This chapter examines the hardware and software you will need to run a professional Web site. The section on hardware discusses both a basic PC system and an enhanced PC system. We try to give specific advice on hardware when we can, but keep in mind
that there are almost as many types of computers as there are computer users.
We approach the topic of software from both the client side and the server side. Although a Web site needs to run server software, any webmaster will tell you that you're also going to need good client tools to help you explore the Web and keep up with
the latest developments (almost a full-time job in itself at the rate the Web is changing). The client tools discussed in this chapter (and included on the CD-ROM) will help you take advantage of all the great Internet resources that are listed throughout
the book and in Appendix D, "Internet Resources for the Windows 95 Webmaster."
Please consult the glossary as necessary when unfamiliar terms are used.
Most PC users who have been around for awhile are familiar with the excitement of having an old slow machine—which was first class in its younger days—replaced by a new machine, costing roughly the same, offering twice the performance, and
doubling the hard disk capacity. The fact is that most programs written for Windows a couple of years ago still run excellently on today's machines with Windows 95 and will probably still do so two or more years from now. This level of compatibility means
we are free to choose any type of PC configuration that fits our needs and our pocketbooks. We needn't be worried about losing yesterday's investment in software if we want to upgrade the performance of our hardware tomorrow.
Before buying any new hardware to run with Windows 95, it is a good idea to consider whether you will someday want to upgrade your Web site to Windows NT. NT is a more powerful, more secure, and more robust
operating system. Most 32-bit programs written for Windows 95 are highly compatible with Windows NT. Likewise, most hardware that will run Windows 95 would also be able to run Windows NT, although NT is a little bit more picky, shall we say, about hardware
compatibility. For example, NT needs a minimum of 16 MB of RAM for reasonable performance, whereas Windows 95 can get by with only 8 MB.
This section outlines two PC configurations at opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of price and performance. At the low end, we start by simply noting that Windows 95 can run on just about any kind of Intel-compatible 386 PC with a minimum of 8 MB of
RAM. Beyond that, the following guidelines will help you match your needs, whether you're buying new hardware or trying to determine whether your current computer has enough muscle to serve as your Web site.
When you shop for a new computer, consider this theory: "Buy until it hurts." In other words, go for all the performance you can get; if you don't think you need it today, you will probably want it tomorrow.
Prices for large IDE drives have dropped wonderfully in the last year or so. (IDE, EIDE, and SCSI are hardware conventions that enable many different drive types to work in many different computer types.) Unless your budget is extremely tight, there is
no point in buying anything less than a 1 GB (gigabyte) disk drive. Currently, street prices for 1 GB drives are down around $200. If you still want to estimate the minimum disk space to run your Web site, however, try going through this list and adding up
the numbers.
If some of the preceding advice strikes you as vague, you're right: This isn't an exact science. Let's take an entirely different approach—a sample advertisement for a very typical PC configuration that will get your Web site online, whether you're
a florist or a pet shop owner. Following is a sample advertisement.
Computer for Sale
This machine will run Windows 95 reasonably well. At the time of this writing, this configuration costs about $1,300 new, $1,000 used. Although it might add a little to the cost, our preference is to get a tower case instead of a desktop case. It is
usually much easier to install additional hard disk drives in a tower case.
You should also make sure the computer comes with at least a 250-watt power supply. Some ads don't mention these items, so you'll need to ask. Also, ask the vendor whether the CD-ROM is double-speed (2X) or quad-speed (4X). Quad-speed drives are faster,
but double-speed is quite sufficient for installing Web site software, unless you are also planning to play multimedia games on the same computer.
With the cost of 28.8 Kbps modems now hitting $150, more and more Web clients are running at that speed. Usually, the client computer is the slowest link in the chain. Although you might be satisfied with a 14.4 Kbps modem, you wouldn't want your
clients to consider your server the slowest link. Our advice is to buy at least a 28.8 Kbps modem for a small Web site, or consider ISDN if you expect more visitors.
Nearly all high-performance video cards developed within the last three years have a direct motherboard connection to the CPU (Central Processing Unit). This is usually achieved through one of two standard technologies: VLB or PCI. These two standards
contrast, but also coexist, with ISA, which is the original PC bus design for adding hardware adapter cards.
VLB or VESA-LB (Video Electronics Standards Association Local Bus) was the work of an industry consortium of hardware manufacturers who were concerned about developing a standard way to boost the video display speed on PCs. Their standard was very
successful for a few years, but many feel that it is now being superseded by the popularity of PCI motherboards. Intel provided the brains behind PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) as a way of enhancing PC performance beyond the future capabilities of
VLB.
When you are buying a PC, you need to know what kind of bus design is built into the motherboard so that you will be able to choose the right kind of video card to match. Whether you choose PCI or VLB, you will get better performance than straight ISA.
Most PCI and VLB computers have, in addition to four regular ISA slots, two or three local bus slots that let you connect to other crucial peripherals, such as hard-disk controller cards or SCSI adapters. When buying an adapter card, you can decide on a
regular ISA, a PCI, or a VLB. ISA cards will work in just about any PC, but what you want to avoid is buying PCI card for a VLB computer, or vice versa.
The amount of RAM on your video card (also called Video Graphics Array card or Super VGA card) determines the maximum resolution and number of colors that can be displayed on your monitor. Most cards these days come with at least 1 MB, which means they
can run 256 colors at a resolution of 1024 pixels on the X axis by 768 pixels on the Y axis. As the prices of high-resolution monitors continue to drop, more and more users are buying video cards with 2 MB of RAM. With more video RAM
installed, the Windows 95 Control Panel offers more choices of resolution/color combinations. Most people prefer a higher resolution so that more data can appear on the screen. However, as the resolution increases, the pixel size decreases
and you will need a larger monitor to avoid having to squint as you read. We consider a 15-inch monitor suitable for 800 x 600 resolution and a 17-inch monitor the minimum needed to provide nice viewing at a resolution of 1024 x 768. Your mileage might
vary.
When choosing the display configuration in Control Panel, don't be lured into picking a higher number of colors than you really need. Depending on the speed of your video card and its driver software, increasing
the number of colors can sometimes result in a noticeable decline in screen painting performance. Unless you work with image editing software, you might need only 256 colors; that is all that Windows 95 itself (excluding the Plus Pack) and most programs
currently use. On the other hand, if you do work with images from scanners or photo programs or from the Internet, you might want to buy a video card with more than 2 MB so you can be sure to get the highest resolution and the best color match.
If you've been around computers for awhile, you probably know that the 33 MHz computer mentioned in the advertisement above isn't going to be a killer platform. Sure, it will get the job done, but the question is, "When?" If you like to have
your machine ready when you are or you expect to have many Web browsers visiting your server, you are going to want a faster and more capable machine.
Listed here is a hardware configuration that is very similar to this author's typical size Web site, www.fbsolutions.com.
Do I Really Need to Buy a Backup Device?
Now we are going to describe all the software you need to run your complete Internet server. We start with the operating system itself. Other than Windows 95 itself, nearly all the rest of the software mentioned here—worth hundreds of
dollars—is included on the CD-ROM accompanying this book!
Windows 95 is a commercial product from Microsoft. We recommend that you buy the CD-ROM version for easy installation. It costs about $80 to $100.
Microsoft Windows 95 Resource Kit is optional, but it is handy to have for advanced network configuration questions. This consists of a 1,300 page book and a CD-ROM with several software utilities. It sells for about $50.
The full contents of the Windows 95 Resource Kit book are available as a help file with the CD-ROM version of Windows 95. This can save you $50, but then you don't get the software with the resource kit or the
printed book to read you to sleep.
Microsoft Plus! is an optional CD package sold by Microsoft for about $50. It contains several extensions to Windows 95, including screen savers, desktop color themes, an early version of the Internet Explorer Web browser, enhanced hard disk compression
(DriveSpace 3), and System Agents which can help maintain your computer automatically. The CD with this book includes a newer version of Internet Explorer. Plus! also includes a Dial-Up Networking Server which provides you with the capability to log in to
your machine remotely.
This section provides you with a complete list of all the software you need to build a powerful and reliable Web site at the lowest possible price. All of these packages are available on the enclosed CD, unless mentioned otherwise.
Our top concerns in selecting the software for this book were that each package had to work reliably and be economical. We chose these particular products because we know from personal experience that they work together and do the job well. We ended up
with a mixed bag of commercial, shareware, and freeware products. The Internet is loaded with other software that will assist you in setting up and running your Web site. In some cases, you can probably find a freeware product that will do the same job as
one of the commercial or shareware products we selected for this book.
Please do not expect all the programs to be bug-free. Although we have been happy with their performance, they are all relatively new and have not been tested over time. Please respect the various usage and redistribution restrictions placed on each
package by its authors.
We now present a brief description of each package. Further information about installing and running these programs is covered throughout the book. You will also find other useful documentation in the readme files accompanying each package. For a
complete list of all the software included on the CD, see Appendix J.
This is an excellent shareware 32-bit Web server from Ilar Concepts, Inc. We will have much more to say about this product throughout the book. E-mail support@ilar.com.
This a premier Web server for Windows 95 from Process Software. Process has been producing and selling its Windows NT Web server for some time now, and they have used that experience in the release of this product. Contact http://www.process.com.
POTP stands for Power One Time Pad, which is an encryption algorithm. This package includes a POTP Secure FTP Client, POTP Secure FTP Server, and POTP FileCrypt—a stand-alone file encryption program. E-mail sales@elementrix.co.il.
An FTP server is one way you can copy files to your server when you are at remote computers on the Internet. If you have clients who run their own Web page on your server, giving them FTP access to their files means that you don't have to be involved
when they want to upload their newest HTML files. We'll talk more about this program in Chapter 18, "Running an FTP Server and Remote Administration." E-mail RJB@eel-mail.mc.duke.edu.
SMTP is a protocol used to serve e-mail on the Internet. This program enables you to create your own e-mail addresses for yourself, your employees, and your clients—after you have your own domain name. We talk about domain names in the next chapter
and about running this SMTP server in Chapter 17, "Serving E-mail on the Internet." Contact http://www.seattlelab.com.
The WAIS Toolkit enables you to create searchable indexes of the information stored on your Web site. We will describe the full operation of this amazing freeware program in Chapter 19, "Databases and the Web." E-mail C.J.Adie@ed.ac.uk.
This section lists several tools that are key to building the HTML pages that comprise the heart of a Web site.
This is an excellent shareware HTML editor for Windows. We first install it in Chapter 8, "Putting Your Windows 95 Web Server Online." It will be an invaluable assistant throughout Part III of the book as we write HTML code. Contact Kenn
Nesbitt, webedit@thegroup.net or http://wwwnt.thegroup.net/webedit/webedit.htm.
This is an excellent 16-bit Windows shareware graphics program. We will show you just some of the cool things it can do for your Web site in Chapter 10, "Image Mapping and Multimedia." Contact http://www.jasc.com/index.html.
This is a 32-bit Windows GUI program, written by Todd Wilson, to automate the creation of Imagemap *.map files. After you see this program in Chapter 10, you won't believe it's free. Contact Todd Wilson via e-mail at tc@galadriel.ecaetc.ohio-state.edu or via the Web, http://galadriel.ecaetc.ohio-state.edu/tc/mt.
We will discuss these programming tools in detail in Part V of the book. Please consider the software in this section optional if you don't consider yourself a programmer.
We discuss Sunsoft Java in Chapter 24, "Interactive Web Programming with JavaScript." Basically, JavaScript is a new language developed by SunSoft and Netscape to allow programmers a way to make the Web more interactive. Contact SunSoft on the
Web at http://java.sun.com/.
PERL (Practical Extraction and Report Language) is an interpreted language designed for scanning arbitrary text files, extracting information, and printing reports. It's also a good language for many system management tasks. PERL for NT is distributed
under the GNU General Public License, which basically means that it is freeware. Despite its name, this program also runs on Windows 95. Contact Intergraph Corporation.
The software in this section will help you enhance your Web site from one that merely displays text and graphics to one that is interactive by allowing your clients to fill out electronic forms.
This is a public domain Windows command utility that e-mails a file to a user via SMTP. Blat is required by CGI PerForm for sendmail functionality. Contact Mark Neal mjn@aber.ac.uk or Pedro Mendes prm@aber.ac.uk.
This is a freeware C language program (with documentation) that does Web form processing in a manner compatible with the CGI specification. The original source code comes with the EMWAC HTTPS for Windows NT, but we have enhanced the version included
with this book to do improved string parsing. It has been compiled into savedata.exe, which you can run if you don't have a C compiler. Chapter 11, "Introduction to Web Forms and CGI Scripts," covers this program extensively. Contact Christopher
L. T. Brown, clbrown@netcom.com.
This is a restricted version of commercial product that delivers ODBC database functionality on the Web. We'll get into the details in Chapter 19, "Databases and the Web." Contact http://www.allaire.com/cfusion/.
This is a shareware CGI application that will process the contents of HTML forms in many ways and includes the capability to send e-mail based on the form data. It is developed by Real Time Internet Services. E-mail webinfo@rtis.com or contact http://www.rtis.com/nat/software/.
This section covers the highlights of the major client programs found on the CD-ROM. Consult Appendix H for the CD-ROM directory structure and a brief description of all the software. Better yet, pop in the CD and give it a spin!
This is a very good native Web browser for Windows 95 that Microsoft has built to compete with Netscape. Future versions will be bundled with Windows 95. Contact http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ie.htm Another good web surfer.
Eudora is the most popular Windows e-mail client on the Internet today. Its popularity comes from its ease of use and its price. Although Eudora is not freeware, it costs only a stamp and postcard. The author of this program states:
If you try out Eudora and decide that you'd like to use it on a regular basis, then just send a postcard to the following address:
Jeff Beckley
QUALCOMM Incorporated
6455 Lusk Blvd.
San Diego, CA 92121-2779
USA
Eudora Light lacks a few of the advanced features found in the commercial version, such as automatic uuencoding of attachments and spell-checking. For more information on the 32-bit commercial version, see http://www.qualcomm.com/quest/QuestMain.html.
This is an outstanding Windows GUI FTP client application. It supports drag-and-drop between directories, so it beats the socks off of the command prompt program included with Windows 95. E-mail alex@sbk.trigem.co.kr.
This is an excellent shareware GUI for reading (and posting to) the Internet newsgroups. See Chapter 7, "Webmasters Guide to FTP and the Newsgroups" for more information about using this and CuteFTP. E-mail kenng@hk.super.net.
Archie is a 16-bit GUI Archie client that enables you to search Archie servers to find the contents of published FTP directories throughout the Internet. It was written by Clifford Neuman with changes by Brendan Kehoe and George Ferguson. Contact David
Woakes, david.woakes@dial.pipex.com.
If you want to tap the full potential of the Internet, any expert will tell you that anti-virus software and a good compression/decompression program are truly essential. With these tools you can do it both quickly and safely.
We include the shareware version on the CD, but there is also a more powerful commercial version. This program is a piece of cake to use; just unzip and run the setup program. E-mail support@thomnet.com.
This is another excellent anti-virus program for Windows 95. Support is offered via CompuServe in the ThunderBYTE Forum. Type GO TBYTE.
Compressed files are often half their normal size, and therefore travel through the Internet twice as fast. It usually takes a lot less time to compress and decompress files than it does to transmit them. WinZip provides a nice drag-and-drop graphical
interface on top of the ever popular PKZIP compression technology. Some of the software included on the CD-ROM is in .zip format, and WinZip will decompress those files during installation to your hard disk. It is also very handy to keep around for all of
your Internet file acquisitions. Contact Nico Mak Computing via e-mail, 70056.241@compuserve.com or at their Web page: http://www.winzip.com/winzip/.
This GUI utility connects to a whois server. WinWhois enables you to gain valuable information about Internet domains from the InterNIC DNS database. For example, you could look up the point of contact at any registered Internet domain. Contact Koichi
Nishitani, njknish@mit.edu. Or contact Larry Kahn at CompuServe, 71434,600, or by Internet e-mail, kahn@drcoffsite.com.
This shareware program will take over where Windows dial-up networking leaves off. If your connection to the Internet is lost, RASPlus will automatically redial it within one second! E-mail rlamb@cftnet.com> or contact
the Web page at http://www.cftnet.com/mall/rasplus.
This program enables you to automate the process of connecting to your Internet Service Provider. Contact the author by Compuserve: 76450,2754 or by Internet e-mail, markga@epix.net.
NetAlert will monitor a TCP/IP network port by checking to see if the port is listening. When the port goes down or up, it will send an e-mail alert. (The Windows NT version offers electronic paging, too.) You can use this application to check your
Internet connection by setting it to check a well-known port on your service provider's network.
PortScan will check your network for TCP/IP ports that are open. It is a handy tool to see if you have any ports open that should not be. This is a Windows version of a utility that has been used by UNIX system administrators for quite some time.
Contact Christopher L. T. Brown at clbrown@netcom.com.
This is a very simple freeware program in the public domain that will ping your Internet Service Provider on a given interval so they won't disconnect you. We'll describe it further in Chapter 16, "Maintaining and Tracking Your Web Site."
E-mail scottz@sd.znet.com.
This is a freeware PERL script that will analyze the log files from various World Wide Web servers and produce useful summaries, including lists of the most used documents and the most active users and sites. We discuss it in detail in Chapter 21. For
further information, contact Richard Graessler at rickg@pobox.com.
Here is one cool Web program you have certainly heard about, but unfortunately we could not obtain it for the CD.
Netscape is by far the most popular Web browser. This popularity comes from the fact that Netscape has frequently updated its software and helped define the leading edge of HTML. Netscape's Web browser has always handled the HTML extensions very well,
and its popularity has encouraged an increasing number of webmasters to incorporate the Netscape extensions into the design of their Web pages. HTML 3.0 is largely defined by Netscape extensions. Contact http://www.netscape.com/.
If you are not happy with any of software mentioned here, there is a wide variety of other products available on the Internet. In some cases, you can download immediately with your Web browser or FTP client.
Here are a few Web pages with good information to get you started searching for Internet software available.
To receive biweekly news about Windows 95 via e-mail, subscribe to Microsoft's WinNews. To subscribe to the newsletter, send e-mail to news@microsoft.nwnet.com with the
words SUBSCRIBE WINNEWS as the only text in your message.
Chapter 3 discusses the details about connecting to the Internet. After you make the connection, the rest of the book is all about how to configure and take advantage of the software we mentioned in this chapter.