Internet Providers And Hosting Services
What is an "Internet service provider" (ISP)?
An Internet service provider is the backbone of what really allows you to get on the World Wide Web. This is the company or service that you choose to provide you with that data backbone to the outside world. It can be as simple as having a dial-up connection through your phone company or through Earthlink. Or hopefully, and if you're watching this, it's probably the case that you have some kind of broadband service provider, somebody that you're paying to provide you with DSL or cable Internet on a monthly basis. This is really your data connection to the outside world.
What is a "hosting service"?
Hosting services, and there are more of these than you can possibly count, are companies whose sole purpose is to host websites and email for companies and individuals just like you. Hosting services usually provide both of these services in one bundle. It's not at all expensive to avail yourself of a hosting provider if you want to have a website or have your own personalized email account.
Can I have my very own website?
Lots of different ways for you to get your own website now: Your current Internet service provider has probably given you some web space that you may not even realize is there. You might want to call them and find out what's available or look into your service agreement with them. Of course nowadays it's easy to sign up for personal web pages. Yahoo and Google offer services like this. There is also MySpace, which most of you have probably heard about my now. There are so many services out there that will provide you with some way to put your own content online. And there are so many different ways that you can learn how to build your own website online. Anything you need to learn about doing things online, you can absolutely find online.
How do I choose a name for my website?
Do a little research see what's out there that you like. See what's out there that excites you that you can get behind that makes sense, pick something that is easy to spell and then find what's available. Now the first thing you think of may already be taken and you just need to be a little bit clever and thoughtful in terms of the kind of variations that you come up with. Sometimes mybusiness.com is taken but mybusiness.net is available and .net is a perfectly acceptable extension for a domain name you might choose. Domain names are also very very inexpensive. They can cost you as little as ten dollars sometimes even less to buy or reserve a domain name for a year. Now when you buy that domain name you haven't purchased a web hosting service, you haven't purchased any email, you haven't purchased anything else you've just grabbed and locked in that name for your use.
What is a "personal portal"?
If you're a sports fan, for example, or you always want to know the weather in your neighborhood, you have the opportunity to personalize your experience of landing on "your" Yahoo page, or "your" Google page, or "your" ESPN page. And when pages like this can be customized, they essentially become your personal portal. Rather than being the same kind of landing page for everybody, there's a way that your experience of entering this portal becomes customized to you, and still it's a portal, because it has got a lot of links and through-ways that can let you through to other parts of the Internet.
What are the options for the Internet connection speed of my ISP?
Well the three basics options for the Internet connection speed of my ISP would be dial up, DSL and broadband. Dial-up is waning thankfully, though it is still somewhat functional for basic email and messaging purposes. If you're really interested in experiencing the World Wide Web dial-up is really not something you want to be using, and you're probably not watching me on dial-up right now. DSL was the real first wide distribution of broadband that was made available and there are a lot of different DSL speeds that are becoming increasingly available as telephone companies build in more and more switching stations and improve the technology moving from old style phone technology to fiber optic. In some areas fiber optic technology is beginning to kick in as it's being deployed by phone companies and if you can avail yourself of the opportunity to go fiber optic I would definitely look into it because those speeds are outrageous. Cable is also a good way to explore getting online and getting broadband. If you're really aggressive, or in a business situation you may want to consider looking at a T1 or a T3 line, especially because you then have the possibility of combining both broadband internet service with voice over internet service, all on the same data back bone.
What is "ISDN"?
Ethan Feerst: Before DSL was widely available and other broadband services were widely available, ISDN was a kind of technology solution that you could purchase from your telephone provider to combine two dialup lines together to get a little bit better speed out of your data connection. For many, many years there was really no other option for certain businesses to get any kind of broadband performance out of their connectivity. That's really why ISDN existed as a solution. Now it's increasingly become pretty obscure and obsolete because there's obviously many many more options available to individuals and businesses to get broadband.
