by: Rich Hamilton

Choosing right web server will be one of most important decisions you will ever make with your online business. Why? Because web server you choose will literally make or break your online business.

Today I am going to talk about two types of servers, one is Virtual Web Hosting and other is Virtual Private Servers.

Over last couple of years Virtual Web Hosting has been only way to go when choosing a web server. One of reasons that Virtual Web Hosting became so popular was because they supported necessary files and allowed you to have more freedom than other conventional web hosts. But now you can have more freedom than ever before with Virtual Private Servers. Moreover, Virtual Private Servers should not be confused with Virtual Hosts, because they are completely different.

Before I go any further I must explain what difference is between a Virtual Host and a Virtual Private Server, so that you can fully understand. In this article I will also go over advantages and disadvantages of both types of servers, to help you decide which is right for you and your business. Let's get started with Virtual Hosting.

Virtual Hosting

Virtual Hosting is also known as Shared Web Hosting, where you are sharing physical server and a single set of software applications with other users. Virtual Hosting has been extremely popular in past for it's fast deployment, strong resources, and most importantly for having a very reasonable price. Another advantage to Virtual Hosting is that you have a powerful, reliable, and professionally managed server without having to have advanced technical skills, making it ideal for an individual, small business, or even a beginner webmaster.

The disadvantage of Virtual Hosting is that you are sharing server with other users, which are configured and controlled by an administrator, not you. So basically you have your hands tied behind your back, because you have to contact administrator everytime you have to adjust or change your configuration settings. Even if you managed to get a hold of administrator, they may not fulfill your request. It's up to them, they are administrator. If you were administrator you wouldn't have these limitations and would have full control.

Virtual Private Servers

What is CGI ?

Common Gateway Interface or CGI is a program that can interact with an html form on your web site, and processes results on your server using a cgi script. The result generated is a dynamic web page. The cgi script is written in a language called PERL ("practical extraction and reporting language").

Uses of CGI scripts

CGI scripts are most commonly used for creating user interaction with a html form on your web site. Other uses include: autoresponders, shopping carts, counters, mailing list managers, ad management, surveys, polls, discussion boards, content management, calendars and click tracking.

There are 100s of free cgi scripts that can be found on Net. Just do a search on Google for "free cgi scripts" or visit resources at end of this article.

We will create an html email form to collect name, email address and comments of subscribers using a secure cgi formmail script. An automatic confirmation will be sent and results of email form will be passed on to your email address.

Steps to installing your own cgi script

1. Check that your web host supports CGI - your web host will have a cgi-bin folder installed on server. The cgi-bin is a special directory in server where all files which require security are kept. This is where you will upload your cgi script once it has been modified.

2. Download cgi script - this is a secure cgi formmail script. Spammers can't access and harvest your email address from this script.

http://nms-cgi.sourceforge.net/formmail.zip

3. Read documentation that comes with script - this will give you a thorough understanding what changes you need to make to have it work correctly with your web site and server. It will also provide you with some examples.

Editing your script

4. Open and edit your cgi script using notepad (don't use an html editor as this can create errors).

5. Remove html tags from script (at top and bottom).

6. Change path to perl to: #!/usr/bin/perl -wT (this is first line of script to be edited).

7. The section of cgi script shown below, are other minimum fields to fill out in script (replace fields in script you downloaded with changed fields in script below).