So you’ve decided you want to make your mark on the web world by having your very own website. Now comes the daunting task of getting to work and turning your vision into browser-friendly reality. But before you get started, make sure your laptop is equipped with everything you’ll need. The great news is that you really don’t need that much. These are the basics you’ll need to get started.

A Fast and Reliable Connection

It may be hard to believe, but 10% of Internet users still use dial-up for various reasons. But for maximum efficiency, a broadband connection will give you the fastest connection to the web. If you have ever had dial-up, you know how much faster it is and you won’t be waiting around for a connection to occur every time you log on. Plus you won’t be limited in uploading and viewing large files, such as audio and video files on your new website. Aside from an account with an internet service provider (ISP), you’ll need an Ethernet cable to be directly hardwired to the modem provided by the ISP. If you want to have the added freedom of a wireless connection, you’ll need a wireless router that connects to the modem and a laptop that is equipped with built-in high-speed connectivity (802.11b/g/n). If you don’t have a speedy connection that you can count on, you can end up spending hours on tasks that should take you minutes. Now that you’ve got a great Internet connection, you need to use it by finding a web host. A web host will be able to give you storage space on a server and a domain name registration so that your site will be accessible to Internet users. Depending on how much traffic you expect and the complexity of the site, there are a number of web hosting plan options available. Many people choose free web hosting because there are so many companies that offer it and because it offers all the features they need, especially if their site is relatively small with little traffic.

The Right Software

Even if you have a chosen a web host and domain name, a site isn’t much without the content. That’s where editing software and content management systems come into play. Just like there are many web hosting options, there are many web editing software programs to choose from. You don’t even need to have experience in hypertext markup language (HTML). Depending on your web development knowledge and how complex you want your site to be, there are more design-heavy programs for the more experienced such as Dreamweaver or for the complete novice, there are open source programs such as Nvu. These free and open source programs are meant to allow users to create sites quickly and easily without prior programming knowledge. Plus, oftentimes your web host will have tools to help build your site. It can be as easy as filling in forms and dragging and dropping. To upload files onto your site, you’ll need FTP utility software. With this, you’ll be able to directly access your hosting account and easily upload files. FTP is the most commonly used way to upload and publish websites.

This post was contributed by Richard Bowen from the editorial staff at Freeservers.com

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I live in an area where we have frequent, unannounced brownouts. They can range from a few minutes to a few hours and there's no way to tell which is which until after the fact. The most frustrating part about not having electricity for more than a few minutes is that I no longer have an Internet connection for obvious reasons.

I had already planned to buy a diesel-powered backup generator for the house, and that plan still stands, but I've now added a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) to my backup plans, way ahead of anything else.

Affordable Power Supplies

I have found a couple of places in Olongapo City where I can buy a UPS and I consider the prices affordable. They're not APC products, but they'll suffice if I can't find anything made by APC.

The prices range from 5000 to 10,000 pesos (or somewhere between $100 and $250 US dollars) depending on how much power I want for the backup power supply. Since I only plan to power a DSL modem and a netbook, I should be well off with the cheaper models.

Netbook Batteries and UPS Batteries

I've read in various places that a netbook battery can last anywhere from 3 to 6 hours depending on how you use the netbook (what applications you're running). Since I would only be using a web browser and a spreadsheet during that time (for my online business), I'm sure the netbook battery would last at least 3 hours. That is, provided I don't end up with a netbook that has one of those super cheap laptop batteries in it. I certainly hope not.

My plan is to have only the DSL modem and the desktop computer attached to the UPS. When a brownout occurs, I can properly shut down the desktop computer, move the Ethernet cable from the desktop to the netbook and plug the netbook into the UPS. When the UPS battery starts getting low, I can unplug the netbook from the UPS and continue until the netbook battery is near-dead.

Total Power Supply Backup Time

Based on my past experiences with UPS units and notebook computers, I'm making a conservative estimate that I would probably have at least 9 hours of backup power time using the netbook/UPS combination. The reality, considering breaks and other reasons not to be using a computer at all, is that it would probably be more than 12 hours. That just happens to be the average long brown out here due to being a scheduled brownout that I never get told about.

Plans change and I may end up doing something slightly different, or include other things in the backup plan, but that's where it stands right now.

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