To get the most from these lessons, you should have your own Web site. There are lots of cheap shared hosting plans available.
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. See your course's Moodle site for details.
Your hosting company will send you emails when you set up your account. One of the emails will tell you how to upload files to your server. It will mention something about FTP (or SFTP or SCP) file transfer. The email will tell you where to upload your files to (often the same name as your Web domain), and give you a username and password.
WinSCP is a good program for uploading files. Another good tool is FileZilla. There is a tutorial on using WinSCP to upload files to a Web site. Make sure you upload to the right directory, like public_html.
Look on your host's Web site for specific instructions on uploading files.