Website Basics Setting up/planning a web site CIS 388 Website Basics Setting up/planning a web site
Planning, planning, planning!!! Considerations when preparing a website: Hardware requirements Server software/programming requirements Page requirements/technologies and structure Plugins, add-ons, redesigns, and future upgrades
Hardware Requirements Basic hardware requirements for a simple web server 800Mhz cpu, 2Gb ram 10Gb hard disk, 10/100 NIC A basic web site requires the same hardware as an FTP site, but add database (MySQL), a high volume of network traffic, ASP/PHP scripting languages, videos/audio, etc… and those requirements can go up FAST! A development box should be simple and basic, but plan for a site to be hosted on something that can scale (*try to shoot for a production box that is roughly 2x what you may think you’ll need), virtual if possible! (virtualbox: https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/VirtualBox)
Server Requirements 2 most popular web servers are: IIS (Internet Information Services) - *Windows only Apache For development box the server is generally as important, but for simplicity windows/IIS is recommended. Tools and Resources: Apache/Windows – WAMP (http://www.wampserver.com/en/) IIS/Windows – Web PI (https://www.microsoft.com/web/downloads/platform.aspx) *127.0.0.1
Page requirements/technologies and structure Server Side Coding Languages/ Web Server ASP (IIS) PHP (IIS/Apache) JSP (Java server) Basic Page Design Starts in Photoshop/Fireworks (graphics program) Design Style of the page and cut it up and put it into code *Keep pages as “light” as possible (png, gif, jpeg)
Plugins, add-ons, redesigns, and future upgrades Going with a CMS (content management system) will simplify the considerations when planning a site as most content management systems specify certain software/hardware requirements. Select a CMS that is widely supported, and has “room to grow” (plug-ins and add-ons) Content Management systems separate the data/content of a page from the design making it easy to redesign the site. Also the database containing the data can be “picked up” and moved to another site/location with minimal effort in the event of an emergency and simplifies the backup process. Web PI Web App Gallery: https://webgallery.microsoft.com/gallery
Assignment If possible, select a server/CMS package that we have covered today and try to play with it and configure it on your computer. Make some notes about what you thought/experienced and comment on it at my website (Class 2): https://brucemorgansite.wordpress.com/2017/01/19/class-2-htmlcss-and-website-basics-server-config/ Also be sure to check out the links and resources page, I’ll be adding some of your links to the page: https://brucemorgansite.wordpress.com/links-and-resources/