When someone wants to create a new domain, he or she has to do two things:
Find a name server for the domain name to live on.
Register the domain name.
Technically, there does not need to be a machine in the domain -- there just needs to be a name server that can handle the requests for the domain name.
There are two ways to get a name server for a domain:
You can create and administer it yourself.
You can pay an ISP or hosting company to handle it for you.
Most larger companies have their own domain name servers. Most smaller companies pay someone.
The history of HowStuffWorks is typical. When howstuffworks.com was first created, it began as a parked domain. This domain lived with a company called www.webhosting.com. Webhosting.com maintained the name server and also maintained a machine that created the single "under construction" page for the domain.
To create a domain, you fill out a form with a company that does domain name registration (examples: register.com, verio.com, networksolutions.com). They create an "under construction page," create an entry in their name server, and submit the form's data into the whois database. Twice a day, the COM, ORG, NET, etc. name servers get updates with the newest IP address information. At that point, a domain exists and people can go see the "under construction" page.
HowStuffWorks then started publishing content under the domain www.howstuffworks.com. We set up a hosting account with Tabnet (now part of Verio, Inc.), and Tabnet ran the DNS for HowStuffWorks as well as the machine that hosted the HowStuffWorks Web pages. This type of machine is called a virtual Web hosting machine and is capable of hosting multiple domains simultaneously. Five-hundred or so different domains all shared the same processor.
As HowStuffWorks became more popular, it outgrew the virtual hosting machine and needed its own server. At that point, we started maintaining our own machines dedicated to HowStuffWorks, and began administering our own DNS. We currently have four servers:
AUTH-NS1.HOWSTUFFWORKS.COM 70.42.150.19
AUTH-NS2.HOWSTUFFWORKS.COM 70.42.150.20
AUTH-NS3.HOWSTUFFWORKS.COM 70.42.251.19
AUTH-NS4.HOWSTUFFWORKS.COM 70.42.251.20
Our primary DNS is auth-ns1.howstuffworks.com. Any changes we make to it propagate automatically to the secondary, which is also maintained by our ISP.
All of these machines run name server software called BIND. BIND knows about all of the machines in our domain through a text file on the main server that looks like this:
@ NS auth-ns1.howstuffworks.com.
@ NS auth-ns2.howstuffworks.com.
@ MX 10 mail
mail A 209.170.137.42
vip1 A 216.183.103.150
www CNAME vip1
Decoding this file from the top, you can see that:
The first two lines point to the primary and secondary name servers.
The next line is called the MX record. When you send e-mail to anyone at howstuffworks.com, the piece of software sending the e-mail contacts the name server to get the MX record so it knows where the SMTP server for HowStuffWorks is (see How E-mail Works for details). Many larger systems have multiple machines handling incoming e-mail, and therefore multiple MX records.
The next line points to the machine that will handle a request to mail.howstuffworks.com.
The next line points to the IP address that will handle a request to oak.howstuffworks.com.
The next line points to the IP address that will handle a request to howstuffworks.com (no host name).
You can see from this file that there are several physical machines at separate IP addresses that make up the HowStuffWorks server infrastructure. There are aliases for hosts like mail and www. There can be aliases for anything. For example, there could be an entry in this file for scoobydoo.howstuffworks.com, and it could point to the physical machine called walnut. There could be an alias for yahoo.howstuffworks.com, and it could point to yahoo. There really is no limit to it. We could also create multiple name servers and segment our domain.
As you can see from this description, DNS is a rather amazing distributed database. It handles billions of requests for billions of names every day through a network of millions of name servers administered by millions of people. Every time you send an e-mail message or view a URL, you are making requests to multiple name servers scattered all over the globe. What's amazing is that the process is usually completely invisible and extremely reliable!
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Friday, December 11, 2009
How Domain Name Servers Work
If you spend any time on the Internet sending e-mail or browsing the Web, then you use domain name servers without even realizing it. Domain name servers, or DNS, are an incredibly important but completely hidden part of the Internet, and they are fascinating. The DNS system forms one of the largest and most active distributed databases on the planet. Without DNS, the Internet would shut down very quickly.
When you use the Web or send an e-mail message, you use a domain name to do it. For example, the URL "http://www.howstuffworks.com" contains the domain name howstuffworks.com. So does the e-mail address "iknow@howstuffworks.com."
Human-readable names like "howstuffworks.com" are easy for people to remember, but they don't do machines any good. All of the machines use names called IP addresses to refer to one another. For example, the machine that humans refer to as "www.howstuffworks.com" has the IP address 70.42.251.42. Every time you use a domain name, you use the Internet's domain name servers (DNS) to translate the human-readable domain name into the machine-readable IP address. During a day of browsing and e-mailing, you might access the domain name servers hundreds of times!
In this article, we'll take a look at the DNS system so you can understand how it works and appreciate its amazing capabilities
DNS Servers and IP Addresses
Domain name servers translate domain names to IP addresses. That sounds like a simple task, and it would be -- except for five things:
There are billions of IP addresses currently in use, and most machines have a human-readable name as well.
There are many billions of DNS requests made every day. A single person can easily make a hundred or more DNS requests a day, and there are hundreds of millions of people and machines using the Internet daily.
Domain names and IP addresses change daily.
New domain names get created daily.
Millions of people do the work to change and add domain names and IP addresses every day.
The DNS system is a database, and no other database on the planet gets this many requests. No other database on the planet has millions of people changing it every day, either. That is what makes the DNS system so unique.
IP Addresses
To keep all of the machines on the Internet straight, each machine is assigned a unique address called an IP address. IP stands for Internet protocol, and these addresses are 32-bit numbers normally expressed as four "octets" in a "dotted decimal number." A typical IP address looks like this:
70.42.251.42
The four numbers in an IP address are called octets because they can have values between 0 and 255 (28 possibilities per octet).
Every machine on the Internet has its own IP address. A server has a static IP address that does not change very often. A home machine that is dialing up through a modem often has an IP address that is assigned by the ISP when you dial in. That IP address is unique for your session and may be different the next time you dial in. In this way, an ISP only needs one IP address for each modem it supports, rather than for every customer.
If you are working on a Windows machine, you can view your current IP address with the command WINIPCFG.EXE (IPCONFIG.EXE for Windows 2000/XP). On a UNIX machine, type nslookup along with a machine name (such as "nslookup www.howstuffworks.com") to display the IP address of the machine (use the command hostname to learn the name of your machine).
For more information on IP addresses, see IANA.
As far as the Internet's machines are concerned, an IP address is all that you need to talk to a server. For example, you can type in your browser the URL http://70.42.251.42 and you will arrive at the machine that contains the Web server for HowStuffWorks. Domain names are strictly a human convenience.
Domain Names
If we had to remember the IP addresses of all of the Web sites we visit every day, we would all go nuts. Human beings just are not that good at remembering strings of numbers. We are good at remembering words, however, and that is where domain names come in. You probably have hundreds of domain names stored in your head. For example:
www.howstuffworks.com - a typical name
www.yahoo.com - the world's best-known name
www.mit.edu - a popular EDU name
encarta.msn.com - a Web server that does not start with www
www.bbc.co.uk - a name using four parts rather than three
ftp.microsoft.com - an FTP server rather than a Web server
The COM, EDU and UK portions of these domain names are called the top-level domain or first-level domain. There are several hundred top-level domain names, including COM, EDU, GOV, MIL, NET, ORG and INT, as well as unique two-letter combinations for every country.
Within every top-level domain there is a huge list of second-level domains. For example, in the COM first-level domain, you've got:
howstuffworks
yahoo
msn
microsoft
plus millions of others...
Every name in the COM top-level domain must be unique, but there can be duplication across domains. For example, howstuffworks.com and howstuffworks.org are completely different machines.
In the case of bbc.co.uk, it is a third-level domain. Up to 127 levels are possible, although more than four is rare.
The left-most word, such as www or encarta, is the host name. It specifies the name of a specific machine (with a specific IP address) in a domain. A given domain can potentially contain millions of host names as long as they are all unique within that domain.
Because all of the names in a given domain need to be unique, there has to be a single entity that controls the list and makes sure no duplicates arise. For example, the COM domain cannot contain any duplicate names, and a company called Network Solutions is in charge of maintaining this list. When you register a domain name, it goes through one of several dozen registrars who work with Network Solutions to add names to the list. Network Solutions, in turn, keeps a central database known as the whois database that contains information about the owner and name servers for each domain. If you go to the whois form, you can find information about any domain currently in existence.
While it is important to have a central authority keeping track of the database of names in the COM (and other) top-level domain, you would not want to centralize the database of all of the information in the COM domain. For example, Microsoft has hundreds of thousands of IP addresses and host names. Microsoft wants to maintain its own domain name server for the microsoft.com domain. Similarly, Great Britain probably wants to administrate the uk top-level domain, and Australia probably wants to administrate the au domain, and so on. For this reason, the DNS system is a distributed database. Microsoft is completely responsible for dealing with the name server for microsoft.com -- it maintains the machines that implement its part of the DNS system, and Microsoft can change the database for its domain whenever it wants to because it owns its domain name servers.
Every domain has a domain name server somewhere that handles its requests, and there is a person maintaining the records in that DNS. This is one of the most amazing parts of the DNS system -- it is completely distributed throughout the world on millions of machines administered by millions of people, yet it behaves like a single, integrated database!
When you use the Web or send an e-mail message, you use a domain name to do it. For example, the URL "http://www.howstuffworks.com" contains the domain name howstuffworks.com. So does the e-mail address "iknow@howstuffworks.com."
Human-readable names like "howstuffworks.com" are easy for people to remember, but they don't do machines any good. All of the machines use names called IP addresses to refer to one another. For example, the machine that humans refer to as "www.howstuffworks.com" has the IP address 70.42.251.42. Every time you use a domain name, you use the Internet's domain name servers (DNS) to translate the human-readable domain name into the machine-readable IP address. During a day of browsing and e-mailing, you might access the domain name servers hundreds of times!
In this article, we'll take a look at the DNS system so you can understand how it works and appreciate its amazing capabilities
DNS Servers and IP Addresses
Domain name servers translate domain names to IP addresses. That sounds like a simple task, and it would be -- except for five things:
There are billions of IP addresses currently in use, and most machines have a human-readable name as well.
There are many billions of DNS requests made every day. A single person can easily make a hundred or more DNS requests a day, and there are hundreds of millions of people and machines using the Internet daily.
Domain names and IP addresses change daily.
New domain names get created daily.
Millions of people do the work to change and add domain names and IP addresses every day.
The DNS system is a database, and no other database on the planet gets this many requests. No other database on the planet has millions of people changing it every day, either. That is what makes the DNS system so unique.
IP Addresses
To keep all of the machines on the Internet straight, each machine is assigned a unique address called an IP address. IP stands for Internet protocol, and these addresses are 32-bit numbers normally expressed as four "octets" in a "dotted decimal number." A typical IP address looks like this:
70.42.251.42
The four numbers in an IP address are called octets because they can have values between 0 and 255 (28 possibilities per octet).
Every machine on the Internet has its own IP address. A server has a static IP address that does not change very often. A home machine that is dialing up through a modem often has an IP address that is assigned by the ISP when you dial in. That IP address is unique for your session and may be different the next time you dial in. In this way, an ISP only needs one IP address for each modem it supports, rather than for every customer.
If you are working on a Windows machine, you can view your current IP address with the command WINIPCFG.EXE (IPCONFIG.EXE for Windows 2000/XP). On a UNIX machine, type nslookup along with a machine name (such as "nslookup www.howstuffworks.com") to display the IP address of the machine (use the command hostname to learn the name of your machine).
For more information on IP addresses, see IANA.
As far as the Internet's machines are concerned, an IP address is all that you need to talk to a server. For example, you can type in your browser the URL http://70.42.251.42 and you will arrive at the machine that contains the Web server for HowStuffWorks. Domain names are strictly a human convenience.
Domain Names
If we had to remember the IP addresses of all of the Web sites we visit every day, we would all go nuts. Human beings just are not that good at remembering strings of numbers. We are good at remembering words, however, and that is where domain names come in. You probably have hundreds of domain names stored in your head. For example:
www.howstuffworks.com - a typical name
www.yahoo.com - the world's best-known name
www.mit.edu - a popular EDU name
encarta.msn.com - a Web server that does not start with www
www.bbc.co.uk - a name using four parts rather than three
ftp.microsoft.com - an FTP server rather than a Web server
The COM, EDU and UK portions of these domain names are called the top-level domain or first-level domain. There are several hundred top-level domain names, including COM, EDU, GOV, MIL, NET, ORG and INT, as well as unique two-letter combinations for every country.
Within every top-level domain there is a huge list of second-level domains. For example, in the COM first-level domain, you've got:
howstuffworks
yahoo
msn
microsoft
plus millions of others...
Every name in the COM top-level domain must be unique, but there can be duplication across domains. For example, howstuffworks.com and howstuffworks.org are completely different machines.
In the case of bbc.co.uk, it is a third-level domain. Up to 127 levels are possible, although more than four is rare.
The left-most word, such as www or encarta, is the host name. It specifies the name of a specific machine (with a specific IP address) in a domain. A given domain can potentially contain millions of host names as long as they are all unique within that domain.
Because all of the names in a given domain need to be unique, there has to be a single entity that controls the list and makes sure no duplicates arise. For example, the COM domain cannot contain any duplicate names, and a company called Network Solutions is in charge of maintaining this list. When you register a domain name, it goes through one of several dozen registrars who work with Network Solutions to add names to the list. Network Solutions, in turn, keeps a central database known as the whois database that contains information about the owner and name servers for each domain. If you go to the whois form, you can find information about any domain currently in existence.
While it is important to have a central authority keeping track of the database of names in the COM (and other) top-level domain, you would not want to centralize the database of all of the information in the COM domain. For example, Microsoft has hundreds of thousands of IP addresses and host names. Microsoft wants to maintain its own domain name server for the microsoft.com domain. Similarly, Great Britain probably wants to administrate the uk top-level domain, and Australia probably wants to administrate the au domain, and so on. For this reason, the DNS system is a distributed database. Microsoft is completely responsible for dealing with the name server for microsoft.com -- it maintains the machines that implement its part of the DNS system, and Microsoft can change the database for its domain whenever it wants to because it owns its domain name servers.
Every domain has a domain name server somewhere that handles its requests, and there is a person maintaining the records in that DNS. This is one of the most amazing parts of the DNS system -- it is completely distributed throughout the world on millions of machines administered by millions of people, yet it behaves like a single, integrated database!
Use Dynamic DNS to host websites from home
This article is primarily aimed at people who need to make their local development environment visible to the Internet. If you are interested in developing Facebook applications your ears should be perking up at this point. If you are interested in hosting your own website from home, there are more things to be considered than are covered here, so you should make sure and read some of the more authoritative articles on the topic.
The Facebook dilemma
Most Drupal developers use local copies of Apache, MySQL and PHP to develop their sites on their desktop or laptop machines. They then upload Drupal files and database dumps to a hosted web server when it is time for the site to go live. The model of working on a local site is great and saves a lot of development time because you can use good tools like Komodo, and you don't get bogged down by network lag.
Testing webservices is usually not a problem for the local installation because the vast majority of all Drupal sites are web service consumers. They access APIs from Amazon, Google, EBay, PayPal, Digg and Twitter using any number of HTTP based protocols. In almost every case the Drupal site instigates the web service transaction. Your local website knows how to find Amazon's services, so initiating the exchange isn't a problem.
This last detail is important because it is exactly where things change with Facebook. Facebook and its newly released API represents a new generation of web services in that Facebook is as much a web service consumer as it is a provider. Whereas Amazon's services sit and wait politely for your site to interface with them, Facebook is usually the initiator of any interaction between Facebook and your Drupal site.
Because your Drupal site must be available to Facebook during the entire development cycle of a Facebook application, your localhost environment will be inadequate unless you take some extra steps. The extra steps in this case are to use a service called Dynamic DNS to map a host name to your local development environment, and that is what I'm now going to show how to do.
The rest of this article assumes that you have a local instance of Apache (or some other web server) running on localhost:80. See this Lullabot article for instructions on setting up your local Drupal development environment if this is not the case.
What is Dynamic DNS and how do I get some?
Dynamic DNS is a service that keeps track of the IP address of your local machine and routes traffic for a particular host name to that IP address. This is useful when your internet service provider (ISP) assigns you a new IP address every time you make an Internet connection.
Normally, you map a domain, example.com, to an IP address like 140.211.166.6. This mapping then gets disseminated around the Internet and cached in a myriad DNS servers. The caching and disseminating is great when the mapping stays the same for a long time because it makes lookups fast and distributed. This feature of the system makes changing the mapping a lengthy process because that distributed cache needs to get updated. This can take 20 minutes to two days... not exactly the agility that you'd need if your IP changes once a day or more.
Dynamic DNS services consist of two parts. First, they provide normal DNS service for the host name in question. The difference is that the maximum caching time is set to a very low interval, such as 60 seconds. This prevents the DNS information from being cached in any other DNS servers and forces every lookup to be answered by the primary DNS server itself.
Second, the machine with the variable IP address needs a mechanism for telling the Dynamic DNS service provider what its current IP address is. This is done either by configuring your router to provide the service or by installing a software client on your computer to ping the DNS provider any time your IP changes.
Thus the first step in getting a Dynamic DNS hostname set up is to find a service provider. I chose DynDNS and will use them for the rest of demonstration. There are many other services available, however.
Setting up a DynDNS account
Getting an acount from DynDNS.com is easy. Make sure to remember your password (or if you generate it like I do, write it down), because you will need it later when configuring the router or the software updater. Once you've logged in to DynDNS.com using your new credentials, click New DynDNS Host to pick your hostname. While it is possible to register a domain and have that be managed by DynDNS, I found it more convenient to use one of the hostnames that they make available to you. After all, this is just to simplify my development process, not to host a real website from my laptop. Figure I shows how I configured the host. The IP address turns out to be irrelevant on this form because it is the task of the router or updater to keep DynDNS informed of this number.
The Facebook dilemma
Most Drupal developers use local copies of Apache, MySQL and PHP to develop their sites on their desktop or laptop machines. They then upload Drupal files and database dumps to a hosted web server when it is time for the site to go live. The model of working on a local site is great and saves a lot of development time because you can use good tools like Komodo, and you don't get bogged down by network lag.
Testing webservices is usually not a problem for the local installation because the vast majority of all Drupal sites are web service consumers. They access APIs from Amazon, Google, EBay, PayPal, Digg and Twitter using any number of HTTP based protocols. In almost every case the Drupal site instigates the web service transaction. Your local website knows how to find Amazon's services, so initiating the exchange isn't a problem.
This last detail is important because it is exactly where things change with Facebook. Facebook and its newly released API represents a new generation of web services in that Facebook is as much a web service consumer as it is a provider. Whereas Amazon's services sit and wait politely for your site to interface with them, Facebook is usually the initiator of any interaction between Facebook and your Drupal site.
Because your Drupal site must be available to Facebook during the entire development cycle of a Facebook application, your localhost environment will be inadequate unless you take some extra steps. The extra steps in this case are to use a service called Dynamic DNS to map a host name to your local development environment, and that is what I'm now going to show how to do.
The rest of this article assumes that you have a local instance of Apache (or some other web server) running on localhost:80. See this Lullabot article for instructions on setting up your local Drupal development environment if this is not the case.
What is Dynamic DNS and how do I get some?
Dynamic DNS is a service that keeps track of the IP address of your local machine and routes traffic for a particular host name to that IP address. This is useful when your internet service provider (ISP) assigns you a new IP address every time you make an Internet connection.
Normally, you map a domain, example.com, to an IP address like 140.211.166.6. This mapping then gets disseminated around the Internet and cached in a myriad DNS servers. The caching and disseminating is great when the mapping stays the same for a long time because it makes lookups fast and distributed. This feature of the system makes changing the mapping a lengthy process because that distributed cache needs to get updated. This can take 20 minutes to two days... not exactly the agility that you'd need if your IP changes once a day or more.
Dynamic DNS services consist of two parts. First, they provide normal DNS service for the host name in question. The difference is that the maximum caching time is set to a very low interval, such as 60 seconds. This prevents the DNS information from being cached in any other DNS servers and forces every lookup to be answered by the primary DNS server itself.
Second, the machine with the variable IP address needs a mechanism for telling the Dynamic DNS service provider what its current IP address is. This is done either by configuring your router to provide the service or by installing a software client on your computer to ping the DNS provider any time your IP changes.
Thus the first step in getting a Dynamic DNS hostname set up is to find a service provider. I chose DynDNS and will use them for the rest of demonstration. There are many other services available, however.
Setting up a DynDNS account
Getting an acount from DynDNS.com is easy. Make sure to remember your password (or if you generate it like I do, write it down), because you will need it later when configuring the router or the software updater. Once you've logged in to DynDNS.com using your new credentials, click New DynDNS Host to pick your hostname. While it is possible to register a domain and have that be managed by DynDNS, I found it more convenient to use one of the hostnames that they make available to you. After all, this is just to simplify my development process, not to host a real website from my laptop. Figure I shows how I configured the host. The IP address turns out to be irrelevant on this form because it is the task of the router or updater to keep DynDNS informed of this number.
Host A Web Server on Your Home PC
If you want to make small site of your own and don’t want to pay for hosting prices, this article and exactly tell you how to do it.I had always wondered if I can host my blog or a small site on my laptop but well looking at traffic and security I can’t.
But if you want to make a website for friends and family this can be a good solution for u . You don’t have to pay any money for this. A friend was going through some magazine ( I am not sure which one ) and he told me about a software that really can help you hosting a web site on your own pc.I gave it a try and its really good
Update : Also check out Opera Unite, advanced option to create a web server on home pc
.A small analysis and experience of this software in just 6 steps and its tested in Windows Xp, Vista you need to check
Step 1: Download and Run The Software
Download the HFS or Http file server.It is free and open source and above all that its a standalone executable that requires no installation.
When you run HFS you might be asked whether or not allow hfs.exe to connect to Internet.Unblock it.
But if you have 3rd party firewall you will have to configure it accordingly.
Step 2: Configure the port
By default HFS uses port 80.if you your firewall is blocking port 80, set HFS to some other port( for example to 8025 or which ever is free, as a precaution keep it above 1024 which is used my operating system itself.)
To change the port number, click on Port Number menu and enter a new one.
Also, if you are behind a router or firewall, you may in some rare cases, need to set up port forwarding. For all the help required for visit portfrward
Port-forward can help you out to set up port forwarding.There you can choose the router type and choose a program you want to set up port forwarding for, which is in our case is HFS.
Step 3: Test HFS
Now you need to test your settings before you start.Click the menu in HFS and choose self test.If the test completes successfully, your settings are correct and you are ready for next step, To point your web browser to your ip address.
Step 4: Register A domain
For setting up a web site, you need to first assign it a domain name.Domain name are aother name for a computer ip address.For this, you will need to a DNS service running on your computer which can be mapped to particular ip address.
Create a Create a new user at No-IP account.
Login to the site with the account you created.On the left-sidebar click on “Hosts/Redirects”
Click on Add.In the page that opens enter domain name of your choice e.g “myfamilypics” and It will create a sub-domain on its own server that will work on your ip.
Your IP is recorded when you add the domain name.If you ISP is blocking port 80, you can choose a redirect given under same page.
Click on “Create host” and you are ready to roll.
Access the same from your own browser.You can add your file In HFS and access the same.
Trust me I have done it and it works.But i cant give the link of my url ( as it is hosted on my computer) here keeping in mind the security issues which I am not aware of. SO you also should share it among your friends.
Step 5. Install The dynamic update Client
Skip this step if yo have a static ip.If you don’t, you will need a client software to take care of of your changing ip address.
Download the No-Ip.com Dynamic DNS update client software.
Install it and provide your login details.This program will sit in the system tray and automatically update your NoIp account when your external ip changes.
Step 6: Launch Your Website
You can now decide what page will appear when someone access your site, like the default page.To change the default page,
Open HFS and click on “You are in Easy Mode ” to turn it to advance mode.
Right click on little house icon on VFS and click on “Bind Root to Real Folder”.
Now you can add files and folder here which you want to make available in your website.
Next is when your site is ready send the address which you created in NO-IP or step 4 to all your friends.
You can even see what others are viewing in advanced mode of hfs
This helped me a lot to understand how things work when my blog is hosted and how do my hosting service works.This was a Small example on low scale basis for you to try and for people who want to run there host on there own system.Do tell me your experience when you try it.I will be glad.
But if you want to make a website for friends and family this can be a good solution for u . You don’t have to pay any money for this. A friend was going through some magazine ( I am not sure which one ) and he told me about a software that really can help you hosting a web site on your own pc.I gave it a try and its really good
Update : Also check out Opera Unite, advanced option to create a web server on home pc
.A small analysis and experience of this software in just 6 steps and its tested in Windows Xp, Vista you need to check
Step 1: Download and Run The Software
Download the HFS or Http file server.It is free and open source and above all that its a standalone executable that requires no installation.
When you run HFS you might be asked whether or not allow hfs.exe to connect to Internet.Unblock it.
But if you have 3rd party firewall you will have to configure it accordingly.
Step 2: Configure the port
By default HFS uses port 80.if you your firewall is blocking port 80, set HFS to some other port( for example to 8025 or which ever is free, as a precaution keep it above 1024 which is used my operating system itself.)
To change the port number, click on Port Number menu and enter a new one.
Also, if you are behind a router or firewall, you may in some rare cases, need to set up port forwarding. For all the help required for visit portfrward
Port-forward can help you out to set up port forwarding.There you can choose the router type and choose a program you want to set up port forwarding for, which is in our case is HFS.
Step 3: Test HFS
Now you need to test your settings before you start.Click the menu in HFS and choose self test.If the test completes successfully, your settings are correct and you are ready for next step, To point your web browser to your ip address.
Step 4: Register A domain
For setting up a web site, you need to first assign it a domain name.Domain name are aother name for a computer ip address.For this, you will need to a DNS service running on your computer which can be mapped to particular ip address.
Create a Create a new user at No-IP account.
Login to the site with the account you created.On the left-sidebar click on “Hosts/Redirects”
Click on Add.In the page that opens enter domain name of your choice e.g “myfamilypics” and It will create a sub-domain on its own server that will work on your ip.
Your IP is recorded when you add the domain name.If you ISP is blocking port 80, you can choose a redirect given under same page.
Click on “Create host” and you are ready to roll.
Access the same from your own browser.You can add your file In HFS and access the same.
Trust me I have done it and it works.But i cant give the link of my url ( as it is hosted on my computer) here keeping in mind the security issues which I am not aware of. SO you also should share it among your friends.
Step 5. Install The dynamic update Client
Skip this step if yo have a static ip.If you don’t, you will need a client software to take care of of your changing ip address.
Download the No-Ip.com Dynamic DNS update client software.
Install it and provide your login details.This program will sit in the system tray and automatically update your NoIp account when your external ip changes.
Step 6: Launch Your Website
You can now decide what page will appear when someone access your site, like the default page.To change the default page,
Open HFS and click on “You are in Easy Mode ” to turn it to advance mode.
Right click on little house icon on VFS and click on “Bind Root to Real Folder”.
Now you can add files and folder here which you want to make available in your website.
Next is when your site is ready send the address which you created in NO-IP or step 4 to all your friends.
You can even see what others are viewing in advanced mode of hfs
This helped me a lot to understand how things work when my blog is hosted and how do my hosting service works.This was a Small example on low scale basis for you to try and for people who want to run there host on there own system.Do tell me your experience when you try it.I will be glad.
Dell Inspiron 14z Laptop
Mobility Redesigned
Introducing the new InspironTM 14z laptop. It fits perfectly by your side with mobile features that keep you connected wherever life might take you.
Easily travels by your side, starts at 4.4 lbs.1 with a 4-cell battery and is only 1" (1.04" - 1.15") thin.
Get up to 8 hours2 and 25 minutes (preliminary) of battery life3.
Watch your favorite DVDs using the built-in optical drive.
Experience true mobility with Intel’s ultra-low-voltage processors.
DellInspironTM 11z Laptop
Lighten Up
Introducing the InspironTM 11z, Dell’s newest thin and light Inspiron laptop starting at only $399.
Easily travels by your side, weighing approximately 3 lbs.1 and measuring only 1" thin.
Experience true mobility with Intel’s ultra-low-voltage processors.
Store your memories as soon as they unfold up to a 320GB2 hard drive.
Internal optical drive not included; external optical drive optional.
iMac
Apple introduced the first iMac more than a decade ago. And the design philosophy remains the same:
an all-in-one computer that’s as powerful as it is beautiful
Big, beautiful displays.
21.5-inch and 27-inch displays.
The new iMac has come a long way from the first 15-inch iMac. Take one look and you’ll see just how far. A 21.5-inch or 27-inch display with edge-to-edge glass covers nearly the entire front of the enclosure. When all you see is the display, nothing gets between you and what’s onscreen. Movies, TV shows, websites, photos — everything looks stunning on the new 16:9 widescreen iMac display.
LED backlighting.
When a display has more pixels, you need to push more light through them to achieve the best picture possible. LED backlighting in the new iMac does exactly that, with remarkable brightness and efficiency. Because the LED backlight doesn’t take up much space, the iMac enclosure stays thin — even with all the high-performance components inside.
Higher resolution.
The new 21.5-inch iMac features 1920-by-1080 HD resolution. Apple engineers could simply have stretched that resolution up and out for the 27-inch iMac. Instead, they took the display well beyond HD with 2560-by-1440 resolution. That’s 78 percent more pixels than the 21.5-inch iMac.
IPS technology.
The iMac display is designed to look great from almost any angle. A technology called in-plane switching (IPS) makes this possible. Whether you’re sitting in front of the display or standing off to the side, you’ll get a perfect picture with superb color consistency and no loss of detail.
Evolution of iMac.
It was a great idea then, and it’s a great idea now. The all-in-one design of the first flat-panel iMac cleaned up the desktop. It put everything you need — display, processor, graphics card, hard drive, optical drive, memory, and more — inside one simple enclosure. New technology inside and out makes the new iMac a worthy addition to the all-in-one dynasty.
Seamless enclosure.
While you’ll find a collection of ports on the back of iMac, you won’t find much else. A seamless, precision-forged enclosure makes the back one continuous aluminum surface. And there’s only one cord: the power cord.
Wireless keyboard and new Magic Mouse. Standard.
Clutter-free wireless.
iMac embodies simple design that eliminates desktop clutter. So naturally, it’s the first Mac to come standard with the Apple Wireless Keyboard and the new wireless Magic Mouse.
Multi-Touch technology.
Magic Mouse is designed to do all the things a mouse should do — pointing, clicking, and scrolling — but with no scroll wheel, no trackball, and no visible button. Magic Mouse uses Multi-Touch technology to let you click, scroll, or swipe anywhere on its perfectly smooth, seamless top shell. But the real magic of Magic Mouse is how it knows what you want to do. A chip inside Magic Mouse acts as a brain, detecting the difference between a resting hand, a scrolling finger, a two-finger swipe, and a simple click. It’s the smartest mouse we’ve ever made
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