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A web server is basically a medium for other people to view the pages you have. For enabling other people view the pages you must publish them and for publishing you need a web server. You can easily convert your PC into a web server by installing IIS or PWS. The IIS and PWS are basically free web server components and can be downloaded as well. The internet information server is basically internet based services that are used for servers created by MS. These are basically used for Microsoft Windows. IIS generally comes with Windows Vista, XP, 2000 and NT as well.

The IIS can be easily found and installed in your computer it is regarded as the best for testing web applications. The best part of IIS is that it includes ASP that is Active Server Pages. These can be used to create interactive and dynamic web applications. To further know about ASP you should study the ASP school available online. PWS or personal web server is generally used for earlier versions of Windows such as Windows NT, 98 and 95. It is very easy to install as well and is basically used for testing and developing a wide number of web applications.

The PWS is outdated and is recommended for those who are training because it has security issues related to it. Each and every version of Windows comes with a different IIS such as Windows Vista Business Enterprise and Ultimate generally comes with IIS 7. On the other hand, Windows NT Workstation works on PWS or IIS 3. Installing IIS on Windows Vista is pretty easy and you can do it by following certain easy steps which include:

* Click on the start menu and open control panel
* Programs and functions will be an option and you will have double click on it
* Then click on “Turn Windows features on or off” which is there on the left side
* Finally select the box for IIS and then click OK

After installing IIS, run a Windows update so that your computer is totally safe.

You can simply install IIS on Windows XP as and Windows 2000 as well. All you have to do is follow various steps that include:

* Click on the start button and then open the control panel
* Open the Add or Remove Programs
* You will see Add/Remove Windows Components click on it
* Then click on IIS
* Click on details
* Then select the check box for WWW services and click on OK
* Finally click on Next to install IIS on your computer

After installing IIS or PWS you can easily test it as well. For testing you will have to follow a number of steps which includes:

* Search for a folder which is called Inetpub and is located on the hard drive
* Open this folder and find another folder which is named as wwwroot
* Then create a new folder under wwwroot
* Write an ASP code and save these files named as “test1.asp”
* You should always make sure that web server is functioning
* Finally open the browser and write “http://localhost/MyWeb/test1.asp” and you can view the webpage

If you have decided to run an E-commerce or an online store Website, you should have the knowledge of HTTPS (“hyper text transfer protocol with secure sockets layer”). “HTTPS” is nothing but a protocol to transfer your encrypted data through Web.

There are chiefly 2 main differences between an HTTP and HTTPS connection network.

HTTP connects on the port 80 while HTTPS connects on 443. HTTP encrypts the data received and sent as plain text while HTTPS encrypts in SSL.

Almost all the Web customers are aware that, they have to look out for HTTPS in URL and have to lock icon when they are in the process of transaction. If your storefront isn’t using HTTPS, then you are going to lose your customers. It’s common to find on Websites that some of the stores use plain HTTP to collect money including the customers’ credit card details and doing this way of business is very bad to you and your customer and you might lose your customer.

As mentioned above, HTTP sends and receives the data over the internet as a plain text. This means, if you have a credit card form which asks the credit card details of your customer and the credit card details furnished by the customer can be easily intercepted by anyone on the net by using “packet Sniffer” (a wiretap that is used to eavedrop the computer networks). Since there are a lot of “Free Sniffer Software Tools” (example: “Ethereal Network Analyzer”, “Network Probe”, “AnalogX PacketMon”, “Analyzer”, “Sniphere” and many other) and the people using this can be anyone. By using HTTP and if you are collecting credit card information, you are broadcasting the entire details of the credit card to the world. Later your customer will realize that his credit card information is leaked when comes to know that some theft has happened.

What are things you need to host secure pages?

There are only few things you require to host pages that are secure on your Website.
Firstly, Web servers like “apache” along with “MOD_SSL” that will support SSL encryption
Secondly, unique IP address (it is used to validate the secured certificate by certificate providers)
Thirdly, SSL certificate from the providers of “SSL certificate”

If you are very much sure about the first 2 items, contact your Web Hoster so that they can help you.

After obtaining HTTPS certificate

In your Web server, your Web hoster has to set the certificate so that each and every time a page is accessed, it has to hit the secure server. Once this work is done, you can carry on with building your WebPages that has to be secured.

Some of tips to use HTTPS

Point at all the Webforms on HTTP: whenever you go to the link of Webforms on your Website, get used to link them with full Server URL.

On secured pages use “relative paths” on images

Secure the page that collect and requests the data: this done because if your entire pages are secured, your server will slow down and the charge will be more.

After creating the most fruitful and advanced HTML documents, the next important task to do is putting them on the World Wide Web so that it can be visible to general public for use. The practice of hosting your web site on the internet is known as web publishing. Publishing your web site is very important because until you do that there is no use of creating the HTML pages. Web publishing or web hosting makes your web site go live on the internet. There are several companies which provide web publishing services. All you have to do is purchase a domain name and also pay an amount for the maintenance and updating of the site to these companies.

Before you can upload your HTML documents on the internet there are three main things which are needed:

1) Space on the web server
2) Procedures for uploading the file
3) Software for uploading the file

Some ISPs (Internet service Providers) may offer you a definite amount of space on the web and charge you for that on monthly basis. In fact you can purchase some megabytes on the web server to upload your HTML documents on that. Another alternative is to contact the companies specializing into web hosting if you want to get gigabytes of space on the web server for your web site. These companies have different types of flexible plans in which you may also get the maintenance and regular up-gradation of the site. You can subscribe to any of the plan according to your budget, needs and aspirations.

If you know about technical nitty gritty of web publishing then you can also set up your own web server but this will require a lot of efforts on your part and demand large amount of finance and time.

Components of web Publishing:

The vital components of web publishing are web browser, web cookies and web server. Web browser is needed to view the web site once published. A web server is required in order to publish your web site. It is responsible for replying to the web browsers and sending them the web pages requested. All the HTML files reside on the web server if published. Finally, the web cookies are also needed in order to surf the internet smoothly. Web cookies allow the web site to store the important information about the user on his computer which can be used in future. Web cookies also track the number of visits to a particular web site.

The most convenient way to publish your web site is to use CuteFTP. In order to use it you must ensure that all the HTML files are saved in a folder. After that you can upload the files form your folder to the folder which you will get on the web. One thing which should be noted is that you must buy a domain name and give your web site a unique URL while uploading it.