Before I start, I would like to talk about my time here. As many of you know, I was a figure in the chat rooms almost every day. Sometimes annoying people... Sometimes trolling... Good times. But, I got bored. I went to other places like made lots of friends on MineCraft.. Yeah.. And other places.. But, now I feel I should make a comeback - some of the people who annoyed me (Takis i'm looking at you ) became very respected blogmins and I know admire them for who they are. So, I will make a comeback. people who thought I had gone, no I haven't..

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Another thing I would like to say is that I wish this series to become something that others refer others to when hosting their own website.

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Well, I own a Virtual Private Server costing £12 a month at linode.com - I don't reccomend you choose this though. The only reason I chose this is because I have a lot of experience in systems administration.

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Choosing A Host - Part 1
SKIP THE 'SERVER' SECTION IF YOU WANT SHARED HOSTING

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The first thing I want to talk about is different kinds of web hosts. There are many different kinds of web hosts out there, the best choice for beginners though would be a type of hosting called Shared Web Hosting. This type of hosting resides on a server with many other different websites. It uses a special type of software to let many users take use of this software. If you are familiar with the likes of cPanel, then you will know shared web hosting. Another type of hosting (not newb friendly) is to rent a virtual or a dedicated server. Virtual Servers reside on a huge network of servers that hosts virtual servers on the servers that are already there (confusing, I know). Dedicated Servers are quite simply like a Virtual Server but they are a real machine.

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Tips

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A server is a machine, it can be any machine that runs an operating system. Usually Ubuntu Server or Windows Server (for those familiar with Linux, Ubuntu is the most common Linux distribution). A network of servers which create Virtual Servers is called a 'Cloud'. VPSs (Virtual Private Servers) are commonly confused with cloud, when cloud is essentially the same thing - just delivered in a different way and usually has a different pricing structure.

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Making A Server A 'Web Server'

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When you have an operating system like Ubuntu Server - it's completely bare. It has nothing except from bare bones Unix and some nice package managers like Debian's aptitude. To make a server a 'web server' - you'll want to follow this step by step guide for Ubuntu Server and Windows Server/7/Vista/XP (If you run 7/XP/Vista - make sure you have IIS enabled.
Step 1: Ubuntu: Boot Up The Server
Window: Boot Up The PC/Server and go into the IIS management console.
(Note: from here on, Windows will NOT be in the steps. Please find another guide unless I write one in another blog).
Step 2: Ubuntu: Make sure the server is connected to the internet via Ethernet and type 'apt-get install apache2'.
Step 3: Ubuntu: Wait until it is finished.
Step 4: Any PC Connected To The Same Network: Type the IP adress of that server into your browsers adress bar and press enter. If you get the text 'It Works' - you know you have been successful. On your server, you can now put your html files into the /var/www directory on the server and access them like a normal web host. To setupPHP - type 'apt-get install php5' - wait for it to finish, then type '/etc/init.d/apache2 restart' press enter and wait. Now, your server should work with PHP files. To set up follow the same steps with 'apt-get install mysql-server' for MYSQL and 'apt-get install phpmyadmin' for PHPMyAdmin (o access PHPMyAdmin once installed type (IP)/phpmyadmin into the browser. There, now you have a fully functional apache server running. 'apt-get' is the 'aptitude' command but shorter. Aptitude is Debian's package manager. Ubuntu has it incorporated because Ubuntu is a branch off the Debian project.

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Choosing A Host - Part 2 (Shared Hosting)
There will be a 'Best Hosts' option at the bottom of the page.

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Now, down to the option which many of you will choose - Shared Hosting. I have explained what Shared Hosting is above, so now down to choosing a Shared Host. The no.1 choice would be Media Temple's Grid Service but their prices are out of many of our ranges. Another thing many of you will be drawn to is 'Unlimited' hosting. If you find an unlimited host that you like, good. Great. But please read on.