Here is a video with some more information about the Whois command and how to view DNS information!
Friday, May 2, 2008
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Web Site Developement
Getting your web page made
Up to now we've been looking at all the steps to make sure your website will be able to be seen by the world. The problem is that we don't know how to make a web page! This is where we run into several different options to decide what'd we would like to do.
The first is to make the website yourself by writing the code, but since this is most likely everyone's first web page you may not know how to make a web page using HTML and such. To learn the HTML coding there are many books available at stores such as Barnes and Noble, and also there is a vast amount of information on the web. One of my favorite websites for HTML help is http://www.w3schools.com/
Another option is to buy a Graphical User Interface (GUI pronounced Goo-ie) program such as DreamWeaver, or Microsoft FrontPage. These programs allow you to click and drag features onto a blank page and write the code for you in the background. I personally have no experience with any programs like these, but have heard some decent reviews.
The final option would be to higher a professional web developer to create your website. These people have made a living off of creating web pages, so many of them have years of experisnce and can give you a high quality website very fast.
Choosing which option is right for you
Up to now we've been looking at all the steps to make sure your website will be able to be seen by the world. The problem is that we don't know how to make a web page! This is where we run into several different options to decide what'd we would like to do.
The first is to make the website yourself by writing the code, but since this is most likely everyone's first web page you may not know how to make a web page using HTML and such. To learn the HTML coding there are many books available at stores such as Barnes and Noble, and also there is a vast amount of information on the web. One of my favorite websites for HTML help is http://www.w3schools.com/
Another option is to buy a Graphical User Interface (GUI pronounced Goo-ie) program such as DreamWeaver, or Microsoft FrontPage. These programs allow you to click and drag features onto a blank page and write the code for you in the background. I personally have no experience with any programs like these, but have heard some decent reviews.
The final option would be to higher a professional web developer to create your website. These people have made a living off of creating web pages, so many of them have years of experisnce and can give you a high quality website very fast.
Choosing which option is right for you
After seeing our options we can now try and choose what type of person should pick which option. This is actually answered by asking you a question. What are you going to be using this website for?
If you are making a website to just make one, and don't have any type of professional or business based goals, I'd recommend learning how to make the webpage yourself. This is also the cheapest way to create your web page.
If you are a small business with a tight budget with no plans of a shopping cart or other purchasing system through your website then the GUI programs such as DreamWeaver would probably work perfectly. This will give you a vast array of options for creating your page while also keeping costs to a minimum.
The final option of a web designer is the most expensive choice, but will also give you the best web page. The cost will vary on the features you decide to include. Features that would up the price include a user database, or a way to sell your items through your website. These features require accessing a database to get user information or inventory information.
Hopefully you all have enjoyed and learned a thing or two from this four part blog! If there are any other questions that you think of please feel free to e-mail them to Cybirded@gmail.com, and we will anwser as fast as we can!
- Justin and Casey
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Hosting your files
What are people going to see when they look at my website?
After going through the registrar and company that is doing your DNS (usually your registrar or hosting company) people can now reach your website! There's one problem though. We don't have any files uploaded!
To solve this we will need a company to "host" our website. Hosting companies will pay for all of the overhead charges that come with running a website, and only charge you a fraction of the cost to store your files and provide bandwidth for your site.
Choosing the correct hosting company
There are many companies that will host your website, and at first glance you'd think they are all the same right? Well they all will display your files, but here are some other factors to consider when choosing a hosting company:
1) Price
2) Features
3) Support
Price is the usually the most important to most people to looking to start a web page, but when choosing a lower priced hosting company like GoDaddy you will most likely get less features and worse support.
Some features may include server side support for such programming languages as PHP, ASP and FrontPage extensions, or the ability to use Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) to upload or download your files. Also when many people start their first website they do not know how to use an FTP client to upload and download the files for their website. Some companies support staff with take time and teach you how to use these programs, but these are usually some of the more expensive companies.
Deciding on which hosting company lies in large part on your needs, but with the server side support for PHP, ASP and FrontPage what does that mean? How do I know if I need those? Well, these are programming languages that are used for creating websites that need add-ons on the server. This is determined by which language you or your website developer decided to use to create your website.
What? You say you haven't created any web pages yet? Well, good for you our blog next week is about website developement! Check back next Friday for the next post!
By Justin and Casey
After going through the registrar and company that is doing your DNS (usually your registrar or hosting company) people can now reach your website! There's one problem though. We don't have any files uploaded!
To solve this we will need a company to "host" our website. Hosting companies will pay for all of the overhead charges that come with running a website, and only charge you a fraction of the cost to store your files and provide bandwidth for your site.
Choosing the correct hosting company
There are many companies that will host your website, and at first glance you'd think they are all the same right? Well they all will display your files, but here are some other factors to consider when choosing a hosting company:
1) Price
2) Features
3) Support
Price is the usually the most important to most people to looking to start a web page, but when choosing a lower priced hosting company like GoDaddy you will most likely get less features and worse support.
Some features may include server side support for such programming languages as PHP, ASP and FrontPage extensions, or the ability to use Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) to upload or download your files. Also when many people start their first website they do not know how to use an FTP client to upload and download the files for their website. Some companies support staff with take time and teach you how to use these programs, but these are usually some of the more expensive companies.
Deciding on which hosting company lies in large part on your needs, but with the server side support for PHP, ASP and FrontPage what does that mean? How do I know if I need those? Well, these are programming languages that are used for creating websites that need add-ons on the server. This is determined by which language you or your website developer decided to use to create your website.
What? You say you haven't created any web pages yet? Well, good for you our blog next week is about website developement! Check back next Friday for the next post!
By Justin and Casey
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Domain Name Servers (DNS)
Pointing your DNS at the right location
Domain Name Servers (Or DNS for short) are a vital part of people being able to see your website. When you type in yourwebsite.com and hit the "Go" button your computer literally has no idea where the files are for that website. The first place it knows to look is your Internet Service Provider's (ISP) Name Servers. If your ISP's DNS does not see itself has the authoritative or "Owner" of the website it will then go out and ask the world where these files are. Eventually a name server that is queried will know the registrar that has the WHOIS record for the domain. This is an important step because once we get here if the Registrar has the wrong DNS for where your files are located then no one will be able to see your website. However, when it is correct the DNS will translate yourwebsite.com to the proper IP address of the server that is hosting the files and then send the information back to your browser.
These process seems very complicated, but can be done in fractions of a second.
Authoritative DNS Zone Record
The Name servers for anydomain.com contain various information for a domain that is stored in what is known as a Zone Record. These Zone Records contain A, MX, NS, and CNAME records.
The A record is the one that contains the correct IP address for a domain, so it is the one that maps yourdomain.com to 216.237.66.1 and allows people to view your page. A MX (short for Mail eXchangers) tells the world what mail server e-mail for anyone@yourdomain.com should be delivered to. As mentioned above the NS records are the Authoritative name servers for the domain. Finally the CNAME records acts as a type of alias which allows mail.yourdomain.com and mail.yourprovider.com to be actually the same thing.
Example of a Zone Record
Here is an example of a zone record we will break down to see where the various data is stored.
3h ; Refresh Rate
1h ; Retry Interval
7d ; Expiration
1d ) ; Negative Cache TTL
IN NS ns1.frii.net.
IN NS ns2.frii.net.
1D IN MX 0 a.mailarmory.net.
1D IN MX 1 b.mailarmory.net.
IN A 216.17.184.1
ftp IN CNAME ftp.frii.com
mail IN CNAME mail.frii.com
www IN A 216.17.184.1
We will start at the top and go down to analyze this zone record:
$TTL 1d - This is the Time To Live (TTL) that another DNS server will cache. The 1d implies that another name server should check back once a say
SOA - This is the Start of Authority and shows the Authoritative name server
Serial Number - This is for your hosting companies use
Refresh Rate - How long a secondary name server will wait to pull up the Zone Record again
Three hours as shown above.
Retry Interval - How long a secondary name server will wait if the try of the refresh rate was unsuccessful. One hour as shown above.
Expiration - How long a secondary name server will cache the zone record if it cannot be refreshed. Seven days shown above.
Negative Cache TTL - Same as $TTL
Below that are examples of the NS, A, MX, and CNAME records.
Next week we will talk about Hosting Companies and what they do for your domain!
Domain Name Servers (Or DNS for short) are a vital part of people being able to see your website. When you type in yourwebsite.com and hit the "Go" button your computer literally has no idea where the files are for that website. The first place it knows to look is your Internet Service Provider's (ISP) Name Servers. If your ISP's DNS does not see itself has the authoritative or "Owner" of the website it will then go out and ask the world where these files are. Eventually a name server that is queried will know the registrar that has the WHOIS record for the domain. This is an important step because once we get here if the Registrar has the wrong DNS for where your files are located then no one will be able to see your website. However, when it is correct the DNS will translate yourwebsite.com to the proper IP address of the server that is hosting the files and then send the information back to your browser.
These process seems very complicated, but can be done in fractions of a second.
Authoritative DNS Zone Record
The Name servers for anydomain.com contain various information for a domain that is stored in what is known as a Zone Record. These Zone Records contain A, MX, NS, and CNAME records.
The A record is the one that contains the correct IP address for a domain, so it is the one that maps yourdomain.com to 216.237.66.1 and allows people to view your page. A MX (short for Mail eXchangers) tells the world what mail server e-mail for anyone@yourdomain.com should be delivered to. As mentioned above the NS records are the Authoritative name servers for the domain. Finally the CNAME records acts as a type of alias which allows mail.yourdomain.com and mail.yourprovider.com to be actually the same thing.
Example of a Zone Record
Here is an example of a zone record we will break down to see where the various data is stored.
$TTL 1d ; Default TTL
OMITTED.com. 1d IN SOA ns.frii.net. hostmaster.frii.net. (
3h ; Refresh Rate
1h ; Retry Interval
7d ; Expiration
1d ) ; Negative Cache TTL
IN NS ns1.frii.net.
IN NS ns2.frii.net.
1D IN MX 0 a.mailarmory.net.
1D IN MX 1 b.mailarmory.net.
IN A 216.17.184.1
ftp IN CNAME ftp.frii.com
mail IN CNAME mail.frii.com
www IN A 216.17.184.1
We will start at the top and go down to analyze this zone record:
$TTL 1d - This is the Time To Live (TTL) that another DNS server will cache. The 1d implies that another name server should check back once a say
SOA - This is the Start of Authority and shows the Authoritative name server
Serial Number - This is for your hosting companies use
Refresh Rate - How long a secondary name server will wait to pull up the Zone Record again
Three hours as shown above.
Retry Interval - How long a secondary name server will wait if the try of the refresh rate was unsuccessful. One hour as shown above.
Expiration - How long a secondary name server will cache the zone record if it cannot be refreshed. Seven days shown above.
Negative Cache TTL - Same as $TTL
Below that are examples of the NS, A, MX, and CNAME records.
Next week we will talk about Hosting Companies and what they do for your domain!
Friday, April 11, 2008
Registrars and WHOIS Records
What is a Registrar?
The most basic definition of this word is a company that sells Domain names, so if you wanted to buy lookatmydomain.com you would have to talk to a registrar.
This barely scratches the surface however. A detailed look into what a registrar does shows that they must register, manage, and keep track of there domain names.To do this they must first be authorized by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to register domains with a certain country code and Top Level Domain
The most important aspect of a registrar is the WHOIS record. A WHOIS record is what the world first sees when someone tries to view lookatmydomain.com. In a WHOIS record there is a lot of information such as an Administrative / Technical Contact which can be useful for many users, but the most critical piece of information in a WHOIS record are the Domain Name Servers (DNS) it points your website to. If the DNS is incorrect and Johnny goes to view lookatmydomain.com, he is not going to see anything other then a page cannot be displayed.
Here is an example of a WHOIS Record:
Justin Botelho and Casey Kramer
The most basic definition of this word is a company that sells Domain names, so if you wanted to buy lookatmydomain.com you would have to talk to a registrar.
This barely scratches the surface however. A detailed look into what a registrar does shows that they must register, manage, and keep track of there domain names.To do this they must first be authorized by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to register domains with a certain country code and Top Level Domain
The most important aspect of a registrar is the WHOIS record. A WHOIS record is what the world first sees when someone tries to view lookatmydomain.com. In a WHOIS record there is a lot of information such as an Administrative / Technical Contact which can be useful for many users, but the most critical piece of information in a WHOIS record are the Domain Name Servers (DNS) it points your website to. If the DNS is incorrect and Johnny goes to view lookatmydomain.com, he is not going to see anything other then a page cannot be displayed.
Here is an example of a WHOIS Record:
Domain Name: FRII.COM
Registrar: TUCOWS, INC.
Whois Server: whois.opensrs.net
Referral URL: http://www.opensrs.org
Name Server: NS2.FRII.NET
Name Server: NS2.WINTERLAN.COM
Name Server: NS1.FRII.NET
Updated Date: 29-jul-2002
The Registry database contains ONLY .COM, .NET, .ORG, .EDU domains and Registrars.
Registrant:
Front Range Internet, Inc.
213 Linden Street
Suite 200
Fort Collins, CO 80524
US
Domain Name: FRII.COM
Administrative Contact:
Hostmaster, FRII hostmaster@frii.com
213 Linden Street
Suite 200
Fort Collins, CO 80524
US
970-212-0700
Fax: 970-224-3883
Technical Contact:
Hostmaster, FRII hostmaster@frii.com
213 Linden Street
Suite 200
Fort Collins, CO 80524
US
970-212-0700
Fax: 970-224-3883
Registration Service Provider:
Front Range Internet, Inc., hostmaster@frii.net
+1.9702120700
Registrar of Record: TUCOWS, INC.
Record last updated on 29-Jul-2002.
Record expires on 17-Oct-2004.
Record Created on 18-Oct-1995.
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.FRII.NET 216.17.128.1
NS2.FRII.NET 216.17.128.2
NS2.WINTERLAN.COM 209.150.160.40
Next week I will talk about how DNS and hosting work together to get your web page available to the world!
Justin Botelho and Casey Kramer
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