To get the most from these lessons, you should have your own Web site. There are lots of cheap shared hosting plans available. This site runs on Hostgator, but there are lots of others.
A shared hosting plan means that your site will run on the same computer as a number of other sites. Dedicated hosting means that you get your own computer. It costs more, of course. An intermediate alternative is a virtual private server. You share hardware, but have a completely isolated software environment.
For these lessons, I'll assume you have a shared hosting account.
Most cheap hosts use Unix or a variation of it. Windows hosting is also available, but there is no reason to prefer it unless you have a specific need for software that runs only under Windows. All the hosts I use run Unix.
The first thing you need to do is choose a domain name, like bigpointyteethofdoom.com. Type it into a browser and see what happens. Pick a few that you like. If your name is Mary Bakthonistok, try marybakthonistok.com.
Now choose a hosting company. First, list the features you want. For these lessons, look for the following:
- At least 100Mb of disk space.
- PHP 4+
- MySQL 4+
- phpMyAdmin
- SSI
- A control panel, like CPanel.
- Email accounts.
I've arranged for discounted Web hosting for OU students with Lunarpages.
The details of this are on the Moodle site for this course.
You'll need a way to get files to and from your Web server. WinSCP is good for that.