When someone decides to start a blog or to simply create a family website it is very common for the person who is in charge of running the site to do some research about companies which provide a computer capable of serving web pages to visitors, most people don’t need to use a lot of bandwidth or applications in order to do what they want to do so they end up signing up for a virtual or shared hosting deal.

Virtual hosting has become very popular because of its price, some may even start at $1.99 per month however, in this case you do get what you pay for, don’t misunderstand this last phrase, price is no indication of the quality of a web host but considering the price it would be helpful for you not to have high expectations. Normal virtual hosting prices range from seven dollars all the way to $19 a month, this depends on the features that you will be using and the extras that you decide to sign up for, for most people the starter package will be just fine.

After you have started using a virtual server you will gain some information and knowledge about hosting a general, a virtual hosting account is basically an account which has been created on a web server which also hosts many other sites just like yours, this might not sound like something negative however, it can turn out to be just that. When you share a computer with several other websites you are basically sharing the same system resources so if the machine only has 1 GB of RAM if you install a script which uses 500 MB of RAM the other 50 sites which might be sharing the same environment will be affected because your site is already consuming half of the system resources.

Virtual accounts are normally advertise using phrases such as “unlimited bandwidth, high storage capacity, unlimited databases, etc.’ however, all of these unlimited features are regulated by the amount of system resources your website will use, if the scripts that you are running start to affect the performance of the other sites which are hosted at the same environment your account may get deactivated or your site might go down taking the entire server with it. In a nutshell, this is the most common limitation that virtual hosting accounts have.

Finally I can be my own registrar without dishing out 70,000$ to ICANN. New Canadian startup company myrebel.com gives you the option of becoming your own registrar without paying the huge fees (yet to hear back from myrebel.com about the actual cost). How do you ask is this done? Their solution is a leasing program that allows you to control a registrar dedicated entirely to you at a flat monthly rate with no other upfront costs. The new service features a user-friendly interface with a log file that details all domain operations. Users have the power to execute on any command – from registration to deletion to transfer – and My Rebel said this provides the highest level of security as no names can be adjusted without the user’s approval. Godaddy watch out! I might just take over as top registrar soon

Many applications in languages like PHP and frameworks like AJAX require the use of a local webserver to test and debug applications.
IIS can be used in Windows, but, PHP and mySQL needs to be installed separately for IIS.
As an alternative, WampServer can be used.

WAMP = Web server + PHP + mySQL
Wamp can be downloaded from here
WAMP is a one click install web server, just install the software and it will start to run in system tray, click on it and select “Put online”.
Your website / web application needs to be placed in “C:\wamp\www” folder, if “C” is your system drive.
Your webserver can be accessed at this location, http://localhost/ or http://127.0.0.1
Make sure to allow firewall exceptions in order for the server to work.

With the recent announcement that Britain’s largest cable Internet Service Provider Virgin Media will start warning its customers, or better the part they suspect to download files without having the proper rights to do so, that they will face prosecution if they do not stop the behavior. Virgin Media calls it educating their customers during a ten week trial campaign but their letters will apparently be accompanied by letters from the British Phonographic Industry that threatens disconnection and court appearance.

Now the interesting question that arises is why they would want to educate their customers. My first assumption would be that they, as a cable provider, want to reduce the average bandwidth usage of their customers in an effort to maximize the profits from their infrastructure. Usually filesharers have a much higher bandwidth demand than the usual Internet user with the exception of video portal junkies maybe.

Reducing the amount of filesharers that are their customers would definitely reduce the bandwidth bill of the ISP. Cable is a shared connection as well which could increase the speed of all customers as well.

The interesting question will be how they will pick the customers that will receive the warnings. Will they actively monitor P2P networks, will they only react when the BPI sends them a list, will they verify those lists ? What about false positives ? Someone who is download music from Jamendo using the Bittorrent protocol. Will he receive a warning as well ? What about secure Usenet connections ? IRC, FTP, file hosts. How the hell will they be able to determine that a file that is being transferred is indeed a copyright violation ? Filenames alone are without doubt not the safest way of determining that. So, how will they do that ?

My second assumption would be that Virgin Media could have some ties with the BPI or a company that is a member of the BPI. I really do not have enough time to research this so if anyone could help me out it would be appreciated.