jonny
03-01-2007, 06:09 PM
Someone asked last night if I'd do post some basic technical terms to do with websites and how they work on a simple level. I know there has been a lot of mumbo jumbo being throen about lately so maybe it will help unravel the recent spout of technical rubbish!
I am no expert at all so I will keep it basic.......
webserver:This is a piece of software that sits there and waits for requests from other computers. When it receives a page request it tries to deliver that page to the other computers browser.
apache:This is the most common type of webserver software and it does exactly what is above.
A website is basically a file or collection of files that sit on a webserver. A domain is linked to a particular folder on that webserver. This means that when you type in a domain address, and go to someones website, basically all you are doing is looking at a folder full of files on a webserver somewhere in the world. What happens is.......the files you see in your browser are just files sat on the webserver that are called the name of what is in your browser......e.g. the file for the stats is in the folder on the revealed webspace. The name of the file is called
vbstatextended.php
when you type in www.pattaya-revealed.com/vbstatextended.php
the webserver goes and looks for a file called vbstatextended.php in the main folder in our webserver. As it exists it finds it and send the file back to your browser. If it didn't exist you would get a browser 404 error and it would document not found.
How do you add files and take files off a webserver? There are a couple of ways of doing this, but basically the most common way of accessing your webserver is via ftp access
ftp access - (file transfer protocol) Basically you have a piece of software that can use ftp to connect to your webserver. All you need is the webaddress, the username and the password for your webspace. Thats it. Using these details you can upload (add files to your webspace) or change file names or change where they are on your webserver, move them to different folders and so on.
ok, so we've sorted what a webserver is and how we add stuff to it.
Now I'll briefly touch on what we can add to it.......
webpages are written in a specific language. The most common language wep pages are written in is called html.
html: Hyper Text Markup Language
The html is just interpretted by your browser to display what you are seeing now. Its actually not that complicated to learn the basics of html, although I won't go through them now.
If you want to see what the page you are viewing now looks like in html then right click on your mouse and click view source. This is the source code and basically what the file you are viewing looks like.
there are 2 types of web pages.......
1, Static - This is the easiest type to do. It is straight html language and what you see is how it is on the server. There is minimal interaction and it is just a basic page with text and graphics with the option of sending some data and thats it.
2, Dynamic - This is where the real fun starts! Dynamic web pages are pages that link to databases and can e configures to do all sorts of clever things. These are written in a scripting language and are way more complicated than the standard html language.
Basically if it interacts with a database it is dynamic. If it is just a straight page and the file extension is.html then it is a static page.
Dynamic pages have a different ending to them......e.g.
This website is written in php (a scripting language) and mySQL(a database language). The file extension on all our pages end in php. So at the top of the page this page will end in .php as it is written in php and is a dynamic page using a database. static webpages have the file extension .html as they do not use a database.
Ok, I think I have probably covered enough initially but if anyone has any questions then fire away!
jonny
I am no expert at all so I will keep it basic.......
webserver:This is a piece of software that sits there and waits for requests from other computers. When it receives a page request it tries to deliver that page to the other computers browser.
apache:This is the most common type of webserver software and it does exactly what is above.
A website is basically a file or collection of files that sit on a webserver. A domain is linked to a particular folder on that webserver. This means that when you type in a domain address, and go to someones website, basically all you are doing is looking at a folder full of files on a webserver somewhere in the world. What happens is.......the files you see in your browser are just files sat on the webserver that are called the name of what is in your browser......e.g. the file for the stats is in the folder on the revealed webspace. The name of the file is called
vbstatextended.php
when you type in www.pattaya-revealed.com/vbstatextended.php
the webserver goes and looks for a file called vbstatextended.php in the main folder in our webserver. As it exists it finds it and send the file back to your browser. If it didn't exist you would get a browser 404 error and it would document not found.
How do you add files and take files off a webserver? There are a couple of ways of doing this, but basically the most common way of accessing your webserver is via ftp access
ftp access - (file transfer protocol) Basically you have a piece of software that can use ftp to connect to your webserver. All you need is the webaddress, the username and the password for your webspace. Thats it. Using these details you can upload (add files to your webspace) or change file names or change where they are on your webserver, move them to different folders and so on.
ok, so we've sorted what a webserver is and how we add stuff to it.
Now I'll briefly touch on what we can add to it.......
webpages are written in a specific language. The most common language wep pages are written in is called html.
html: Hyper Text Markup Language
The html is just interpretted by your browser to display what you are seeing now. Its actually not that complicated to learn the basics of html, although I won't go through them now.
If you want to see what the page you are viewing now looks like in html then right click on your mouse and click view source. This is the source code and basically what the file you are viewing looks like.
there are 2 types of web pages.......
1, Static - This is the easiest type to do. It is straight html language and what you see is how it is on the server. There is minimal interaction and it is just a basic page with text and graphics with the option of sending some data and thats it.
2, Dynamic - This is where the real fun starts! Dynamic web pages are pages that link to databases and can e configures to do all sorts of clever things. These are written in a scripting language and are way more complicated than the standard html language.
Basically if it interacts with a database it is dynamic. If it is just a straight page and the file extension is.html then it is a static page.
Dynamic pages have a different ending to them......e.g.
This website is written in php (a scripting language) and mySQL(a database language). The file extension on all our pages end in php. So at the top of the page this page will end in .php as it is written in php and is a dynamic page using a database. static webpages have the file extension .html as they do not use a database.
Ok, I think I have probably covered enough initially but if anyone has any questions then fire away!
jonny