If you want to build a dynamic website which has the ability to communicate with databases and servers to ensure that it is both functional and efficient, then you will need to have knowledge of a programming language to ensure that these tasks can be easily achieved; there are many different programming languages, each of which have been designed for use in specific server environments, and although most possess more or less the same basic features at heart, some do contain more advanced and complicated features that others may not have. When choosing a programming language to learn, you should always consider how easy it will be to learn and ask others who have a good deal of knowledge about the language you are wanting to learn just how long it took them to learn it, and how easy they find it to use within a complicated server environment; you should also take into consideration the server environment in which the code that you produce will be hosted - for example you don’t want to go and learn a language which you then can’t use effectively since it hasn’t been designed to work in a server environment such as the one which you want to host it in. You should also take into consideration the external factors of a programming language which can affect your ability to code in it as well as the dynamic functionality that it is able to achieve; for example you should always consider the external database programs that you are able to use with your chosen programming language - this is because some database programs might not be able to function in the same environment as that in which the programming language that you have chosen to use does, this means that you should consider a database program that it is able to function with both the programming language that you have chosen to use as well as within the same environment as that in which the programming language that you have chosen to learn. Other factors you should consider when choosing a programming language to learn is the amount of support that is available for it; this is because if you are new to programming then you might need some support to help send you in the right direction if you happen to come across a problem or are unable to figure something out when you are in the middle of learning that language that you have chosen to learn. If you are new to programming, and have not learnt any server side scripting language previously, then you will open your website to a whole new set of opportunities which you most likely did not know about previously; this is because with the use of a server side scripting language, you can allow the pages of your website to interact with the server and also configure your pages to work with a database which means that your visitors can have much more interaction with your website if you use these opportunities to add new features to your website such as a password protected area or a forum where people can discuss certain topics with each other.

Features

You should always consider the features that a programming language has when you are looking to learning a language to aid you in the process of a building a dynamic server side script based website; this is because that although more or less every server side scripting language has the core features such as interaction with databases and the server, the more advanced features can settings can easily differ from language to language meaning that some are better suited to one use than another might be. Some languages are starting to incorporate new features that will help them stay up to date with the latest internet trends as they start to grow; for example Microsoft has started to release an AJAX toolkit for its ASP.NET server side scripting language to ensure that developers who use the language for their websites are able to keep their websites up to date in terms of the technology which is used to enable their scripts and web pages to interact with the server on which they are hosted. Most programming languages are able to work with a wide range of database programs which means that you are given a selection of database programs meaning that you can choose one which suits your requirements perfectly, both in terms of specification and the languages that it is able to function with; with the use of a database and a dynamic server side scripting language, you are able to store data which can be accessed by any dynamic script or web page which as the necessary database login details - this means that you could setup a private area on your website which requires a user name and password to gain access, or you could build a content management system to base your website on which will store all the content for your website in a centralized database. Another thing that should you take into consideration is the libraries that are available for the scripting language which you wish to learn; libraries are normally ‘add-ons’ for scripting languages that allow you to expand the capability of the programming language that you have chosen to learn since they are normally made for one purpose which expands on an existing function of the scripting language, or adds a completely new set of functions entirely. You should also consider the operating environment in which the programming language has been designed to run; for example PHP has been designed to allow it to run in both Linux and Windows environments, which means that you can easily install the necessary files in both operating systems to ensure that it can run effectively - on the other hand, ASP.NET has been designed by Microsoft which means that it can only be run on a server which is running Microsoft Windows Server. You should also consider the language’s ability to run alongside other web pages which have been written in different programming languages; for example PHP pages might interfere with the running of ASP.NET scripts and pages within the context of a Windows based web hosting environment.

Environment

One of the main factors that you should consider when choosing a programming language to learn is the environment for which the language you have chosen is able to operate in; this is because some programming languages have been written to allow them to run in a certain operating system only, meaning that you have to be using that operating system in order for you to be able to host and view the files that you have written in the dynamic server side scripting language concerned. For example, if you want others on the internet to be able to view the files or web pages that you have written in either the classic ASP or ASP.NET programming languages, you have to be running a server or computer which has either Microsoft Windows Server installed on it, or Microsoft Windows XP Professional - although it is recommended that you use Windows XP Professional to view server side scripts if you are wanting to test them, since it isn’t as suited to the position as Windows Server is; this is because that Microsoft has designed both programming languages to be run on Microsoft operating systems only and to only be executed through Microsoft’s web server, IIS (Internet Information Services) - this means that you might have to fork out extra for Windows based web hosting in order for you to have the ability to execute and view the classic ASP and ASP.NET web pages and scripts that you have written. On the other hand, programming language such as Ruby on Rails (RoR) and PHP will run on most operating systems, and are open source meaning that they are free; the fact that they are open source means that you can pick up a cheap cPanel and Linux based website hosting account that in most cases should have the ability to run Ruby and PHP based website applications. Although ASP.NET and classic ASP are both free to use programming languages, they are still classed as commercial since the running of them is only possible through the purchase of a Windows Server license, this means that their cores cannot be accessed by the likes of you and me which means that the cores can’t be customized to the way that we want them in order to make the engines behind both languages run more efficiently and faster; however, the source code for both Ruby and PHP can be downloaded which means that any developer with a sufficient amount of knowledge can easily modify the source to the way that they want it to be and then rebuild for use within their own server environment. Other environmental factors for the running of the programming language that you have chosen to learn can include the necessary file permissions which might be required to ensure that the language which you have chosen to learn can run effectively without any problem, which is a must when you are wanting to use the language within your own dedicated server environment; if the correct file permissions are not set then the core of the language might be restricted from accessing the resources that it needs to ensure that it can run effectively and fast.

Support

If you are new to the world of server side programming languages, then you should always take into consideration the support that is available to you if you find that you need help with a certain feature of the programming language that you have chosen to use; this is important because the best known languages have many forums that are dedicated to them which should more than meet your needs, but on the other hand the lesser known languages don’t have such a good amount of support available for them - or the case may be that there is enough support available for them, but the support just isn’t informative enough which isn’t what you need when you’re starting out with something new. For example, Microsoft’s ASP.NET language may be a commercial one, but the company itself doesn’t provide any official support past the regular documentation that you should be able to find with any programming language that you want to learn, especially the best ones; in this case you should be able to rely on internet based communities to help you out in the learning process, since these communities are normally full of many knowledgable members who can give you tips on how best to learn the language as well, since everyone had to learn the language at some point in their development career. You will never find any source of official support for any open source scripting languages beyond the documentation that you should be able to find for almost any scripting language, regardless of whether you choose to learn it or not since everyone needs some sort of official source which they can refer back to; however, you should be able to find more internet based communities which can help you out with the language that you would for an commercial server side scripting language, this is because that people are able to view the source code of the actual language which in turn means that they should be able to tell you exactly what to do if you happen to run into a problem with the language that you have chosen to learn. If this is your first time learning a programming language, then it is important that you try and learn a language which has lots of support available to you; this is because it is inevitable that you will get stuck during the learning process at some stage or another since programming languages are very complicated things to learn. One thing to note is that the documentation that is provided by the makers of the scripting languages for their products are in most cases very complicated; this means that you should try and gain a good amount of knowledge before attempting to read one of the documentation manuals since you should then be able to solve your problem much more efficiently, and at the same time will be gaining knowledge on the language which you have chosen to learn. If you gain a good amount of knowledge of your chosen language, you might end up becoming a programmer - which in most cases is highly paid job because of the skill that is involved.

Commercial and Open Source

Commercial programming languages are ones which require you to purchase something in order for you to have the ability to run them so that visitors to your website are able to view the finished article, and so that the server which is hosted the script or web page concerned is able to process the file in a correct manner so that it can output it to the visitor’s browser in the correct format. Commercial languages are generally made for use on one operating system only, which restricts you from how and where you are able to use your skills if you choose to learn a commercial server side scripting language; an example of a commercial server side scripting language would be Microsoft’s ASP.NET, this is because you can only use it under Microsoft’s web server, IIS, which itself will only run on a Microsoft operating system such as Windows XP Professional or Windows Server 2003 - their more modern counterparts being Windows Vista Business and Ultimate, as well as Windows Server 2008. On the other hand, open source programming languages generally allow you to run them on any operating system, which means that you are able to apply your knowledge and skills across a wide range of operating systems if you do choose to learn and open source server side scripting/programming language; you can also expand open source scripting languages more easily than their commercial counter parts, this is because many developers have spent their time developing free add-ons for the open source languages to help make them much more feature filled, and in tun allowing people who develop using them to build more feature filled and efficient web based applications and websites. You will also find that the support for open source programming languages is much greater than that of commercial programming languages; the main reason for this is that people and developers tend to go more with open source languages for the simple reason that they are free, and because there is a large number of experienced developers who decide to use open source languages, there is a large amount of people who are willing to help out those who are new to the world of server side programming. The amount of support that is available for commercial server side programming languages is very little when compare to that which is available for open source languages; this is because that most developers don’t have the money to invest in the needed technologies to ensure that their scripts and web pages, which means that they normally take up open source programming languages because of the fact that there is little to no cost of getting started with these - you will also find that larger corporations with money will be utilizing commercial scripting languages, and they will be unwilling to provide any outsiders with any sense of support if they have just started out with a new programming language - if you do want to start with a commercial programming language then you should try and pick up a cheap book from your nearest book store.

Conclusion

In conclusion, if you are new to the world of developing with server side scripting languages then you should take up an open source programming language to learn since there are far more helpful resources available for you than there are with commercial programming languages; this means that you might find it easier to learn your chosen language, and might even be able to get your dynamic website built much quicker than you would with a commercial programming language which has far less resources available regarding information about it. If you start coding in a language, and you fill that your set up might need expanding so that you are able to use many more functions when you code, then you should choose an open source language to learn since you can easily expand these through the use of freely available function libraries which are in most cases open source as well; this means that if you want to expand the interactivity that your website is able to have with the server on which it is hosted, then you can by simply expanding the base of the language in which you are coding with some simple yet effective function libraries. If you do choose to code in a commercial scripting language, then you might find yourself paying high web hosting costs since the cost of the software which is required to enable commercial scripting languages to run is high, and web hosts have to past the costs on to customers; you might also find yourself paying large amounts of money for resources such as books to aid you in the development process because there is a lack of online resources - if you were to code using an open source language then you would be able to use the vast range of free online resources to help you, and would not have to pay large amount of money for thick and complicated and in some cases almost useless books. With the use of this article, you should have been able to discover the power that programming languages have, and how the use of them can help boost your website in terms of how you manage it, and how much interactivity your visitors are able to have with it since you can use the features of programming languages to help add more features to your website. Also, with the use of a programming language, you might be able to get a job in IT since programmers are very skilled people, and positions for them normally accompany high salaries.

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.

cPanel provides many advanced features that you can use to help improve your website from a technical aspect as well as from a functionality aspect if you choose to use certain features. Some of the advanced features can help you choose how the installed web server processes requests for files of a certain extension from your website; this means that you are able to choose specific programs that are installed on the shared hosting server on which you are hosted to process requests for certain file extensions which a user or website visitor might enter into their web browser under the domain name or website which you own - in basic this means that you can choose how the web server that is installed on your server, in most cases Apache, deals with some of the files that you have hosted within your web space. A Frontpage Extension manager is provided built-in to cPanel to allow you to manage the extensions which will affect how some of your files that you have created within Microsoft’s now defunct Frontpage web page creator are handled by the server; this feature can be quite important for some people since if they don’t have the Frontpage Extension options for their domain configured correctly then the web pages which they have spent time creating within Frontpage will not function within their shared cPanel website hosting space, which in turn might mean that they will have to move web hosts to ensure that they can find one at which their website will actually function correctly. Other features provided with cPanel allow you to manage custom error pages for your domain, in the case that you have this option enabled; this means that if an error does happen to occur on your website then you can still keep up the graphical identity of your website by carrying on your website’s design into the error pages, in turn meaning that your logo and design will still be displayed to your visitors even if your website does happen to go down due to an error with either your website and its code or on the actual server on which your website resides. Some people also use scheduled tasks to ensure that the important functions of their website are run automatically without the need for any manual intervention; this enables them to ensure that important tasks such as invoicing can be carried out automatically at any time of the day without the need for anyone to be there to run the task automatically - tasks which are run automatically are normally ones which are of the utmost importance and require for the tasks which they carry out to be done at a regular interval otherwise major problems could be caused. Another feature allows you to find out any information about a domain in terms of the technical side of things; this means that if you are trying to link some part of your site up to that of another website then you can use this feature to find out the technical information which you might need to ensure that you can carry out the task which you need to.

Within this article the ability to configure the web server on your hosting server to handle certain file extensions which might be individual to your website will be discussed; this means that you can tell the web server how you want certain parts of your website to be handled by the website by defining what program is used to handle requests for certain file extensions that are contained within your website. Image features unique to cPanel will also be discussed within this article; this means that you will be given the ability to change the size of images which are contained within your website as well as be able to generate thumbnails of images contained within your website which you can then place within your web pages as links to the larger images which can then decrease the loading time of your web pages if larger versions of th images concerned were being used beforehand, you will also be given the ability to change the format of a picture if needed with the use of cPanel - this means that you might be able to gain a higher quality picture of a lower size picture which can help decrease the use of the disk space within your account which you can then assign to more useful tasks. Other features allow you to set up custom error pages for your website and domain name that you have chosen to host under your shared cPanel website hosting account; this means that you can still present your visitors with web pages branded with your design, even if an error does happen to occur with either your website or with the website hosting server on which you are hosted. The ability to schedule scripts and tasks to execute when you want will also be discussed; this means that you will then be able to make the important tasks of your website run automatically without the need for you to be at a computer to execute the script or task concerned manually, it also means that you can almost ensure that the task will be run on time and when needed which is one thing that a human can’t guarantee because of time accuracy and the fact that someone might not be able to get to get a computer to execute the necessary task or script when it needs to be done. The ability to configure the necessary extensions to ensure that your dynamic web pages which have been created with the use of Microsoft Frontpage will also work and function correctly as needed within your shared hosting environment; this means that you can build near dynamic websites for use within a shared hosting environment without the need for any technical work such as the use of databases and file permissions. If you face a problem with either your hosting account or the server that you are hosted on, then there is a cPanel feature that will allow for you to contact your web host to report the problem if your web host does not provide an external help desk for customers who face problems with the services that they have chosen to purchase from the web host that they have chosen. If you need to find out certain information about a domain, then there is a feature built into cPanel that you can use to find out the necessary technical information; this means that if you need to know certain information about a domain which is live on the internet then you can do certain lookups to find out the necessary information if you are in the situation that you need to use it for a specific reason. The option to define certain mime types for file types which you might have hosted within your shared cPanel website hosting account is also discussed; this means that you can tell the web browser of a visitor how to handle a particular file which the visitor is trying to access - this is good for you if you have chosen to use files on your website that have their own unique file extension for some reason or another - you can also use this feature if you want serve web pages to mobile phones that are based on the WAP technology, this is because some web servers don’t have the necessary mime types set to allow WAP browsers view websites properly, which means that you have to configure the correct mime type in your web hosting account if your host doesn’t have them set to allow you to start serving pages to WAP devices almost immediately.

Apache Handlers

The Apache Handlers feature of cPanel allows you to control how Apache handles requests for files of a certain type or extension from search engines and visitors; this means that you can choose how Apache handles files that you have contained within your shared cPanel website hosting space, and how they are handled when search engines come crawling or when people come to visit your website through their web browser. This feature gives you the ability to be able to run files with custom extensions from within your shared cPanel website hosting space; this is because you are able to specify the program or action that you want Apache to use when a request for a file of the extension concerned is made - this can help you in terms of security since it means that if you specify a custom file extension when configuring the required Apache handlers, hackers will not be able to distinguish the server side language that your website has been created in, which means that without this information they can’t make an accurate attack on your website because their attacks can only be done if they know what language the pages have been written in, since they can only find script or page vulnerabilities with this information. You can also use this feature to help give it a unique identity in terms of the technical side of it; this is because your website will look more professional in the eyes of a specialist such as a programmer or website designer, since the use of a custom file extension throughout your website makes it look like that the person who has created it or maintains it is very knowledgable in terms of technology - when in fact a basic cPanel feature has been used to ensure that a certain program has been used to execute files which take the file extension concerned. As well as being able to create your own Apache handlers to allow Apache to handle files which have a custom file type by using a particular program, you can also use this feature to see Apache handlers which have been automatically set up by cPanel when it was installed as well as custom ones which your web host might have set up to be used by all the occupants who have their website hosted on the same server as yourself; this means that you might not have to create custom Apache handlers since there might be server wide rules already in place for the particular extension which you want to tell Apache how to handle. The good thing with this feature is that any rules which you create yourself will only affect the files and websites that you have hosted under your shared cPanel website hosting account; this means that those custom rules which have been created by people with accounts who are hosted on the same server as you are not going to affect your websites or files which you host within your web space, nor will the custom rules that you create affect your ‘neighbours’ who are hosted on the same website hosting server as you are - but system wide rules will affect all websites and accounts that are hosted on the server concerned.

Image Tools

The image tools feature of cPanel allows you to carry out many actions on any image which you have hosted within your shared cPanel website hosting account; this means that you can carry out necessary image editing without having to be at a computer with which you have the necessary tools installed to edit the images that you have edited within your web hosting space, instead you can do the necessary editing on the fly from any internet connected computer from which you can access cPanel. Within this cPanel feature you are able to create thumbnails of images that you have hosted within your shared cPanel website hosting account; this means that you can create smaller versions of larger images for displaying within standard web pages - this means that you are able to create fast loading web pages which still contain the images that you want - one thing to note is that thumbnails are usually used as a link to the full sized image so that visitors can still see the image that they have come to see on your website. Another feature within the image tools feature of cPanel allows you to change the size of images which you have hosted within your shared cPanel website hosting account; this means that if an image which you have located within a web page is taking up too much space on the page, or is too big for its purpose then you can easily resize it to a smaller size on the fly through cPanel without the need for any specialist photo editing software such as Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Fireworks - both of which can cost hundreds of pounds - you should consider resizing as many images that you have hosted within your shared cPanel website hosting account as possible, this is because the bigger the dimensions of the image, the bigger its file size, which means that images could be taking up unnecessary disk space that you have assigned to your shared cPanel website hosting account. The third and final feature of the cPanel image tools feature is an image file format converter; this convenient feature allows you to change the file extension of images from one type (e.g. .jpg) to another (e.g. .bmp) - this feature can be handy in saving the amount of disk space which is used by some images that you have hosted within your shared cPanel website hosting account, this is because images of one format can take more space than those of which possess a different file extension since the type of file extension used normally links back to the quality of the image concerned - one thing to note about this tool is the fact that by converting images to a file format such as Bitmap (.bmp) could result in a loss of quality from the image concerned. You should always be careful when using the image tools that cPanel provides you with to manage and edit images that you have contained within your shared cPanel website hosting account effectively; this is because the changes you make are in most cases irreversible, which means that if you are doing the managing or editing from a remote location when you don’t have an original copy of the image you are editing, and you end up making an incorrect edit then you won’t be able to replace the edited image with the original which could cause some inconvenience and annoyance for both you and your website’s visitors.

Index Manager

The index manager feature of cPanel allows you to customize the way in which a directory appears to a passing website visitor when there isn’t any default page within the directory to be shown to visitors; this means that if a visitor does happen to stumble across an open directory within your website with no default/index page, they will still be shown the index which has been styled to ensure that it looks the way you want it to look - this is a big plus for cPanel since many other control panels do not give you the ability to do this. When using the index manager, you are presented with several different options; you are able to specify whether you want indexing for certain directories that you have hosted within your shared cPanel website hosting allowed or not - if you have indexing disabled then visitors and search engine spiders will be presented with a 403 error page, which will say that they are forbidden from being able to access the directory concerned - files within the directory will still be directly accessible, it just means that the actual index page showing all the files which are hosted within the directory concerned is not displayed. If you have indexing for certain directories that are contained within your web space enabled, then visitors will be openly able to browse the directory concerned and will have the ability to see all the files that the directory concerned holds within itself, meaning that the security of certain files can be easily compromised; however, unlike directories which forbid external access, search engine spiders will be able to crawl open directories which means that any files that you have contained within the directories which you have left open for people to browse will be accessible directly from search engines if a user was to enter keywords that are linked to files that might be hosted within the directories concerned that are contained within your shared cPanel website hosting account. There are also two other options that you can choose from when using the index manager feature of cPanel; those two options are text-only indexing as well as graphical and text indexing. Text only indexing means that the index page which is shown is only text based; this means that the file list will still be displayed, but will only have basic formatting when displayed - this feature can be handy for you if you are to have open directories that are going to be accessed by many people, since this type of index page will not use up much bandwidth since it won’t contain any images. Graphic and text index pages will be slightly more bandwidth heavy than their text based counterparts; this is because images can use up slightly more bandwidth and just plain text based pages, graphics and text based index pages should only be used in the situation where you are going to have a small amount of people accessing the directory concerned, because of the reason of bandwidth usage in relation to the amount of graphics that the actual index page contains.

Error Pages

The error pages feature of cPanel allows you to configure Apache to display custom error pages that you have created for display when your website suffers some sort of error or problem; this means that if your website endures a problem, an informative error page will be shown to the visitor containing your website’s design, meaning that your website can still retain its corporate identity even during a problem whether it be with the website’s code or one with the server on which the website is hosted. Custom error pages mean that you can display a custom message to visitors when a problem occurs with your website or the server that it is hosted on; this means that you can display an informative message to your users which you have written yourself, and not an uninformative message which has been generated automatically by the server which you are hosted on - automatically generated error messages are normally very technical and are usually of no use to the visitor or the person who is viewing the message unless they either have a sufficient amount of technical knowledge to understand the server, or if you are the server administrator who can then take the necessary action to rectify the problem if it is within a script that is hosted within your web space, or contact your web host with information of the problem if it happens to be a server side one which you are unable to fix yourself since you are on shared hosting, therefore meaning that you have no root or administrator access to the hosting server. cPanel allows you to setup custom error pages for five of the most common website and server side errors which could occur with either your website and the code that has been used to create it, or with the main host node on which your shared cPanel website hosting account is hosted; the error codes which can have custom error pages are 400, 401, 403, 404 and 500 - a 400 error normally refers to a bad gateway which means that a connection can’t be established to the server on which your website is hosted, a 401 error is one which will ask somebody for login details in order for them to be able to access either a password protected directory or file which you have hosted within your shared cPanel website hosting account, a 403 error will be displayed when someone has tried to gain access to either a protected directory or file to which they are not allowed access, a 404 error page will be shown when a visitor tries to reach a directory or file under your domain name that doesn’t exist and a 500 error page will be displayed when there is an internal problem with either the code in which a page has been produced with or with the server itself which means that the directory, page or file that is trying to be accessed can’t be processed and in turn displayed properly because of either a code or server problem.

Mime Types

The mime types feature of cPanel allows you to set up certain settings that will tell the browsers of visitors to your website how to handle specific file extensions which users might be trying to access. This means that if you are using custom file extensions within your website for whatever reason, you can use this feature to tell your visitor’s browsers how to handle the files with custom extensions, and with another feature you can configure the server to run a specific program for files of a certain custom extension that are hosted within your shared cPanel website hosting account. The main idea of mime types if to help you as the account holder to make use of new web technologies as they become available, even if your web host doesn’t - one thing to note though is that some technologies might require some server side work in order for them to function, and not just the simple adding or modification of mime types within your web hosting account; for example when WAP technology started to enter the world of web development, many web hosts did not have their servers setup correctly to allow WAP browsers to visit and view pages which people have designed for WAP compatible devices and have chosen to host within their shared cPanel website hosting account. For the most common file extensions which you and other people who are hosted on the same server as you will most probably using, the mime types have already been setup and correctly installed for use by everyone who is hosted on the server; this means that if you are new to the concept of web hosting and want to get your website started up trouble free and are not planning on using any complicated technologies within your website, then shared cPanel based website hosting is the right type of hosting for you since with the mime types being already installed, you needn’t alter anything complicated within your shared website hosting account. As mentioned previously, if you have the necessary knowledge and want use your website a custom way in relation to the server, then you can use the mime types feature to set up custom mime types for the files which you might have hosted within your shared website hosting account; the good thing with this feature is that any custom mime types that you set up within your shared website hosting account will not affect any other websites or hosting accounts that are hosted on the same web hosting server as you, and any custom mime types which other people who are hosted on the same server as you will not have any effect on the files which you have hosted within your shared cPanel website hosting account. Also, most of the main mime types have been set up by either cPanel or your web host which means that the most basic files can be run without the need for any custom mime types.

Cron Jobs

The cron jobs feature of CPanel 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 cron jobs (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 cron job 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 cron jobs 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 cron job within CPanel, 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 CPanel 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 CPanel shared website hosting account being suspended because of server resource hogging as it is known. You can also choose for CPanel to send you an email notification to tell you whether the cron job 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. Cron jobs can be incredibly handy in the situation where you need to run a script or task on your website at a certain time or at a certain period and aren’t able to be at your computer to run these tasks or scripts yourself when you need to during the day; this is because the cPanel cron jobs feature gives you the ability to schedule tasks or scripts related to your website to run at any time of the day and at regular periods if it is really necessary for the running of your 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 CPanel 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 CPanel 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. If you are new to the concept of website design and scripting then you should try and build your first web pages in Frontpage; this is because Frontpage provides you with many components and add-ins for your website which you can use to expand its interactivity since you could add a guestbook, for example, to allow your visitors to comment on your website as well as the content and design of it.

Conclusion

In conclusion, cPanel provides you with many advanced features that can help you advance your website in terms of the technology that you have used to build it and to allow it to function correctly; some of the advanced features that cPanel provides you with are unique to it as a control panel, meaning that some of the features would only be achievable in a dedicated environment such as that which is provided by both VPS and dedicated server hosting since no other website hosting control panel is able to provide you with the same features at such a high level. We have discussed the fact that you can use certain features from the advanced section of cPanel to help you use your own file extensions within your website, to help aid its technical identity which website designers and internet professionals might take a look at - the use of custom file extensions can also be used as a security measure to help deter hackers and other malicious attackers from attacking your website in any way; you can also tell a visitor’s internet browser how to handle a file of a certain extension which you might have hosted within your shared cPanel website hosting account. The use of custom error pages has also been discussed within the context of this article; this means that if an error was to occur with your website, you can use custom error pages which will ensure that the graphical/design identity of your website will still be displayed, even if there does happen to be a problem with it - you can also take advantage of this feature to assure your website’s visitors that you are working your hardest to try and fix the problem as quickly and as  efficiently as possible. Another advanced feature of cPanel can also be used to schedule tasks to automatically run, meaning that the most important tasks required for your website to run efficiently will still take place, but automatically meaning that you don’t have to be sitting at your computer to ensure that the task or script that you want to run at certain times of the day is run successfully and efficiently. Another advanced feature of cPanel allows you to configure and run the settings that are needed to ensure that you can run web pages which you have designed within Microsoft Frontpage, and then uploaded to your cPanel web space from your desktop so that they can be viewed by your website visitors; this means that you can easily design feature rich web pages from within Microsoft Frontpage and utilize the the advanced components that it supplied, safe in the knowledge that any web pages that you create using it will run and display with ease from within the context of your shared website hosting space. Another feature built into cPanel allows you to edit any pictures or images that you have contained within your website hosting account on the fly; this means that you can carry out complicated operations on images from any internet connected computer as long as you can access cPanel without the need for any expensive desktop image editing packages. You are also able to set how unprotected directories with no default/index page in them are displayed; you are given a range of options which means that you can choose whether to save on the amount of bandwidth used or not by unprotected directories that have no default web page contained within them.

cPanel provides you with many different features based around domains which you can use to expand the capabilities of your cPanel shared website hosting account in the form of being able to host more websites as well as features that you can use to expand the corporate identity of your website and products that you might market on it. The domain that you use for your website is the main identity that is given to it, and it is of the utmost importance that the domain which you use for your website relates both to the content that the site contains as well as the main subject of the website; this is because search engines normally relate the title of a domain name to the content that it contains, as well in reference to the main subject of the website - domains and content which relate more to each other normally receive a higher page ranking when search engines come down to scoring the pages of websites once they have been indexed. Your domain is also the most important factor of your website since it is what people will type in to the address bar of their browser when they want to visit your website, or what they will see when they visit your website through the means of a search from an ordinary search engine. The fact that you can have any domain you want is brilliant for both marketing and general branding; this is because you can create a brandable identity which you can then create a business around, or purchase domains entitled for special offers which you might be offering since this would ensure that if you have created a separate mini site for such offers, people are able to access them without having to type in any long confusing addresses and will only have to enter a standard domain name address. If you are unable to afford a new domain then you can use certain features within cPanel to gives the affect of a separate domain to the user or visitor without having to purchase a new domain; you can use this type of feature to aid with corporate branding when creating a new sub or mini-site for a new product or area of your website which might still be in the development stages. Other domains features within cPanel allow you to just attach your domains to your hosting account, but not necessarily use them - this is perfect for you if you are just planning to buy domains to sell them on at a later date at a higher cost.

The domain features within cPanel allow you to use it to help build your business portfolio if you are in a business such as the selling of high quality domains which people might be willing to pay a high price for; you can also use the built-in features to aid you in the creation of separate ‘mini-sites’ for your business as well as to create separate corporate identities for services and products which you might be wanting to promote and sell via the means of the internet which means you won’t have to pay the high costs to have them in shops. You can also use another feature to help shorten down the length of long URLs within your website which might confuse users then they are trying to navigate or search your website for content; you can also use this feature to send users to another web page on the internet when they try to access a specific one which you have stored within your shared cPanel website hosting space. With the use of the domain features within cPanel you can ensure that you can create separate corporate identities under your main corporate identity without the need to invest extra cash into new domains every time you want to market or promote one of your new products or services on the internet under your main identity. One thing to remember with domains is that they are the most important necessity of your website; this is because they are what your visitors see or type in when they want to visit your website - apart from content, a domain defines your website as well as your brand, for example if you are creating a company website then you should always try and get the branding of the domain as close as is possible to your real company if the main domain that you wanted has already been bought for use by somebody else - however, if it has been bought then it might just have been bought for parking which means you might be able to negotiate a purchase price with the owner of it. With the use of this article you should be able to understand what sub-domains, parked domains, add-on domains and redirects are as well as what their uses are; you should then also be able to apply their uses across your website appropriately in order to help boost your website’s search engine score as well as how visitors come across products and services as well as how the different types of domains can be used for the branding and promotion of products and services which you might want to sell through your website. You will also be given the ability to expand the use of your shared cPanel website hosting account by being able to host a number of domains on your account, if possible, and how you can use this to manage all the domains which you own effectively. All this put together means that you will discover how powerful cPanel is when it comes to managing multiple domains as well as how you are able to strategically market and promote your internet based products and services with the use of domains through cPanel; this should all help you increase your overall search engine ranking/score as well as the amount of visitors and products that you sell through your website.

Sub-Domains

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 CPanel 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 CPanel 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 CPanel 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. Sub-domains can aid in the marketing and promotion of products or services that you might be selling through your website, and can even help increase on your current amount of sales through your website; this is because they can aid in the creation of ‘mini-sites’ for products and services which you might sell which inturn can help promote and increase products since it allows a product or service to have its own corporate identity under your main corporate identity - it is also much easier for a visitor to type in a subdomain address rather than a very long ‘directory’ address which could consist of many forward slashes before a user actually reaches the final destination of the product or service which they want to purchase. You can also use sub-domains if you wish to segment your website off into smaller parts if you feel that it is too large to be hosted under just one domain; this again can help aid in giving the separate areas of your website their own identities since they will more or less be ‘minis’ of your main website since you have made your main website much smaller, and the subdomains will be relatively small.

Add-On Domains

Add-on domains are domains that you can attach to your main website hosting account; this feature allows you to extend the use of your hosting account since it allows you to host multiple domains, and a website for each domain if you feel that each domain does need to have its own website - if it doesn’t then you could simply create a parking page for each domain. Add-on domains can be linked back to subdomains which you have created within your shared cPanel website hosting account; this allows you to host more websites since in most cases you have an unlimited number of both add-on and sub domains, which means that you can host as many websites as you want under your hosting account with the only constraints against you being the amount of disk space that you are supplied with as well as the amount of bandwidth that your account has been assigned - in some cases you might be limited by either the number of sub of add-on domains which you can use in your website hosting account, which will mean that you are only able to host as many separate websites in your account as is stated by the amount of each. This feature of cPanel is perfect for you if you wish to make the most of your website hosting account without having to spend any extra money; this is because you can try and get the most value for money by utilizing both this and the sub-domain features to ensure that you can host as many websites on your account as is physically allowed by the specifications of the website hosting plan which you have purchased from your web host. One other thing which can affect how many domains you host in your shared cPanel website hosting account is the amount of money that you have available to spend on things such as domains; this is because the cost of domains is relatively high, and means that every time you want to buy a new domain, you have to spend money. Add-on domains can also help in providing a separate corporate identity for other products or services which you may be wanting to sell or provide through the use of the internet and your existing website; you can use the add-on domain feature to host individual domains for the products and services that you have chosen to provide - you can then specify an individual layout for each website to help provide that much needed unique corporate identity for each product or service. If you own a business such as a website design agency then you can make use of this feature to help you host all the websites that you design for clients if you don’t have the finances to pay for a higher end reseller package - however, this situation should only be used if your customers don’t require control panel access to control their website and domain name; this is because only reseller packages give you the abilities to create separate client accounts for each individual website or domain - this in turn means that with a standard shared website hosting account there is only one set of login details for all the websites which you host which means that you are the only one who can control all the details about client’s websites such as email addresses and the contents of their actual website.

Parked/Pointed Domains

The parked/pointed domain feature of cPanel allows you to point existing domains which you might own back to your existing shared cPanel website hosting account; this means that when a user or visitor enters a parked/pointed domain into their web browser, they will reach your existing website which you have already set up under the main domain which you have attached to your shared cPanel website account. Parked/pointed domains are handy for you if you are wanting to reserve one name under an array of different TLDs, they will all lead to your existing website which means that you don’t have to develop an individual website for each domain - meaning that you have to do less work; this can also mean that if you are developing a large website which is going to be used in many countries accross a range of TLDs, then you will only have to place one parking page under your main hosting account then attach all the needed domains to your account - this means that you don’t have to upload a parking page for each individual domain that you are planning to use for your finished website. Parked/pointed domains is also a feature which you can utilize if you are a domain purchaser who purchases domains purely for the reason of then selling them on at a higher price to help you make a profit on your purchases - in this case you could use the parked/pointed domains feature to attach all the domains that you own to your shared cPanel website hosting account; you can then proceed to create one holding page under the main domain for your hosting account which will be displayed on all the domains that you have hosted under your account - this can help you out since it means that you don’t have to place up a holding page for every domain which you own - which means that if you own many domains, you can save yourself a lot of time by using this relatively simple method. One thing to note is that when using or adding add-on domains to your website hosting account, you should always make sure that you point your domains to the DNS servers which you use for your shared cPanel website hosting account; this is because you will then be able to control all aspects of your domain from your shared cPanel website hosting account, and if you don’t or forget to change the DNS servers then your add-on domains might not work at all with your shared cPanel website hosting account - you can normally change your DNS servers for your domains yourself over at the registrar from which you purchased the domain, as long as you know the new DNS servers which you want your domain to point to, if you aren’t able to do it yourself then you can normally contact the support department of your registrar who should happily do it for you at no extra cost than what you have paid for the domain.

Redirects

The redirects feature of cPanel allows you to automatically redirect your website’s visitors to another part of your website when they try to access a certain file or folder which you have hosted under your shared cPanel website hosting account; the redirects section of cPanel allows you to use different method of redirecting - permanent and temporary, permanent redirections (sometimes referred to as 301 redirects) are ones which tell the visitor’s browser to update any bookmarked URLs which link to the file or directory on the website which is trying to be accessed and is in turn telling the browser that it is redirecting the visitor, temporary redirections (sometimes referred to as 302 redirects) work in a similar fashion to permanent redirects, apart from that they don’t tel the visitor’s browser to update any bookmarked URLs which link to the resource such as the file or directory located on the website which is trying to be accessed by the visitor. The redirects feature is popular among most blogging programs, such as Wordpress - although it is normally found in its more technical form via the use of the .htaccess file rather than a simple panel contained within cPanel; this is because it can be used to shorten down long URLs - most blogs normally produce posts with long URLs so that informative information such as the date it was published as well as the full title of the post - however, thy normally shorten the lengths down with the use of a 301 redirect to only leave the title of the post so that others can refer to it in their own blog posts or in their websites without the need of posting a confusing URL but with the ability to post a much shorter and much more understandable URL to the actual blog post. This feature is generally used within websites to help make their web pages much more accessible if they have long URLs as well as to help boost their search engine ranking since this feature can help improve the search engine friendliness of a website’s URL; with a boosted search engine ranking, your website will probably receive more visitors that have been sourced from a search engine keyword search. If you utilize the wild card feature of the redirects feature of cPanel then you can redirect any requests for any file within a directory to another directory with the ability to maintain the file name in the web page request; this means that you can move directories within your website as well as renaming then without the need to change any links in your main website since any requests for files within the old directory will be forwarded to the new directory with the file name being requested retained in the request for the file in the directory concerned - this also means that you can create much more search engine friendly URLs for less search engine friendly URLs that are being used in your website.

Conclusion

In conclusion, you are able to use the domain features of cPanel to help give your products and services their own individual corporate identities which you can then use to market and promote them; this use of a separate mini-site and corporate identity for each product or service that you supply or sell can also help you get an increased search engine score which in turn can increase the amount of visitors that you actually receive from search engine searches of particular keywords which link to your products and services in some way or another. You can also use the domain features provided by cPanel to increase the amount of domains and websites that you are able to host on your standard shared cPanel website hosting account; this feature can help you make the most out of what you have paid for your hosting account since you are able to host more websites than just one without the need to purchase any new website hosting packages - this feature is perfect for you if you feel the need that you want to host more websites or if you just want to separate your site more into different segments so that is much easier for both you to manage and for your visitors or customers to navigate. The ability to park and manage your many domains which you are not using effectively has also been discussed, this means that if you own many domains of the same subject and want them all to display the same website then you can do that at ease without having to upload the website or parking page for each website individually, which in turn can help save you a lot of time and fuss when it comes to both the management of the domains and the uploading of the necessary files; you can also use this feature if you have a large corporate website which you want to have shown under many domains which you have purchased for this purpose - in this case you might want to build some sort of language translation feature into your website so that the text for visitors from foreign countries using a separate TLD is displayed in their native language and not the English that you have most likely written the content of your website in. Other features discussed allow you to make the URLs and file paths in your website much more search engine friendly thus giving your website a much higher search engine ranking (sometimes referred to as search engine score); this is done in the way that the URLs for your website are made much more readable and keyword rich which means that search engines are more likely to like your web pages because of this since the content will most likely link back to the title or the URL of the web page which it might not have done originally - this feature is heavily involved in the design of software such as blogs and content management systems where the URL of the content must be easily readable as well as where the title and URL of the web page must link back to the content that is will display in some way or another, in the case of blogs you might also find this feature being used since the originally generated URL is much longer and confusing and is not appropriate for use for people who want to link back to the article concerned in their own blogs or websites or for those who might want to refer others to the article via the use of email.

Vlogging is a new type of blogging which is starting to get a grip on the internet. It is similar to normal blogging, but the posts or ‘vlogs’ are recorded on video and then uploaded to the web. Until now vlogging hasn’t been very popular since most people are too shy to upload videos of themselves for others to see, however, this has started to change as more vlogging website are beginning to open up: some even offering live streams so viewers can see what vloggers are doing at that moment in time.

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 disasterous. 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.