iConductor is designed to develop and host distributed applications, bringing Apache server into a more competitive stance in world of Internet business applications hosting. Using a system of extensible “tags” and a robust ontology – a hierarchical structuring of knowledge using subcategories or essential definitions to help systems to communicate – iConductor manipulates activities of other software components in much same way a conductor controls activities of members of an orchestra. “The conductor of an orchestra may not know how to play saxophone,” offered James Vincent, president of Farpointer Technologies, company that developed iConductor, “but conductor knows how and when to activate saxophone player according to a predetermined score. iConductor acts in much same way, reaching out to other programs and systems in order to achieve a predetermined goal.”

“Competitive systems can cost $600,000 or more,” according to Vincent. However, iConductor is currently available on a promotional basis for $1,295 including a powerful core set of tags.

A free trial version of iConductor and an online demonstration are available at www.i-conductor.com.

After creating files you plan on using as your includes, you'll need to open your web pages and insert a line of code where you want SSI information to show up in your documents.

The code looks like this:

If your includes are located at root level on your web server your path would look like this: That's it. Pretty simple, really. After you get hang of it you'll wish you would have learned about them years ago. They really do make global updating a snap.

Here are a couple of good sites to learn more about SSI:

Big Nose Bird- http://www.bignosebird.com/ssi.shtml

CGI Resource- http://cgi.resourceindex.com/Documentation/Server_Side_Includes/

New Breed Software http://www.sonic.net/~nbs/unix/www/ssi/

Web Reference http://www.webreference.com/programming/ssi/intro/

Before you start implementing SSI you need to ask your web host if they support them (most do), and also if they will need to be named with any special extensions. Some servers may require you to give them specific extensions like .asp (if it's NT) or .shtml (for many Unix servers). Although majority won't, it's always better to ask first. Better safe then sorry.

By designing your website with server side includes you'll save yourself a ton of headaches when it comes time to updating your site. SSI is a Webmaster's best friend, so I suggest you spend some time getting acquainted.