Apartment,
Villa or Mansion ?
You need to decide what kind of residence
suits you most. Rented apartment is obviously
the most inexpensive solution, specially
if you are not sure where to drop anchor.
On the disadvantage side - you do not
have permanent address and in the anonymous
world of Internet people may not take
you seriously.
Many people on the Web have an address
something like www.server.com/~fredflintstone
or www.server.com/bedrock/~barneyrubble.
What you have is a section of the server,
but your section does not have its own
identity or IP number. Do not worry, I
shall explain IP number in a while. When
someone comes to see your site, they put
in "www.server.com" first. That is the
address that carries the IP number. You
are found after the IP address is used
to find the server. Your portion of the
server is denoted through a tilde (~,
pronounced "Till-day") or through the
use of /sub-directory/after/sub-directory.
Much like 205 Nehru House where the address
is Nehru House where you occupy apartment
no 5 on second floor.
By the way -- a tilde (~) is a computer
command that means, "There is only one
directory in this entire server titled
fredflintstone -- find it!"
May
be I want an apartment to start with...
There
are many places in the Net where you can
construct your own home page. You need
not be a computer/Internet expert - the
hosts offer excellent tool-packages that
make the job of home page creation simple.
What's more all these are free - yes including
the server space ! Please check the Free
Home Page section for a list of such hosts.
I
want my own villa
If you
are serious about e-commerce, you should
better look for a permanent place in the
Net. Remember, this is going to be your
business premises and considerable money
will be spent in promoting your business
(with this address). Any change of address
later means not only waste of money and
time but also creating confusion as your
old address is certain to remain in old
telephone directories (search engines)
and address books of your customers (bookmark).
In the anonymous world of Internet, a
permanent place also means more credibility
- something extremely important for any
business transaction.
What you need is a domain to start
with. Please see next section on domain
