Author: zwxxe

The Apache web server also called Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) web server. The Apache HTTP server is the world’s industry-leading web server software that is provided by the open source community. Open source means the original source code is freely available and open for collaboration. Since many thousands have contributed code contributions to the development of Apache web server, there’s a robust ecosystem for web administrators to choose from to tweak their server setups. Apache is well supported and has many add-on modules available for further expansion. Apache is Open Source Because there is an entire community behind it, Apache security vulnerabilities tend to be fixed quickly. It’s open source roots help it to quickly respond to any security exploits. The fact that it comes from a non-profit creates another attractive feature helping to spur wide adoption for the server package. Because there’s nobody to pay money to when installing Apache (it’s a free piece of software), Apache is an extremely popular choice for web administrators. There’s an active development community surrounding Apache and other open source software. This means you can download and install many add-ons called modules to extend just about any functionality you want to have with your Apache server. Apache owes much of its adoption due to its highly modular system. Being modular means that functionality can be easily added to the core Apache application using modules that add the desired functionality. Some of these modules include Memcache, Cloudflare, and the Zend framework. Apache also has many hooks for programming languages like PHP to latch onto. It can even scale up using multiple servers to handle large amounts of web traffic. How Apache Fits into Linux When someone says they want to install a LAMP stack, that means they want to install Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP. These get installed as packages through your Linux distribution’s package manager. For example, if you’re using Ubuntu (a Debian derivative), you’d use apt get to install your various software packages. Apache configuration relies heavily on static text files. If you don’t like working with text files for your configuring your Linux software packages, frontend GUIs are available for the Apache software module. Apache Serves Web Pages Apache is at its heart a web server used to conjure up web pages as they’re requested by visitors. By using virtual hosts, you can serve more than one website. You’d just create symbolic links (known as aliases) to your virtual sites that sit in virtual directories. Each site has its own unique set of configuration files, which includes .htaccess files and separate vhost configuration files. This allows each of your virtual hosts to run its own unique web-facing software. Some examples of popular software running on top of Apache include Joomla, WordPress, Drupal, and PHP Gallery. Apache can also serve many different kinds of content without breaking a sweat. It scales well, ranging from small static sites with only a few requests per hour to large web applications serving thousands (or even…

cPanel is currently one of the most widely-offered, web hosting control panels available. This platform is provided to site owners by countless hosting services for the management of websites from a online interface. In fact, approximately 90 percent of all web hosting companies currently use cPanel, which basically makes it the industry standard for web hosting management. cPanel offers a number of intuitive and user-friendly features that are designed to simplify overall website use and control. With a sensible and simple, multi-tiered structure, this platform allows for varying levels of access to accommodate end users and administrators alike. With this interface, all authorized parties have the ability to control various aspects of both websites and hosting services, right from their web browsers. Why Use cPanel? In addition to having a very simple and straightforward interface, cPanel is easy to use, no matter how technically skilled or unskilled cPanel users happen to be. In fact, the widespread use of cPanel among hosting companies is largely what makes website design and site management possible for people who have never attempted these things before. From an administrative standpoint, this platform is incredibly intuitive. It’s also rich with features like buttons with one-click functionality that can be quickly and easily associated with their related purposes. If you’re purchasing hosting services and planning your own site design, cPanel can make the entire process a hassle-free one, even if you have never designed a website before. Any task that you wish to complete with cPanel can be taken care of with just a single click. This includes database creation, editing and allocating space. What You Can Accomplish With cPanel There is a wealth of things that you can accomplish in cPanel with its impressive, one-click functionality. These include the management of backups, FTP and files, database management and administration, and mail management including email verification, auto responding, and auto sending. Monthly bandwidth and disk space allocation can also be easily managed from cPanel. It is even possible for users to add and effectively manage multiple websites from this platform. Best of all, as user needs become increasingly complex, the intuitive layout and functionality of this popular interface stay the same so that overall ease-of-use remains constant. Simple To Install And Highly Compatible cPanel is very easy to install and it is also compatible with a very broad range of open source applications. You only need to install the Linux OS and then run the installation script. This take mere minutes and the majority of the server configuration will have already been done for you. Transferring From One Web Hosting Company To The Next Perhaps one of the biggest benefits of using cPanel to host your website is the ability to move from one hosting company to another. While almost all web hosting services promise to provide 99.9 percent uptime, this is a guarantee that many of these companies are rarely able to meet. Whether you need to switch hosting services for greater reliability or simply want…

There is little doubt that WordPress, powering nearly a quarter of all websites, is the top Content Management System. Everyone from personal bloggers to large news organizations at least considers WordPress when choosing what to use for a new website, and many find that it meets their needs well. WordPress’ formula for success is actually quite simple. By making every aspect of building a website easy, from finding hosting to getting support, it established its place on top of a rich field of contenders. Easy to Host Web applications are complex. Written in a variety of programming languages, each requires varying levels of configuration on the server in order to run. Further, databases and other external components are necessary to provide a good web experience. Installing and securing all that is needed to run a modern website is well beyond the technical abilities of many. WordPress hit upon a winning formula by relying on a standard, well-understood set of technologies. By using a simple-to-host programming language, a well-understood database engine, and a reliable web server, anyone with the most rudimentary knowledge of servers could install WordPress. The installation process is also extensively documented. This simplicity had another consequence. Because the installation process is so well understood, it was easy to automate. The result is a rich ecosystem of WordPress hosting providers with one-click installation procedures that makes installing and maintaining WordPress a task easily performed by anyone. By being easy to host, WordPress lowered the technical barrier to a point where it isn’t an issue for almost any potential user. Easy to Use WordPress and other CMSs vastly simplified the process of web content creation. Before WordPress, creating websites involved using HTML editors, working directly with a site’s underlying code, and transmitting any changed pages over the network to the web server. Site creation required a deep understanding of several technical subjects, along with an appreciation for aesthetics and design. WordPress removes technology almost entirely from the equation. Its administrative and publishing interface has been refined for over a decade, and has been the subject of many revisions by user interface designers. The result is a plug-and-play, drag-and-drop content creation experience where content is separated from appearance. Creating a site with WordPress plays to the skills of the site’s owners. Those familiar with design can customize a stock theme, or can create one from scratch. Developers can extend WordPress in any number of ways. But if someone only writes, they can easily tap into the creative power of others, and need not concern themselves with the many other aspects of creating a nice website. Easy to Extend Much of WordPress’ success is owed to its extensibility. Very few website creators want to create a simple handful of interconnected pages. Companies want contact forms, mailing list subscription pages, and other features to create strong sales funnels. Entrepreneurs want mechanisms for accepting subscriptions, and for placing content behind members-only paywalls. Still others want forums, knowledge bases, and other esoteric features that don’t…

HTML 5 has gotten lots of hype, and for good reason. It may be difficult to appreciate the benefits that a new version of HTML brings to the table. In short, what HTML 5 does is nothing less than transforming the web from a system for distributing documents, to a rich application platform for browser-based devices. Here are just some of the ways that HTML is changing the web as we know it. Making the Web Work Everywhere Historically, websites were viewed on two screen types. Browsers either ran on laptops with smaller screens, or sprawled across one or more large desktop monitors. As such, web developers wishing to create stunning websites only tested on a few different screen sizes and browser combinations. The days of a few different screen sizes are long past. Today’s websites must look good on phone screens of several sizes, tablets, and even on small screens no bigger than watch faces. When screen orientations change, sites must flow to become smaller while using more horizontal space. Today’s web designers must build sites to shine on many device types in order to capture the most web traffic. HTML 5 adds a number of technologies to improve site responsiveness. Features like CSS media queries let pages change their appearance based on screen characteristics. Further, HTML 5 establishes standard conventions for how sites are rendered, thus reducing complexity by ensuring more uniformity across browsers. Beyond the Document HTML has come far from its humble origins as a means of sharing research papers. It is now used to render rich user interfaces for networked applications. To achieve this, designers have contorted HTML’s document-based semantics to work for applications, but this adds complexity by obscuring developers’ and designers’ intents behind layers of technology used in ways for which it was not meant. HTML 5 introduces a number of new elements for semantically marking up document content. Articles, dates, headers and footers can be uniquely marked, helping web browsers to determine how content might be rendered differently or enhanced. New input types for dates and other content let browsers present better user interfaces for filling out forms. While not yet in the HTML 5 specification, the Web Components concept takes this notion even further. Designers can eventually develop applications not using HTML’s document semantics, but with elements like menus and panels. This significantly eases collaboration between designers and developers, enhancing HTML as a cross-platform app development runtime. New JavaScript Capabilities Prior to HTML 5, the JavaScript language was primarily used to enhance a page’s appearance or interactivity. JavaScript might fetch data from the network, change page content without a refresh, or enhance documents with animations. With HTML 5, JavaScript’s capabilities were expanded in ways that make websites significantly more powerful. For instance, geolocation features let sites locate visitors and receive real-time position change notifications, making it easy to find nearby stores or businesses without user input of postal codes or addresses. The web RTC specification lets sites add video communication and…

When it comes to web design, it pays to adhere to the adage that claims if you’re not ahead of the times, then you’re behind them. Web design is always changing and that can make it hard to keep up with the latest trends. Here are some web design trends for 2016 worth following. Card-Style Interfaces The emergence of card-style interfaces has been one of most important elements to come from Material Design (a design language developed in 2014 by Google). You’ll find them in everything from printed pieces, to websites, and apps. They’re fun to create, but also make it easier to keep information organized. Rich Animations Animations create a more lively and engaging experience than static images, as well as provide a smoother visual feedback. And motion helps attract attention to specific elements on the page, while also guiding users through long-scrolling experiences. More Attractive Typography As interfaces have become more streamlined a more attractive typography has emerged. Big, bold typefaces remain vital because they work well with other elements that have trended in the past few years. Other benefits of dramatic typography? It provides the opportunity to better display brand identity, as well as work to enhance text content. Continued Focus On Interactions Interaction works hand-in-hand with animations and are an important part of mobile interfaces and apps. Moreover, they can be small, simple interactions – such as alarms for a text message – that offer value to users, as well as shape how they interact with their devices. Lots of Color The 2015 trend of using brighter colors has continued in 2016 and been taken to an even higher level in bolder, more vibrant fashion. The use of different colors and gradients help distinguish content and are visually stimulating. Contrasting colors also make it easier to distinguish what’s in a photo. Hero Headers Hero headers – which are common in movie-style sites – feature an over-sized display that blends visual, text, and navigational elements above the scroll in a design framework. Thanks to high-speed internet connects and better video integration, this type of experience has become more common and, like color, has become bigger and bolder, so to speak. Video clips have grown from small snippets to longer clips in which images are sharper and crisper than ever before. All in all, it’s a trend that enables users to enjoy a new video experience online. Minimalist Design Stripping away distractions on web designs makes it easier to focus on content, and content remains king. Again, the fewer elements on a page, the stronger the remaining ones are. But the same can be said of content: getting rid of unnecessary words will enable you to communicate as clearly – and succinctly – as you can. Illustrations & Sketches You can add fun to your site with illustrations and sketches that aren’t just for kids anymore. Illustrations help make a site feel more personal, and if an icon appears to be hand-drawn it helps you create a closer…