Tag Archives: php
Finding the Best PHP Website Hosting Package for any Purpose
There are many free website hosting packages that are enough to host personal sites and even some small business sites. However, just about all of these sites run on slow shared servers and lack any PHP support. The free hosts that do provide PHP support are often unreliable and have minimal database features. This is why you need to go for real commercial website hosting offerings that provide PHP.
PHP often works alongside MySQL in creating a very dynamic website. Both of these languages are open source too so you do not have to worry about costly licensing issues. It also integrates with HTML so you can apply any existing knowledge of HTML to your PHP content.
Fortunately, many providers offer this even in their cheapest packages. Overall reliability and extra features still vary though which is why you need to follow some of these tips to land you a good host.
Try to gather some links to popular website hosting packages that each have competitive prices. Then check each link and find out what databases are supported. If you are migrating from a previous host or you created your own database offline, you need to make sure the website host can support everything that you are planning to host.
The available disk space is also an important aspect depending on the type of content that you are hosting. Ordinary business blogs that rely on text and images won’t need very high requirements but larger stores that have online shopping portals and other highly graphical sites that rely on Flash or HD video will need additional disk space beyond the gigabyte range.
The cost per gigabyte being reasonably low these days, multiple PHP website hosting providers should give you more than enough available space to fit loads of content but the bandwidth limitations is an entirely different story. Bandwidth refers to the amount of data being transferred to visitors and if you are expecting thousands of visitors every day, even minimal websites may suffer from bandwidth issues. Once you exceed your monthly bandwidth limits, your site will shut down for the remainder of the month and that could lead you to lose some potential customers. When looking at the different website hosting packages available, go with the one that provides at least 10 gigabytes of bandwidth. That should be enough to start a small business of any kind and you can probably stay under the bandwidth limitations for more than a year before you need to upgrade.
The last thing you need to look for in a website hosting package is the extra features being offered. A website builder is a good example for this and serves as a great add-on for those that do not have much experience in coding a PHP business site. Additional features may include spare email addresses, support for SSL certificates so you can add authenticity, and support for mailing lists so you do not have to sign up for a separate autoresponder service.
These are the most important elements that are included in any good website hosting package that offers PHP support. If you find yourself still choosing from a few available packages, do some final searches on these services and choose one that received positive reception from customers.
Finding the Best PHP Website Hosting Package for any Purpose
There are many free website hosting packages that are enough to host personal sites and even some small business sites. However, just about all of these sites run on slow shared servers and lack any PHP support. The free hosts that do provide PHP support are often unreliable and have minimal database features. This is why you need to go for real commercial website hosting offerings that provide PHP.
PHP often works alongside MySQL in creating a very dynamic website. Both of these languages are open source too so you do not have to worry about costly licensing issues. It also integrates with HTML so you can apply any existing knowledge of HTML to your PHP content.
Fortunately, many providers offer this even in their cheapest packages. Overall reliability and extra features still vary though which is why you need to follow some of these tips to land you a good host.
Try to gather some links to popular website hosting packages that each have competitive prices. Then check each link and find out what databases are supported. If you are migrating from a previous host or you created your own database offline, you need to make sure the website host can support everything that you are planning to host.
The available disk space is also an important aspect depending on the type of content that you are hosting. Ordinary business blogs that rely on text and images won’t need very high requirements but larger stores that have online shopping portals and other highly graphical sites that rely on Flash or HD video will need additional disk space beyond the gigabyte range.
The cost per gigabyte being reasonably low these days, multiple PHP website hosting providers should give you more than enough available space to fit loads of content but the bandwidth limitations is an entirely different story. Bandwidth refers to the amount of data being transferred to visitors and if you are expecting thousands of visitors every day, even minimal websites may suffer from bandwidth issues. Once you exceed your monthly bandwidth limits, your site will shut down for the remainder of the month and that could lead you to lose some potential customers. When looking at the different website hosting packages available, go with the one that provides at least 10 gigabytes of bandwidth. That should be enough to start a small business of any kind and you can probably stay under the bandwidth limitations for more than a year before you need to upgrade.
The last thing you need to look for in a website hosting package is the extra features being offered. A website builder is a good example for this and serves as a great add-on for those that do not have much experience in coding a PHP business site. Additional features may include spare email addresses, support for SSL certificates so you can add authenticity, and support for mailing lists so you do not have to sign up for a separate autoresponder service.
These are the most important elements that are included in any good website hosting package that offers PHP support. If you find yourself still choosing from a few available packages, do some final searches on these services and choose one that received positive reception from customers.
Security – Keeping it Off the Web (Page 1 of 2)
The topic of website security is seldom brought up among non-programmers and those who may not be technically inclined, yet if you operate a website, it is an issue of substantial concern to you.
Addressed in this article is a nearly universal problem, it affects almost every single PHP or CGI script I’ve ever seen. We won’t delve into the technical issues too far, this is intended for the web site owner, someone who might install the occasional PHP file or CGI script. I will assume you are not a software developer.
A general rule I like to follow when installing php scripts or web applications is this: If it doesn’t need to be on the web, it shouldn’t be there. This is obvious, but it has implications that are not always clear.
What we are mainly referring to is configuration and to a lesser extent, program libraries and source code. It may also apply to files and other resources that are controlled through a script interface. An example of this would be scripts that charge money for downloading files or set up newsletters. Lets start with an example, we’ll call it program.php. In our example, program.php is a database application using mysql to store information.
For our script to do it’s job, it will need access to your mysql password and user-name. It may also need access to many other program files and so-forth.
During installation, a control panel probably asked for your mysql credentials, it may even have asked you to change the file permissions on a configuration file of some sort. You’ve probably been through this type of install process at one time or another.
What it will do next, is write your database password and other private information to a configuration file. This usually happens without your knowledge, it is also where our problems begin.
Most people don’t catch this right away, if the configuration file is in the same directory (or sub-directory) it is web accessible. Quite often it is a php file, usually with write permissions turned on.
The extension .php does afford some degree of protection, under normal circumstances these files aren’t sent to a visitors browser but it is still unsafe.
If someone makes a slight mistake in the configuration or .htaccess file, it will dump the actual contents of “conf.php” to the users web browser, complete with your database password and other private information.
As anyone who has been around web servers very long can tell you, this is a common occurrence. I’ve personally seen it happen on several occasions.
Furthermore, many other web editing tools need to create backup files, resulting in something like config.php.BAK or perhaps config.php.tmp.
We now have a file ripe for hackers and other would-be intruders to gain access to your mysql database passwords as well as any other private information kept there.
What is most alarming is that almost every single off the shelf web based program exhibits this very problem in some form or another.