The Internet for Beginners

This Beginners guide to the Internet is intended to help newcomers understand some of the basics. The Internet can be a bewildering place for beginners, awash with techno babble and terminology. We can't hope to make you an expert overnight, but hopefully these articles will dispell some of the confusion and answer some of the more common questions.

If any of the information here isn't clear to you, or you have suggestions to help us improve this area of our site, please drop us a line.

What is Web Hosting

It's the most obvious question isn't it - so here's the answer. When you buy a domain name, it's a bit like buying the sign for your shop. What you need next is the building in which to operate. We are that building!

A Web Hosting account (usually just called a Hosting Account), offers a place for you to put your domain name (your shop sign), so anyone who enters your domain name in a web browser will be directed to our servers which, in turn, will display your website. Also, our servers become the hub for any email for your domain (a little like a PO Box at the post office). You then electronically collect your email from our servers, and you can send email out to the world through our servers.

How much space and bandwidth do I need?

In all likelyhood - not much! For example, this entire website only uses about 20Mb of disk space (Our smallest account has over 250Mb). Why then, do the large names advertise 20,000Mb of disk space? Because they know you will never use it, and in fact they make sure it's very difficult for you to do so by insisting (as we do) that the files on your hosting account form part of your website - and you don't just use it as a dumping ground for illegal music etc (you wouldn't do that anyway, would you?). We're just more honest and open about what's really available.

Bandwidth is the amount of data that you can transfer to the world - usually every month. Again, as a guideline, some of our busiest websites might achieve 3,000Mb a month, but rarely much more (unless they were featured on TV for example). 90% of websites on the internet transfer less than 1,000Mb per month. Again, even our smallest account offers 10,000Mb a month, so you start to see how these numbers are largley accademic.