a visitor is browsing your website. You can also set certain preferences for all the folders in your shared Plesk website hosting account that are accessible from the internet - the preferences that are settable include the default file names which browsers will automatically be forwarded to when no file name is provided, as well as whether anonymous access is allowed and whether an SSL connection is required for files to be viewed.

FTP Accounts

FTP accounts are the accounts which are used in order for users to gain access to your web space via the use of the FTP protocol in the event that anonymous FTP access has been disabled by either you or your web host. Plesk gives you the ability to add, delete and edit the details of FTP accounts that you have already created within your shared Plesk website hosting space; and if you have a dedicated IP address assigned to your website, you are given the ability to enable or disable anonymous FTP access to your web space - however, it is highly recommended that you don’t enable it since it can pose a big security risk for you as well as the other customers of your web host who might be hosted on the same server as you. FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol, and is used for the transfer of files between your web space and your desktop; FTP can also be used to set permissions on certain files and folders if the need arises - without the correct permissions, some files and programs might not function correctly within your shared Plesk website hosting space. When setting FTP accounts up in Plesk, you are given the option to specify a certain directory that the account is allowed to have access to; this means that any directory below and including the one that you specify are the only ones which can be accessed by the FTP account that you are setting up. You are also given the ability to choose whether an FTP account is even allowed to see the files that are contained within the directories that it has been allowed access to; you are also able to choose whether or not it is allowed to save and edit files that are contained within the web space that the FTP account has been assigned to. You can also setup individual directories for each FTP account which means that you can allow others to store their files in one centrally accessible location; you can limit the size of directories for FTP accounts which means that you can always ensure that any FTP accounts you setup are not going to end up using up all of the disk space that you have assigned to your shared Plesk website hosting account.

Scheduled Tasks

The scheduled tasks feature of Plesk allows you to setup certain scripts that you might have running under your website to be run automatically at a certain time to carry out certain tasks which they have been designed for. The most common use of scheduled tasks (sometimes referred to as ‘Cron Jobs’ in terms of Linux website hosting) is to carry out tasks which need to be carried out on a regular basis without manual intervention; an example of a scheduled task in use would be in a web host billing system, where invoices for customers need to be generated at the beginning of the day without any manual intervention. You might also find scheduled tasks running in the situation where notifications of some sort need to be sent out to website visitors on a regular basis to ensure that they are aware of the latest information or of a new update in their account which they need to be made aware of. When setting up a scheduled task within Plesk, you are given the option to enter the full command for the script to ensure that it is executed correctly so that you don’t have to come and run the script manually to make it carry out its assigned task correctly. You can also choose the exact time for the script to be run by Plesk automatically - right down to the last minute, you can also choose for scripts to be run every minute of the day but this isn’t recommended since it could easily use up many server resources, and if you are on shared website hosting, could lead to your Plesk shared website hosting account being suspended because of server resource hogging as it is known. You can also choose for Plesk to send you an email notification to tell you whether the scheduled task has been executed successfully by the server that you are hosted on. You can also select the priority of the task which means that if it is of a high priority, it will be executed before other tasks which might be of a lower priority but still being executed at the same time as yours. You can also specify extra arguments for the execution of the task which you have not specified in the text box labeled for the command.

Site Preview

The site preview function that is built into Plesk allows you to view and interact with your website, even before the DNS for it has fully resolved if your domain is new or if you have decided to move to a new web host for whatever reason. This feature can be helpful to you if you have just finished your website off and have uploaded it, and are wanting to test it out but your new domain or existing domain still hasn’t propogated over to your new web host yet meaning that you can’t use it to view and test your website and its features out. The site preview function is one of Plesk’s most advanced features since it is one which isn’t available in most other web hosting controls that are used in the mainstream hosting market. The feature is a particularly handy one since most people are wanting to test their new website ASAP once they have uploaded it, but DNS propogation can take up to 48 hours, meaning that they will have to wait that long until they are even able to view their website, let alone interact with it. You can also use the site preview feature if you don’t even intend to attach a proper domain to your shared Plesk website hosting account; this is because a domain is not needed for the feature to be able to function properly, since the IP address of the server that you are hosted on is used to access your website. You might not want to attach a proper domain to your website hosting account because you might be intending to use it for the testing of your new website before you put it live for your visitors to see; any problems that your site might being up can be viewed through the site preview function since it displays your website just as if you were viewing it under a proper domain in a live environment, instead of a testing one. You can then proceed to fix any problems which might have been brought up whilst you were testing your website out in the site preview function; once you are sure that your website is functioning correctly, you can move it over into a live environment for your visitors to see it or attach a proper domain to your web hosting account so that people can start visting your new website.

Frontpage Extensions

Frontpage extensions are the extensions that web hosts install on their servers to allow people who have built their websites in Microsoft’s now defunct WYSIWYG editor, Frontpage, to run correctly if special Frontpage functions have been used during the development of the website. Frontpage provides website builders with many different functions that they can insert into their website to help make it more appealing to their visitors; addable functions include ones which can display the weather for a certain location on the same day that someone visits your website, as well as a visitor counter so that your visitors can see how many people have visited your website since you first put the counter on display. You can also add a guestbook to your website that visitors can then sign when they visit your website; you can allow them to comment on anything including the design and layout of your website - you can even use the guestbook as a source of feedback when you are looking to give your website a makeover or an upgrade of some sort in the future. The Frontpage extension manager that is built into Plesk allows you to configure certain preferences regarding the sending of email from web pages which have been designed and configured in Microsoft Frontpage; this means that Frontpage web pages have are able to have the same dynamics as their server side equivalents, but have no need for the use of databases or the setting of permissions to ensure that they are able to function correctly. Access to the Frontpage web admin is also provided so that you are able to manage and configure other features that may play a part in the running of your web pages that you have designed in Frontpage and then uploaded to your shared Plesk website hosting account space. You are also able to setup extra Frontpage management accounts with many configurable preferences including the amount of disk space that they are allowed to use.

ASP.NET

The ASP.NET section of Plesk allows you to view and edit the settings for ASP.NET which are being used on your domain; you are able to see information specific to both your domain as well as the server on which you are hosted - information which is specific to your website is editable. Plesk allows you to choose the version of ASP.NET which is operating under your domain - this means that if you have an ASP.NET application which is written in an older version of the language, you are able to run it within your shared hosting environment effectively without it being affected by the constraints of newer languages which might be a problem in a shared environment provided by web hosts who use other control panels - you can set the version of ASP.NET that is running under your domain to any that your web host has installed on the host node. If you are new to ASP.NET, and the concept of using it to access Microsoft SQL databases, then Plesk automatically generates connection strings which you can easily alter to work with your ASP.NET based website applications which you are then going to host within your shared hosting environement; you can also add and remove connection strings from within the ASP.NET panel of your shared web hosting account for the different Microsoft SQL servers that you might be connecting to, as well as the one which is hosted locally on the same server as your website, which you can then refer back to when needs be in the future. You can also add and edit the settings related to custom error pages within your ASP.NET application; you can choose whether to have the errors as remote only - or you can switch custom errors off completely, or just choose ‘On’ - if you have chosen ‘On’ then you can specify where your websites visitors should be sent to when a specific error is encountered, this means that if an error does happen to come up with your website, you can send your visitors to specific pages to let them know what the problem is, but at the same time be able to keep up your corporate identity which is something that isn’t possible with standard website error pages since most are actually browser defaults. Other configurable features include the ability to set the debugging mode for ASP.NET applications within your website - this will come in handy if you are testing your website, as well as globalization settings such as the different encodings which have been used on files as well as on the data which may be stored in databases.

Web Applications

The web applications feature of Plesk allows you to install any script which has been added to the script respitory; this means that you can setup any script which is listed easily since all the technical work such as the setting and up and configuring of the database as well as the setting of file permissions is all done automatically by Plesk for you. Also, if you want to host either Java based or ASP.NET based applications within your shared hosting environment, then interfaces are provided to ensure that you can setup applications of either type without any fuss and without the need for any intervention from your web host. If you are just starting your website, then you might find this feature helpful since it gives you a chance to get the applications that you might need for your website in place, thus cutting down the amount of work that you will have to carry out when you get around to actually opening your website to visitors; the fact that all the technical work such as the setting up and the configuring of the database needed for most applications to function as well as the setting of file permissions ensures that you can easily install complex applications without the need for any expert knowledge. You can also use this feature if you simply want to expand on your existing website; this is because programs such as blog and forums are provided which means that you can install these to create a community for your visitors to communicate with each other as well as a place where you can write articles for the general public to comment on or for them to just view at their leisure. You could also install a CMS (content management system) if you wanted to help you manage the content of your website - this can the especially handy if you are finding that your website is starting to expand as well as the content which it contains for visitors to view. Other installable programs include shopping carts which you could make use of if you wanted to start selling products or other things on your website to help make a return on your investment into your web hosting package - although the cost of your package might be low, if you receive a large number of visitors then it is worth trying to make a return on those visitors since at the end of the day it could help finance the cost of your hosting package and you could spend any left over profit on anything that you wanted to. You could also install a groupware feature for the purpose of allowing you and your employees to manage resources online as well as have the ability to communicate with each other with ease.

Hotlink Protection

The hotlink protection feature that is built into Plesk allows you to control whats with particular extensions can’t be access by external websites; this means that if other websites do try to link to a particular file or image that is hosted under your domain then the website’s request will be fulfilled meaning that the file concerned will not be displayed on any website apart from yours or the one which is hosted under your shared Plesk website hosting account. You can protect any type of file that is hosted within your Plesk website hosting account; this is because you are able to specify the exact file types that you want to be banned from being linked to by external websites. You should always have hotlinking enabled for certain file extensions, especially images, on your website, especially if your website is one which receives a high volume of traffic; this is because if external websites which receive many visitors link to images which are contained within your web space, and they are images which are large in file size, then you could end up having this external website eating up all the bandwidth that you have assigned to your shared Plesk website hosting account - even if you don’t have high traffic websites linking to the images or files that you have stored within your shared hosting account, your bandwidth could still be eaten up by smaller websites which are hotlinking to files within your web space since the files which are being linked to could easily be large in size meaning that they are eating up a large chunk each time they are used - in the case of smaller files, the amount of bandwidth being eaten up each time is considerably less. If you require for external websites to link to files and images which might be contained within your web space, then you should consider a dedicated hosting solution such as a VPS or dedicated server since the bandwidth which is supplied with these types of products is much more than that which is supplied with standard shared hosting products.

Backup

The backup feature if Plesk allows you to configure the backup settings for all the files that you have contained within your web space which is part of your shared Plesk website hosting account; you are given the option to schedule automatic backups via FTP to an external FTP or backup server, or you can simply create a manual backup to download there and then which you can then store on your local computer for use if you feel that you have incorrectly configured something or have accidentally deleted all your data. Although your web host might take full automatic backups of all the accounts and the data which they contain on the server, it is always a good idea to take your own backups either manually or automatically regularly since those taken by web hosts might not always be that reliable for one reason or another, or your web host might not just take backups at all - one thing to note is that if you ask your web host to restore a backup of your account because something has gone wrong with it because of your own fault then they might actually charge you for the restoration of the backup - some might not even allow this arguing that it might affect the other shared or reseller web hosting accounts that are hosted on the same server as you and your domain do. Backups are a necessity in this day and age though since the risk of data loss is quite possible through many different means; hackers can easily gain access to hosting servers due to lapse security which means that they can easily delete the data which is contained on the server, the hard drives on which the data is contained can also fail and your most might not employ strategic techniques such as RAID to ensure that there is another hard drive available which is a carbon copy of the one which has failed for whatever reason - power failures can cause this and can also cause the whole hardware which is contained within the server to malfunction. One thing to note is that you should only use the FTP backup feature if you have access to an external backup or FTP server over FTP.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Plesk provides you with many features that you can use to manage the most important and technical parts of both your website in terms of what your visitors see, as well as your domain. Plesk provides you with tools to ensure that you can easily manage any databases that you wish to setup under your account which you can then utilize to make your website more dynamic with the use of server side scripting languages which are able to communicate with certain database types to pull and store data within the database; third party web based tools are also built into Plesk to ensure that you are able to manage your databases as well as the information that is contained within them even when you are on the move and only have access to an internet connected computer, and not to one which has the tools installed that you would normally use to administer your databases and the information that they contain effectively. A DNS manager is also provided so that you can control the DNS records that are attached to your domain - this means that you can easily control which servers visitors to your website are sent to, as well as the server which email for your domain is sent to; this means that you can utilize the services of other hosting providers if you feel that your current web host meets your criteria in terms of service and support in one area, but not in another - for example the hosting for your databases and main website might be excellent, but the services that are provided for email might not meet your expectations. If you want to host websites and web pages that you have created within Microsoft’s Frontpage web editor then you can since Plesk comes with Microsoft’s Frontpage extensions and Frontpage manager by default; this means that you are able to utilize any of the special features that Frontpage builds into your web pages for you without the need for the use of any server side scripting languages which create the same affect as the use of Microsoft Frontpage web pages. If you run an online shop or a website where the data being transferred between your website and the visitors who are using your website is sensitive, then you will most likely use something called an SSL certificate to ensure that the information that is transferred is encrypted, which means that if someone such as a hacker does manage to get hold of it, its useless to them since it will be encrypted and they won’t be able to decrypt it; Plesk provides a control panel to ensure that you can generate the needed codes to ensure that you can purchase an SSL certificate and give the vendor the necessary codes without the need for intervention for your web host, Plesk also gives you the ability to install an SSL certificate on your account as long as you have a dedicated IP address for your website without the need for intervention or help from your web host. A directory protection feature is also provided to ensure that you can password protect any directory that you want to, to ensure that only people who have login credentials for the directory concerned can access it; you might want to password protect a directory since you might want to store sensetive information in it which you don’t want the general public to get hold of, you might also want to use this feature to create a private section of your website which only members of your website who have paid for entry to it or your staff can access it. An FTP account manager is also provided to ensure that you can manage all the FTP accounts that you want to have access to your web space so that they can upload and manage files as well as set file permissions to ensure that certain files and programs can run effectively without any problems.

Since cPanel is made to run on the Linux operating system, it’s main database features are based around the hugely popular open source MySQL database system; MySQL is best known for being used with the open source programming language (PHP). cPanel provides you with many tools to aid you in the creation of MySQL databases, as well as the management and editing of them which allows you to ensure that the data that they contain will not be stale which means that the database won’t be using up any unneeded disk space that you have assigned to your web hosting package. Most people uses databases in web hosting to allow them to build dynamic websites so that people are able to do activities on their site that require dynamic database interaction; these kind of activities include signing up as a member, as well as writing on a forum and commenting on a blog post. Others might also use a dynamic in the form of a CMS (content management system) to allow them to edit and change the contents of their website quickly and easily from any internet connection computer in any part of the world. Databases allow you to store information and allow you to access it at any time; most of the actions mentioned previously will make use of the MySQL database system within the context of a shared cPanel hosting environment where the Linux operating system is used, and will make use of a scripting language such as PHP or Perl to ensure that the data can be retrieved from the database and manipulated as needed into the context that will allow it to be displayed on an ordinary website. In some cases other programming languages such as Ruby on Rails (RoR) can be used in conjunction with MySQL to provide a better coded website solution; other database systems might also be deployed in conjunction with other programming languages, for example PostgreSQL has been deployed in some cPanel shared website hosting environments.

With this article you will be given the ability to create and manage MySQL databases within the environment that has been provided for you by your shared cPanel website hosting account. You will be able to deploy MySQL databases which you can then use in conjunction with the applications that you might choose to host within your web hosting account; these applications might be based on open source programming solutions such as PHP and Perl that can both be easily integrated and used with MySQL databases. The ability to manage your MySQL databases via the web based PhpMyAdmin solution that is incorporated with cPanel will also be taught; this includes the ability to execute MySQL queries on the database itself to ensure that tables can be easily setup with scripts that might be provided by programs that have been bought from third party developers, and which you want to use on your website to either help your visitors communicate with each other or to allow you to manage the content that you publish on your website with ease. If you have your own MySQL server or if you want to use the services of a third party MySQL hosting provider, then you will also be able to setup and configure the connection to a remote MySQL server from within the surroundings of your cPanel shared website hosting account; this means that any MySQL databases you setup within your hosting account will actually be setup on a remote server, if you want them to be, and will not be hosted locally on the server that your shared cPanel website hosting account is on - you can also use this feature to configure a backup MySQL server to be used in the event that the local MySQL server fails for some reason or another.

MySQL Databases

The MySQL database section of cPanel allows you to setup and configure MySQL databases as well as the users to go with them to ensure that they can be accessed successfully within your cPanel shared website hosting environment. MySQL databases allow you to store data in a centralized location that can then be accessed by applications that you might have installed on your website; applications that utilize MySQL databases might include bulletin boards, CMSs (content management systems) as well as blogs - basically any type of application that is written in a dynamic server side scripting language such as PHP that needs information to be stored in one centralized location so that it can be called on multiple web pages within the same application. Like most database programs, MySQL allows for the information that is stored in it to be encrypted (normally using the MD5 aglorathim) to ensure that if the database is accessed by a malicious attacker such as a hacker for whatever reason, the important data is encrypted meaning that it will be of no use to the attacker unless they have a method which they can utilize to decrypt the information. As mentioned previously, server side scripting languages such as PHP or Perl can be used to access and display the data that is stored within a MySQL database, as long as the correct MySQL login details are used. One thing to note when using MySQL databases is that you should always ensure that the important data that they store such as credit card details or the names and addresses of customers or members of your websites, then encryption should be used to ensure that this data is unreadable and useless to a malicious attacker such as a hacker if they some how manage to gain access to the database.

MySQL Wizard

The MySQL wizard allows you to easily create and manage both MySQL databases and the users that are required to access them by third party scripts; the wizard is for people who might find the actual MySQL database creation to confusing and in a sense ‘intimidating’. Unlike the main MySQL management panel, it takes you through the creation of a MySQL database and it’s users in steps, and instructions are included with each step to ensure that you are not confused by the process of the creation of a MySQL database. MySQL is utilized by many web based applications that are based on open source programming languages such as Perl and PHP to ensure that they have a centralized location where they can store all their necessary data and configuration settings. Like the programming languages that are used to access it, MySQL is an open source application; open source means ‘free’ and most open source products are ones that are maintained by a community of developers at no cost in most cases. Unfortunately for those of you who might find the actual MySQL panel a little daunting, then the bad news is that you can only use the MySQL wizard for the creation of MySQL databases and the users needed to go with them - you cannot utilize it to manage, edit and delete databases that you have already created using it. One thing to note about the MySQL wizard is that you can only use it for the creation of MySQL databases and the users that access it; you cannot utilize the wizard to manage databases and users that you have already created - that includes the editing and deletion of them.

PHPMyAdmin

PHPMyAdmin is a program that is based on the PHP server side scripting language and is included within cPanel to allow you to manage and administrate the databases that you have created within your cPanel shared website hosting account through your browser. PHPMyAdmin can be run if several different languages which is dependent on yourself, and gives you much needed information about MySQL server on the web hosting server in which you account resides; this information includes facts such as the MySQL version number that your web host has running on the server as well as the PHP extensions that it is utilizing. When a MySQL database is selected for editing or management, PHPMyAdmin allows you to carry out many different actions on the database so that you can manage it effectively; these include the running of SQL queries to create new tables within the database or to clean the database up if you believe that the information it contains may be stale to an extent. If you want to move your database or table to another server, or wish to take a backup of it, then you can easily use the backup tab that is displayed when you look at an individual database within PHPMyAdmin; this option creates a ‘dump’ of the database or table which is infact a t simple text fie that contains the MySQL query that can be used to recreate the database or table on another MySQL server. PHPMyAdmin also gives you many different actions that you can carry out on individual tables that you have hosted within the database; information about the individual tables is also displayed such as the coolation that has been used on it as well as the type of table it is, how many records it contains and its actual size. One thing to note is that when using PHPMyAdmin, you should always be careful as to which options you choose; this is because it is almost a ‘warren’ of many different pages that you could easily muck a database up because you have chosen an incorrect option.

Remote MySQL Server

The remote MySQL server option within cPanel allows you to setup a second custom MySQL server within cPanel that you can use to either create your MySQL databases on, or to backup the MySQL databases that you currently have hosted within your shared cPanel website hosting account to. You can also use the feature to allow other MySQL database servers or regular web servers that you might have you gain access to your databases by adding their IP address or subnet with the use of wildcards. You should only use this feature of cPanel if you have the required technical knowledge to enable you to configure the two servers to ensure that any type of data transfer is done successfully and securely; another reason for this is because you could easily mess up the other MySQL server if you do it incorrectly, and might even end up reinstalling the other MySQL server if you do not set the access rights and permissions in the correct way. The advantages of using this feature are high though; if you backup your MySQL databases to another server then you can set your scripts up to use the other server to retrieve and store the data if for some reason the local MySQL server that is on the hosting node on which you shared website hosting account resides on fails. One thing to note is that you should always be careful when transferring databases over since the data could be easily intercepted by a malicious attacker such as a hacker, who then might be able to use it for harmful purposes such as identity fraud.

Conclusion

In conclusion, cPanel provides you with a number of features which you can use to allow you to create and manage any MySQL databases that you want to have hosted under your shared cPanel website hosting account. You can also use other features to ensure that you can back your databases up to an external database server to ensure that they are safe; you can then use this other server as a database server if needs be - this might be because that the main MySQL database server that is hosted on the hosting server in which your cPanel shared website hosting account resides has failed for whatever reason. With the use of a third party application such as PHPMyAdmin which is incorporated into cPanel, you are able to view and manage all the MySQL databases that you have hosted under your hosting account on the fly; this can be helpful for you if you need to see if any new information has been added to your database via the means of your website, or to check if records that you have stored in your database are beginning to become stale. The use of open source scripting languages to interact with MySQL databases from a website has also been discussed; you can use server side scripting languages such as PHP, Ruby on Rails and Perl to interact with your databases from your website to ensure that your website is dynamic in a sense and to also make sure that the information that is displayed is up to date.

Like any type of web hosting, shared cPanel hosting accounts come with many features. Whether you are a novice or an expert, you might have trouble working out what these features do or what their meanings are in general. Knowing the meanings of different features is really important, especially when looking around for a new web host or website hosting package since you could end up choosing a package with features that you want but don’t have, or with features that you have or don’t particularly want. If you know about certain features, then you could benefit yourself in the future when trying to carry out a task; for example you might be having trouble installing a certain script - in that case, if you know of a script auto-installer which is available within your control panel, then you could apply your knowledge and skills to using that for installing the desired script. The names of some features are abbreviated, for example File Transfer Protocol is shortened down to FTP; knowing these different abbreviations can also help when trying to fix a certain problem or when searching around for a web hosting package since you are able to apply your knowledge without the need for a search engine. By the end of this article you will have extended your technical knowledge of hosting related features since you will be introduced to the main features of cPanel based shared website hosting and the basic features provided by most web hosts.

cPanel

cPanel is the web hosting control panel which is used by many website hosting providers, including eUKhost, to provide Linux based (Windows support coming soon) hosting to customers. cPanel also has a reseller client built called WHM (Web Host Manager) which allows reseller clients to host multiple domains which have their own dedicated client account; reseller clients are also able to allocate their specified resources amongst their clients in the form of web hosting packages. Both cPanel and WHM boast many features which helps to make them superior amongst their rivals; developers are also able to build their own extensions and plugins for both control panels to allow customization to an extent, as well as to extend the functionality of both control panels.

Add-On Domain

This is the name given to the action of attaching another domain to your existing website hosting package. By using the add-on domain feature, you are able to maximize the use of your website hosting package by attaching a number of domains to it; this also means that you can use your allocated resources effectively by spreading them across several websites. If you host several different websites on the same shared hosting package, you can cut down costs since you won’t have to buy a new hosting package every time you want to host or start another website. One thing to note with add-on domains is that you can’t create separate client accounts for each domain - they will all fall under the same account; if you want a separate client account for each domain then you should opt for a reseller hosting package.

Sub Domain

A sub domain is a domain which is created under an existing domain; an example of which would be ’sub.domain.com’ - the main domain in this case being ‘domain.com’, and the sub created being ’sub’. Sub domains are a good way of giving different sections of your website their own identity since they have their own top level address; the company or personal identity of the website is still kept however since the address created will still contain the TLD domain of the main business or personal website.

Fantastico

Fantastico is an auto-script installer which allows you to install certain scripts within your website without the need for any technical knowledge since the technical actions such as the setup and configuring of the database are taken care of by the program. It is an optional premium plugin for both cPanel and WHM which is made by a company called Netenberg. Some hosting companies provide it with their shared and reseller website hosting packages; others also provide it with their dedicated and VPS server packages for free, although some companies do charge for it.

Server Side Scripting Languages

Server side scripting languages are languages which require a certain program to be installed on the server to allow them to run; they normally carry out complex tasks such as adding, removing and updating database data as well as sending emails automatically and displaying the current time and date on a website. There are many different languages out there which can be used, although the most commonly used ones and ones which are supported by most website hosts on shared cPanel Linux web hosting include the following:

• PHP - Some hosts run PHP 4 and PHP 5 side by side on their servers, so that you can make use of both versions.
• Perl
• RoR (Ruby on Rails)

MySQL Databases

MySQL is an open source database program which is normally used in conjunction with the PHP scripting language. It is supported on nearly any shared cPanel web hosting plan since it is normally installed by default; most web hosts are currently running version 5 of the MySQL server, however there are the odd few who are still stuck using version 4 of the software. Since it is open source (free), there are quite a few PHP based applications which utilize it, meaning that you can make the most of it by choosing an open source application which is based on it. There are also quite a few free tools which you can utilize to manage your MySQL databases. One thing to note that the MySQL server is available for other operating systems as well as Linux, including Windows and BSD based systems.

POP3/SMTP Email Accounts

Email accounts are what you use to send and receive email. You are able to create email accounts within your shared hosting package such as ‘you@yourdomain.com’; you can create email accounts with any name under your domain. POP3 stands for ‘Post Office Protocol Version 3′ and is the technology which is used by most email servers and clients to retrieve email; SMTP stands for ‘Simple Mail Transfer Protocol’ and is the technology which is used by email servers and clients to send email, email servers also use it to receive email from other email servers.

Mailing List

A mailing list is used to send an email or message to a group of people, small or large, regularly without the need to enter all their email addresses into the ‘To, CC or BCC’ sections of the compose pane contained within most email clients. If you use a web page frontend mailing list such as PHPList then you can let your clients or members of the general public subscribe to your mailing list, this can be helpful if you are aiming to message a large customer base or if you want your mailing list to grow.

Spam Assassin

Spam Assassin is a spam filtering server which is built in most Linux email server installs. With cPanel installs, it has a web age frontend within the cPanel client for each email account so that clients can customize the Spam Assassin settings, for example a client might want to change the required spam score for incoming emails on a certain email account, but might want a different score than that which is used by other email accounts within their account.

Auto Responders

Within any shared cPanel hosting package you are able to setup auto responders for any email address. An auto responder is a message which you can choose to be sent on receipt of an email; the message can be whatever you want and is sent to the original sender of the email. Auto responders can be helpful, for example you might want to setup an out-of-office one which can be sent to anyone who sends you an email whilst you are on a business trip or are away from a computer meaning that you can’t check your emails.

Email Forwarder

An email forwarder (sometimes known as an alias) is an email account which doesn’t physically exist since any email messages which are sent to it’s address are always forwarded to another specified email address. Email forwarders can be helpful if you don’t want the hassle of having multiple email inboxes to check, or if you are running multiple companies within the same industry and want certain issues such as billing and support to be centralized to one or two email inboxes.

IMAP

IMAP is another technology which is used by email clients to retrieve email from email servers. IMAP stands for ‘Internet Message Access Protocol’ - the current version being IMAP 4; it is different to POP3 since the message is actually still held on the email server when being read at first, once you have read the message you can then choose to download the email or not. Unlike POP3, IMAP requires a continuous connection to the server to allow you to read your emails.

File Manager

cPanel’s web frontend comes with a file manager to allow you to manage the files in your website remotely without the need for direct FTP access. It can be useful to use if you are in an internet cafe or using a computer where you are unable to access your website for a reason such as port 21 (the port used by FTP) being blocked by the router or firewall on the connection that you are using.

FTP Access

FTP stands for ‘File Transfer Protocol’ and is the standard which is used by website designers and developers to transfer files to and from their assigned website space. In most cases you require a user name and password to be able to gain access to the space which is normally protected, however some servers allow anonymous FTP access to files. FTP servers normally run on port 21, however this can vary between servers. In shared cPanel web hosting you are able to create and managed multiple FTP accounts and restrain their access to a certain part of your web space or FTP space.

PHPMyAdmin

PHPMyAdmin is a web frontend for the management of MySQL databases which are contained within your shared cPanel website hosting account. This utility can be helpful if you travel alot and need instant or quick access to the administration of your database. Since it is a web based application, you can access it from any internet connected computer.

SSL Certificates

SSL stands for ‘Secure Socket Layer’ and are certificates which encrypt the data which is transferred between your website and the client which is browsing your website. SSL certificates are most commonly used with websites such as online shops where the data transferred is highly confidential, and should not be viewed by third parties. With shared hosting packages, SSL certificates come in two forms - shared and dedicated. Shared SSL certificates are applied to one address, which is normally the host name of the server; the full address for your shared SSL space is normally something such as ‘https://server.company.com/~accountname/’. Dedicated SSL certificates are completely different since they can be applied to your own domain, and should be used if you want to keep your corporate identity when having visitors buy products off your website, for example; a dedicated SSL certificate would allow you to keep your own domain, an example would be: ‘https://yourdomain.com/’. Notice the ‘https://’ in both examples - the ’s’ signifies that the connection being used is a secure one and has an SSL certificate applied to it.

Server Side Includes

Server Side Includes, which are better known as SSI, are pages which are included into other pages within a website; the code is processed on the server meaning that the website visitor is unaware that there might be other pages merged into the one which they are viewing. This technology can be helpful, for example if you want to use one header and footer around your whole website, all you have to do is create 2 files (one for the header, one for the footer) and then ‘include’ them in the chosen places on the main pages on your website. If you want to change the header or footer at a later date, then you can - the changes will be applied to every page on your website since they will still be getting the header and the footer from the same location.

GD Image Library

The GD image library is one which can generate images on the fly. It is best known for it’s compability with PHP, however there it can be used with Perl in some cases. The core application is written in C, and is mainly used for the generation of image thumbnails, graphs as well as other types of graphics - for example it is regularly used for the generation of images in captcha solutions.

Custom Error Pages

cPanel allows you to create your own error pages which will be shown when an error occurs with your website. Although you don’t really want there to be an error with your website, they can happen without any warning and so it is important that if there is a problem with your website, a page which still boasts your website’s graphical identity is displayed. The most common errors are numbers 404 and 500; a 404 error happens when a user tries to navigate to a page within your website which doesn’t exist, a 500 error occurs when there is a problem with either the hosting server or your scripts. cPanel can be configured to show custom error pages for most errors.

Zend Optimizer

Zend Optimizer is a program which is installed on the hosting server to decode Zend encrypted PHP files. This is required to allow some applications, most notably ones which have been bought, to run; they have been encoded so that their source code can’t be rebranded and sold on - it also ensures that items such as licensing routines aren’t cracked which would allow people to run the application without a license key. Another application which is similar to the Zend system is Ioncube which encrypts and decrypts PHP files in a similar way.

Password Protected Directories

cPanel is able to create password protected directories for you via the use of the .hta and .htpassword files; the .hta file is used to store the user names of people who are allowed you access the protected area of the website, and the .htpassword file is used to store the password of those users who are authorized to enter the protected area. This type of password protection is pretty weak when compared to other types of website protection; for example more scalable and automatic applications built using PHP are much more secure since they encrypt all data that is stored to a MySQL database.

JSP Support / Apache Tomcat

JSP stands for ‘Java Server Pages’ and is a type of server side scripting; Tomcat is the engine which most shared cPanel web hosts use to provide and process JSP pages through Apache - it can also be used within dedicated server environments. Most web hosts do not host JSP pages for the simple reason that they can be very resource intensive, and many hosts would rather loose a customer after JSP hosting than loose a whole server full because the server is too slow to load their websites; it is also for this reason that many web hosts advise people wanting to host JSP web pages or Java based applications to go with either VPS or dedicated servers, as this can benefit both them and their website since it will most certainly load their website quicker.

Multimedia Support

Most websites contain some sort of multimedia content these days - whether i be a short audio clip or an entire film; multimedia can come in many different formats so it is important when looking for hosting that you take into consideration whether any type of multimedia that you use is supported, in some cases it may not be because it could either put a strain on bandwidth or server resources. The most common type of multimedia that is used on websites is known as ‘Flash’; support of this is not normally dependent of the server specification but those of the client machine which is accessing your website; since Adobe flash player is free, and available for most operating systems, it is a good choice since it will work for most of your visitors - since it isn’t dependent on the hosting server, any web host should support it. Other websites make use of Microsoft Windows Media technology which should be supported by any web host since it is again, dependent on the client rather than the server. Other types of website media used include Real Media and Microsoft Silverlight technology.

Site Builder

Site builder is a web based application which you can use to build your website if you are unable to afford the high costs of desktop website design software or if you have little to no experience of building a website; the application comes in the form of a wizard which leads you through the difference steps of building a website from choosing a layout to entering in the text that you want to be displayed, it then takes all the collected and builds a website out of it all and leaves you with something that you can enjoy or use to market your business.  Most hosts provide some type of web based site building application for both Linux and Windows; the Linux program that is used by eUKhost and many other web hosts is called RV SiteBuilder, and its Windows variant is called SiteBuilder and is made by SWSoft.

FTP Manager

The FTP manager that is built into cPanel allows you as the web hosting customer to control all the FTP accounts that have access to your FTP / web space. This utility can be handy if you have multiple FTP accounts accessing your website space.

Shared Web Hosting is seen as the starting point when entering the web hosting world; this is because the environment in which you are hosted is shared with many other people, and in most cases the resources such as disk space and bandwidth that have been assigned to your account are normally low. Shared Hosting is normally the ideal starting point for people with little or no experience of web hosting, since they are always assigned a control panel which they can use to control their website, also within many control panels, features such as script auto-installers are available to help you get started with your website. If your website is of the utmost importance, and is mission critical for you or your business then you should never have it hosted within a shared environment; this is because shared web hosting servers can be easily bought down by outside attackers if a ‘rogue’ website or account is hosted on the server concerned - in this type of situation you should always consider purchasing a VPS or a dedicated server since dedicated resources will be assigned to you within these environments, and the dedicated environment itself is not shared with anybody else.

Where to Start

Since your shared web hosting package might be your first web hosting package completely, there are several different places that you could consider starting from. If you have bought your package to just mess around with it, then you could try out the auto-script installer that should be included in your control panel (e.g. this is called Fantastico if you are using the cPanel control panel); these types of installers install many different applications within your web environment which you can have a play about with, if you are completely new to the concept of website design and hosting then this is perfect for you since the installer will take care of setting the necessary file permissions and the setup of the database for you. You might have signed up, but not have a website ready to host yet; in this case you could try out the different email functions on your control panel and setup emails for your website domain to get you going - you could also try out other different functions of the control panel and the more technical side of things such as the setting up and the modifying of databases under your website or account. If you are completely new, and are waiting for the completion of your website and don’t know what email accounts you need to setup yet, you could simply just have a browse around the control panel itself so that you know where everything is enabling you to carry out future tasks with ease; also, if you know the whereabouts of everything within the control panel, you are able to use your knowledge to help and guide others who might face problems.

Making the Most of Your Resources

Although you might have a good amount of resources within your account, it is highly unlikely that you’ll ever use them effectively. To make the most of them you should always consider hosting multiple domains under your account, and spreading the resources evenly across each domain; this would ensure that each site is getting a fair amount of bandwidth and disk space, for example. If one site uses more bandwidth than another site, you should always consider spacing both the disk space and bandwidth in proportion to the size of the site and the amount of visitors each site receives as well the amount of disk space each site uses - a factor which is normally dependent on the website’s content and infrastructure. If you have a hosting account which has both a large amount of disk space and bandwidth, then you could consider hosting a website such as an image sharing website; this is because you could easily use up all of the disk space by hosting visitor’s images and photos, and then use up a good amount of the bandwidth assigned to your account by streaming them - in other words allowing people to link back to them so that others are allowed to view them. Something else that you could so with an account which has a large amount of resources is host website for friends and family for a cost; by doing this you are able to make an income out of your package, and if you end up hosting enough websites, could upgrade to a reseller package or even a VPS server at a later date. For a package with a small amount of resources, you could host a small HTML based site which makes minimal use of images; by doing this you are able to establish an online presence, but one which only leaves a small foot print within your hosting resources.

Choosing the Appropriate Shared Hosting Package

When choosing a shared hosting package, you should only consider packages which suit your needs as well as ones which are within your price range. You might see packages advertised around with high specifications which seem unreal, for example a host might be offering 100GB disk space and 50tb bandwidth; the truth is that they are unreal. Web hosts which offer these types of packages are known as ‘overselling hosts’; this is because the packages that they have on offer are inviable both financially and server wise. In most cases, if all of a company’s users used up all their resources then the host would most likely go bust since there just wouldn’t be the capacity on the server to cope with such a demand. If you choose a package with not enough resources, then you could end up using your resources too quickly and having your site suspended because it has no bandwidth, or if you go for a package with too many resources then you could end up paying for what you don’t really need. If you run a small site which doesn’t receive many visitors, then you can easily go with a low end shared hosting package; however, if your site doesn’t receive many visitors but is very ‘image heavy’ then you should always go with a mid-range package for the reason that images can take up both alot of bandwidth and disk space. Your site might not be image heavy, but might receive alot of users and might be based on a database; in this case you should choose a high end package because the more visitors you receive, the more bandwidth you will need - also, databases can use up alot of disk space although that is dependent on the type of data held.

The Benefits of Shared Hosting

If you are new to the concept of web hosting, then a shared hosting package is perfect for you. Most packages, such as those provided by eUKhost, are feature packed allowing beginners to become extremely knowledgeable of everything related to their hosting account. Your account is normally hosted within a secure and controlled environment which means you are able to test new things out without disrupting others which may be hosted on the same server as you. The server maintenance and support is normally taken care of by your host meaning that you can use your account safe knowing that if anything does go wrong with the server you are unlikely to have caused it, and that it will most likely be dealt with by your host at the earliest possible convenience.

Conclusion

By making the most of the resources which are assigned to your shared hosting account, you are able to maximize the possibilities open to you - and in some cases are even able to make a return on the purchase of your package. Shared hosting is perfect for you if you are new to the concept of web hosting since you are in a shared and controlled environment meaning that you are not able to cause any actions which are likely to disrupt fellow customers on the same server as you. Also, the maintenance of the server is not something which falls back to you, giving you one less thing to worry about.

PHP and ASP.NET are the two main scripting languages used by web developers. PHP is a multi-platform open-source language whilst ASP.NET is a single platform language built and owned by Microsoft. Both of these languages are packed full of features and add-ons for both are available so that you are able to extend their framework to build feature rich applications. Although PHP is open source, it has a large active community which is there to support users of the language; ASP.NET is a product of Microsoft meaning that there is a large amount of online documentation and other community forums where you can get support.

PHP

PHP is a language which has been around since 1984 and powers many of the world’s websites. It is free and is known as ‘open source’ software meaning that its source code is available for download, at no cost. It widely used in conjunction with the MySQL database engine, but can be used with others such as Oracle and SQLite. PHP is generally easier to code in than ASP.NET, since it has more functions built in than its rival; however, ASP.NET has built-in AJAX functions which is something that PHP lacks. Since PHP is open source, there is a number of applications that are available for free based on it, most of these applications are commonly used and are very powerful; also, there is a greater number of community forums and blogs where you are able to find information regarding PHP since it is open source.

PHP is a dynamic language since there are several different types of database that you are able to connect to, including: MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL and in some cases, Microsoft SQL Server. You are also able to edit the source of the language if you wish to speed it up or install custom modifications so that it is able to run as per your requirements; again, this is because it is open source - although ASP.NET is a free language, it isn’t open source meaning that you are unable to edit its source.

ASP.NET 

ASP.NET is a language based on classic ASP - both languages are owned and were created by Microsoft. Although it is a free language, it isn’t open source meaning that you are unable to view or edit the source code of it. Also, it is very limited in what database types you can use with it - Microsoft only invented it to work with Microsoft Access and Microsoft SQL Server databases, although developers can use it with MySQL databases with the help of third party components. Classic ASP, ASP.NET’s forefather, was created back in the mid-1990s and is the base which ASP.NET has been built on. One thing which annoys many ASP.NET developers is the fact that Microsoft is forever releasing updates to the system, and in its course, changing things along the way meaning that in some cases, developers have to keep on learning the changes as well as the new components and functions which are being added.