AMCHO Computer Services Ltd, Tamar Way, Gunnislake, Cornwall, PL18 9DH, England.
> What is a Web Page (is it a single document, script)
A web page is a single document that can be viewed by a person accessing the internet. It is normally a simple
text file with HTML codes telling your browser software how to display the page.
> What is a Web Site (if this contains multiple pages is there a limit).
A web site at its simplest is a collection of web pages that are related in some way - normally they are controlled
and belong to a single person or organisation. You can have any number of pages in a web site, but your site hosting
charges will increase with the amount of disk space that you use. Normally a website will have a unique domain
name (in my case it is www.amcho.com), and will receive email adressed to that domain (so email addressed to anything@amcho.com
will be sent to me).
> What services do you provide? How much?
You may request our full current pricelist at any time by sending a blank email to pricesUK@amcho.com or pricesUS@amcho.com
but to summarise:
£30 $50 Web Page Creation( per page) from £150 $200 Web Site Creation and Hosting per year (including domain name registration fees.)
> What access do I have to this
> site other that the normal access of anyone browsing the net.
The owner of a web site will normally use an FTP program to update the web site - this will allow the creation, updating and deletion of individual web pages. Access is controlled via a username and password.
> I may be interested in starting a site but am new to this ......
At the risk of losing a potential client - if you are not in a hurry and want to do the work yourself take
a look at the page at www.amcho.com/web_w004.htm where you
will find some useful links and tips on how to set up a web site yourself.
| > How do I obtain an FTP program (is it free, or am I required to purchase one). There are quite a few ftp programs on the market - many of them are free for personal use . Look at WS_FTP from Ipswitch, Inc. Probably also worth doing a search to see what else is available. Click here to download an evaluation version of WS_FTP Pro. |
 |
The ftp program will also transfer binary files (pictures). For example websetup.htm is a text file which contains code that tells the browser what to display and where - it will also contain the text to be displayed. If any pictures were to be displayed the html code would contain the file name, say picture.gif of the binary file that contains the picture.
> What is the normal hard disk allowance for a Web Site, what are the costs for exceeding this limit.
> In addition what is the average web page size (I appreciate this is very ambiguous).
Our basic web site includes 10MB storage and bandwidth of 100MB per day, if these limits are exceeded you will
be billed an additional £5 per year per extra MB of storage used, and/or £25 per year per 10MB extra
daily bandwidth used.
Note: the 10MB storage should be OK for well over 100 web pages. while the bandwidth should allow well over one
thousand page accesses per day.
> On your price list - What is the Internet Consultancy fee you itemised.
This is an optional extra. Our basic charging structure is based on an hourly charge for any work requested
that is not already priced - for example if a
client wants to spend a whole day discussing and working out details of his internet strategy this would be charged
at £300 per day plus expenses.
>My intention is to setup multiple companies, can this be maintained on a single site or will I require multiple
sites.
Yes - multiple domains(companies) can be mainained on a single site as separate subdirectories.
> Credit Cards: If I can process credit cards, is it possible for individuals to send me the card No. etc.
and to process them externally to the Internet>
It is possible to accept credit card payments over the internet. You should use a secure server to accept the
credit card number over the internet. It is also possible to automatically check the credit card numbers and process
the payment automatically.
If sending the customers credit card number by email remember to encript the number before sending it
Most people worry about the client being defrauded when using the internet - the real risk is to the merchant -Check
the page on fraud at http://www.amcho.com/vp026.htm
> The access to my Web Site to update the site etc. can this be performed over the internet or is it direct
to the server hosting the site.
Yes and Yes.
I update my web site using FTP:
I first dial into my usual internet service provider(compuserve).
Then log into the web site via the ftp program and update the files as required.
> Is it possible to reroute the messages received on a Web Site to a different message box.
Yes - for example I could redirect all email messages addressed to Fredl@amcho.com to be sent to (say) amcho@clara.net
> I don't understand the extra bandwidth charge, please explain.
This is a charge on server usage - for example if a surfer accesses a page that is 1kB of text and two images
each of 10kb this would count as 21kB towards that days bandwidth allowance. So such a page could be accesses over
a thousand times each day before exceeding the daily allowance.
> Why do you have bandwidth limits while others donot?
Our charges are based on the cost of providing the service: if no charge is made for bandwidth customers with
lower usage would be subsidising those with higher usage.
> On the basic site can you still identify the number of people visiting the site.
Yes. With a basic account, server log files are dumped into a private directory on your site on a daily basis.
These log files indicate each page accessed, and the referring page: A visitor id is also provided but it is just
a numeric reference to a domain. The referring page is useful - it tells you what search engine is sending you
traffic and also you get an indication of the actual search keywords used.
With the advanced account, in addition to providing the raw logs as described above we can do an analysis of the
logs to provide summary information of activity on a weekly or monthly basis also with the advanced account an
automatic email message can be generated to send you each days logs.
You may of course upgrade from the basic account to the advanced account at any time in the future by just paying
the difference.
> What is the difference between a .com site and a co.uk site.
.com is a commercial organisation (international or US based)
.co.uk is a commercial organisation in the UK
Now that domain registrations are reasonably cheap we recommend that you register the .com domain
and also the .co.uk domain if you are in the UK,
> To clarify I could register a site that would not have your company name in the address.
If you registed under the .com or .co.uk you can have anything you like if it is not already taken.
> If I update the pages / site will the search engines be able to read the new information or will I have
to reregister.
Most search engines send out spiders to check all the sites they are aware of - but this can sometimes take
a long time - best to tell them of any new/changed pages. Also I have noticed that traffic seems to increase after
notifying a search engine of a change.
> What about photographs on the site, how are these stored, can I still have 100 pages with pictures.
Photographs would normally be stored as jpg or gif files. When using photographs you need to consider picture
quality, picture size and download time - any picture greater than say 50kB is too large unless the surfer has
a very good reason to wait - you can usually make the wait seem shorter by giving him some text to read while he
is waiting.
Pictures will take up much more space than text so the 100 pages example may be being pushed if you are using a
lot of large, photographic quality pictures.
> How long from me asking for a site would it be on the internet
Allow two weeks - say a week for the registration process then another week for updating the Internet Domain
Name servers with the web site address.
> If I start of with a basic site can this be upgraded at a later date keeping the same address.
Yes. You can upgrade at any time from the basic to the advanced web site by just paying the difference- your
site address would stay unchanged. In fact so long as the domain name registration fees are paid you can move to
another hosting service by just informing the registration authorities of the new server address - the web site
address of www.yourname.com or www.yourname.co.uk will stay the same
>The Bandwidth consideration, when the site is updated is this taken as part of daily allowance
Yes - But this should be insignificant as normally a page would be updated occasionally when the information
changes while it would be viewed many times for each update.
> When the site is updated how do you notify the search engines, is there a separate program for performing
this, is this a service you perform on request.
Search engines should be updated whenever a web site changes to keep the search engines upto date and maintain
traffic. Most search engines have spiders that check sites they know of on a regular basis but there is usually
a delay between visits. Search Engines can be updated on an individual basis - or by using one of the submission
programs such as Submit_it. For further details please see my page at websetup.html
For a small fee we could do the submission for you if required.
> To further my understanding, is an internet site a collection of directories on a computer with the site
address referring to this directory structure.
Yes.
My internet presence provider is located in the states - they run some 30 servers and take care of the day to day
running of the systems. Each of the servers will have a number of accounts located on it. Each account will have
a number of directories, some of which will be private - for holding email messages server logs cgi scripts
etc, while other directories will be visible to everyone - each of these will normally equate to a website.