DHTML

DHTML, or Dynamic HyperText Markup Language is a collection of coding languages like HTML, CSS, JavaScript. It allows a web site developer to build dynamic abilities into what would normally be a static web page. What this means is that a web page may be changed after it has been loaded using DHTML. This provides a basis for many useful capabilities, and can make web pages interactive, or feel more alive. The major browsers that support DHTML are the fourth and fifth generation versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator. DHTML is really nothing more than a buzz-word that can be used to describe just about any implementation of JavaScript and CSS.

Java

Java was developed by Sun Microsystems and is a programming language with complete functionality like that of C++. Java's original goal was to be completely portable to any platform, and it is. However, at this point, Java's niche is on the World Wide Web since it is one of the few areas when you'd need a program to work on any platform. Probably the most important things that Java brings to the Web are the capacity for more interactivity on the Internet through multimedia and animation. Most modern browsers have support for Java.

Java applets are a hybrid form of Java programs to run on a Java-compliant browser on the World Wide Web. An applet is one or more .class files which together form a program. Unlike other types of program, applets are designed to be run from within a web (HTML) page. In this way, they differ from scripts such JavaScript which are text commands typed into the HTML page itself. Some common use of Java applets include image slideshows, and chat rooms. Java applets are pretty much the most powerful client side application you can use on your website.

Server Side Technologies

Server side technologies are what you need to use if you want to take your Web site to the next level. Server-side technologies can be regarded as those technologies that enable you to dynamically generate your websites. Let's take a quick example to get things clearer. Take Amazon.com for example., Amazon won't make separate web page for each of their products. If you pay close attention to an Amazon.com page, you'll notice that it has many contents that are presented depending on the product you are viewing like 'related products', 'product reviews'. That's not all! You'll notice that you can post a product review on the site, and it'll appear instantly. Do you think that there's someone behind the screen to paste your review and save it as an HTML page for you to view on your browser?! No! And if I can recall back from my statistic classes, the number of different page combination and permutation, would certainly exceed thousands of Gigabytes!

So here comes the wonders and magic of server side technologies. Come to think that the 'someone' we mentioned earlier is the web server. So the task of generating HTML pages is left to that of the server. The instructions needed to decide on what content are to be included in the HTML page is made possible through CGI or server scripting languages which will be discussed later in this article. To thoroughly understand the significance of server-side programming languages, it is appropriate to examine the weakness of HTML. HTML produces static web pages, or web pages that never automatically change. To alter any static page, you must make it happen.

A server side document using an interpreted programming language can be written in a simple text editor and then uploaded to your web server. When someone makes a request for a page from his web browser the script file is sent to the appropriate interpreter, the code is executed, and HTML is automatically. The resulting document is pure HTML, and the user requesting the document, will never see the actual scripting language. By making use of server side technologies you turn your website into an application that can not only display data, but also store and process it. You can build highly interactive web applications, customized to user preferences. Web applications can be made to interact with databases or other files, to store data, retrieve data, and manipulate data. More examples and applications will be given throughout this section.

CGI

The Common Gateway Interface (CGI) is for executing external applications on Web Servers. Suppose you have an HTML file on your server, and someone makes a request to access that file from his browser; since HTML is static, it won't change, and its content will always be the same. Now say you have a CGI program on your web server, it is executed in real-time, so that it can output dynamic information upon user request. A CGI program can be written in any language that allows it to be executed on the system, such as: C, Perl, TCL, Visual Basic. However, the most popular language is Perl. One problem with CGI is that every request results in another server process which is a huge drain on resources, especially if you're using an interpreted language like Perl. If you're using a compiled language like C it is less of an issue. This performance hit is one reason why CGI is losing popularity these days. Newer scripting languages designed specifically for websites are taking over the server side arena. These scripting languages not only perform better, as they can be processed by a server module, but they're also easier to code since you can include the code inline with your HTML.

Inline Server Side Scripting Languages

Server side scripting languages include PHP, ASP, ColdFusion, and JSP (don't be bamboozled with these acronyms, they will be explained in this article). The role of server side scripting is the same as CGI but with inline server based scripting, instead of the code outputting the lines of the Web page; the Web page itself contains the code. Furthermore, the server usually has the interpreter built in, so it can serve up lots of requests with much lower resource requirements. All of these scripting languages are different, yet the coding fundamentals are the same. So once you learn one the others will be easier.

ASP


ASP stands for Active Server Pages and is a division of Active Platform concept of Microsoft Technologies. To have a better understanding of what ASP is and how it works, let's break the terms:
Active - means that the HTML is created dynamically by your ASP pages. Server - refers to the fact that there is a server involved in the process, thus it is a server-side technology compared. The resulting file is a pure HTML file Pages - means that the HTML file is sent to the browser which displays the HTML content of the ASP file in its window.
ASP is not technically a language, but a framework, however that's getting pretty technical. The ASP command set is comprised of scripts, mostly VBScript, though usage of JavaScript is not uncommon. ASP can be made to interact with ODBC databases to perform data retrieval, storage, sorting etc, and afterwards deliver the result in HTML form. To run ASP pages, you need to have a server that supports ASP or run ISS or Personal Web Server on your local machine. ASP is the language of choice for websites that run on Windows servers.
ASP is great for creating almost any kind of dynamic web content from discussion groups to shopping carts. ASP is ideal for simplifying tasks that would otherwise be very cumbersome or impossible in HTML.

PHP or Hypertext Preprocessor

PHP or Hypertext Preprocessor is a free, open-source and cross-platform programming language. PHP is a server-side technology and is handled in a similar way as ASP pages by the server. PHP has much in common with Perl, Python and JavaScript. PHP can interact with MySQL databases and many other databases, thus making data storage and retrieval easier. PHP is being increasingly used on the Net, and is the most popular server side language since it comes included (along with Apache and MySQL) with most Linux installations. Almost all web hosts nowadays support PHP, and PHP runs of many servers such as Apache, ISS, etc. PHP is the choice if you want use free or open source software, or a Linux server.

ColdFusion

ColdFusion was originally designed by Allaire, and then bought by Macromedia. The main part of ColdFusion is the ColdFusion Server, and ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML). CFML is a unique language, as it is tag based, similar to HTML. Beginning server-side programmers might find ColdFusion the easiest language to learn, as it is broken up in tag blocks. ColdFusion is so easy to use you can have a database driven site up in about two hours, even if you know no SQL and have only a small data store to build from. ColdFusion gives you all of the benefits of CGI plus easy database access and simple to create forms and dynamic pages. ColdFusion is available for the different platforms including Unix and Window. It is supported by many authoring tools and is well documented. The downside to ColdFusion is the cost, it is relatively expensive. It also isn't the fastest server side language. Due to these drawbacks ColdFusion is rarely used by small independent developers, however it is very common to find in the corporate world.

Domain Names

How domain names work

Before going into depth on domain names issues, let us first understand the need of a domain name. As mentioned earlier, your webpage will be hosted on your web host's server. Usually that server will have a unique Internet Protocol (IP) address or encoded URLs which might look something like:

http://203.245.254.107

Now, just sit back and think that how troublesome someone who is visiting your site has to type all these numbers to access it. That's where domain names come into play. Domain names will mask all these numerous numbers into something simpler like http://www.yoursitename.com When a user types the domain name yoursite.com in their browser, the Domain Name System (DNS) will translate the domain name into IP numbers. These are then used by the Internet to connect the user to yoursite.com's web site. Domain names thus gives you a unique identity on the Net thus creating your online brand, and your email addresses will have a more professional look being unique to your business.

How do I acquire a domain name?

There are two main ways you can get a domain name. You can often get your web host or ISP (Internet Service Provider) to register one for you but you're much better off registering one yourself. To register a domain name yourself you will need to choose a Registrar. A Registrar is an ICANN accredited domain registration company. There are hundreds of Registrars on the Internet nowadays. Choosing the right domain name?

Never underestimates the power of a good domain name. This site's founder, Chris Beasley, has a great article on Choosing the right domain name, which I heavily recommend you to have a look at.