cheers,

here is my dilema. I am the Co-Owner of a retail/repair pc shop. we hired someone a few years back to create a site for us, which he did. Prob is now i cant get ahold of him and the site has been down for along time now. not that it was ever completely up and running in the first place. i believe that everything i have is coded in PHP. I have very litle experience with website design, but have gotten a little bit of instruction on dreamweaver and i would feel comfortable using it to get my site back up and functioning. i have all the stuff from the old site and i would like to create a site using the old layout, but do it in html. is this possible, and if so, if someone could direct me in a path to get said project done as i am really eager to get into this. i dont want someone to do it for me, i actually want to learn how to do this myself. any help would be greatly appreciated. i would like to eventually setup a server at home and start hosting my own stuff instead of paying for it. thanks again for any guidance.

Before you move it, you'll need to check with your ISP to make sure that they allow port 80 traffic. You'll also need to consider a few things about a server environment.

1.) Uptime is essential. If the server isn't up, people can't get to your site.
2.) With that in mind, you'll need to keep backups on hand for your site/server.
3.) UPS, how is the power in your location?
4.) Upload speeds on residential connections are very slow *under 1mb* compared to what a decent web host can offer
5.) Do you use Linux or apache? If not, you'll need a server version of Windows to run IIS.
6.) Will you be sending email? If so, you'll also need to check with your ISP about port 25.
7.) Since your website will be running 24/7, security will be a key factor.

Just a few things to think about. There are many hidden positives to hosting your website in a server environment, & just paying someone else to worry about all of that.

Also, do you have any questions about the PHP content of the site? If not, I'll move this topic to Web Servers & Hosting.

2 other items I almost forgot about.

You'll need to run DNS of some sort. Either an internal DNS server, or setup something with an outside (of your network) DNS service. There are many of these that you can setup free of charge.

Which brings us to point #2, if you are using a residential service, then the IP of your modem is going to change. It could be twice a year, it could be twice per week. There is no telling how these ISPs jerk you around. So you'll need to use a service (like no-isp.com) to update your DNS records to your current ip address.

my questions are php related i believe. my site is already coded in php but i know nothing about PHP. i have a comple site, but have no clue how to get it back up to my server. my server is now windows based. can i still use the PHP site with that platform? and if so, how do i do that? if i cant do that, how do i convert what i have to something i can use in a windows based platform? i feel strong enough with webdreamer that if i had a main page setup, i could do the rest. The hosting was something i was looking at for further down the line but most of those issues, i have taken care of. my pc never shuts down...excepte during power outages once battery is dead. security shouldnt be an issues because we are looking at poss doing websales and will be running ssl and whatever is needed to keep data safe. My speed from Comcast is advertised at 12mbps down and 1 up but more often i am getting 20mbps down and 2.8 up. so i dont think speed would be a prob. the port 80 and 25 i believe isnt issues as i use godaddy already and they use 25. will have to check on port 80.

Yes.

If it's your server, then it depends on which web server software you are running. You'll need to check with the documentation for your web server software.

If you have paid hosting, you'll have to check with them. They may offer it, but charge extra, they may not allow it at all. I have no way of knowing, so it's best to check with them.


Windows uses ASP, active server pages. You'll need to know both languages & just reprogram it. Like converting English to another language.


I believe you mean DreamWeaver.


Common misconseption. If there is a security hole in Windows, it needs to be patched before you end up running a spam server, or offering a service for other man in the middle attacks. Not to mention, if you are planning on turning your home PC into a server, what else you got on there? What's in your cookies? What other PCs are on the network? Security is (& should always be) #1!

SSL is by no means a cure all. So the data being transmitted might be secured by encryption, sure. But what about storage? What about services? What if some attacker installs a hidden IRC client (with no gui) & uses you to remotely launch DDOS attacks? Take a guess who's IP those attacks get tracked back to...



Eh...? Godaddy is a domain name register, that offers hosting. Are you hosting the site with them or at home? Because the ports are governed by your ISP (comcast) & have nothing to do with GoDaddy.

k...please forgive my noobness. i am kinda new to all this. i am at current hosting with godaddy. the hosting at home thing will probably be early next year as i will be building new pc just for that purpose. have a couple of business that i run and would like to be able to host sites for them on one machine. Believe me, i know the security issues with windows and will be probably going over to Linux once i learn more and feel comfortable with it. that is why it is down now. i went in and changed something and the site hasnt been up since...lol. godaddy does offer asp 2.0/3.0/3.5. 1.1 is setup for default from what i see in my account mgr. so i can use the site that i have already setup and just convert language? great...any tuts out there to give me a run down on how to do this? i know that there is alot of stuff to learn, but believe me, i am willing. your help is greatly appreciated.