Ever try to explain something and people’s eyes just glaze over? On the subject of websites, it can be trying to describe the difference between domain names and web hosting. If you’re going to have a website, you might as well understand the distinction between the two.
What’s In A Name
A domain name (more on choosing one here) is a virtual address. You can purchase a domain name through any one of many domain registrars. Once you’ve done this, you have an online address, but at this point it’s just a P.O. box.
Get Some Space
To associate your new web address with an actual location on the web, you need a hosting account. This means paying an annual or monthly fee to a web hosting service to “rent” space on their server network.
A Name Needs Home
Until a domain name is associated with a server, it’s just an address. Once you set up your web hosting account, you point your domain name to your server space using something called the Domain Name System (DNS).
You have have an address, you just leased some real estate, and now you have an online location for your website or blog.
Have more questions? Need help registering a domain name or setting up a hosting account? Contact us.
Basket Maker by Marilyn Anderson
Extensibility is a term used for software, but it can also be used to describe building a house, a road or a website. It means starting off with something that meets your needs and planning for future additions.
Wikipedia describes extensibility as “Architecture that provides the design principles to ensure a roadmap for that portion of the road yet to be built.”
This concept of extensibility was applied to the website of artist Marilyn Anderson and the Pro Arte Maya Children’s Educational project, ProArteMaya.org, where we recently added updates and additions to an older website and a blog originally launched in 2007. And there’s still more to do, but at this time a link seems appropriate. Please visit www.proartemaya.org.
Click on the image to view a larger, printable version!
Want to practice some alternative copy editing? To see which words predominate in a website or a piece of writing, go to wordle.net with clipboard loaded with the block of text in question. Follow the directions for creating your own beautiful wordle “word cloud.”
Just finished work on the latest offering from RochesterLabor.org: the Labor History eMAP, a web-based tour connecting the history of workers and their unions to locations in Rochester New York.
Rochester Labor History eMap
Map text — authored by local historians and educators Linda H. Donahue and Jonathan Garlock — links labor struggles to the Rochester landscape. Contemporary and historic images are served up by the Monroe County Library Rochester Images database and the Rochester Labor History Flickr site — with special thanks to RochesterPublicArt.com. The map is made with CommunityWalk, and can also be viewed on Google Maps at Rochester Labor History.
RochesterLabor.org is the website for the labor education programs of the Rochester Labor Council, AFL-CIO. Online since 2003, the site provides information on events such as the the Rochester Labor Film Series, Labor Lyceum and the annual Labor Day Parade. See links to other projects at RochesterLabor.org, Educational Materials.
