Joomla! has recently announced improved free hosting options. For those who aren't too familiar with hosted web sites, we'll try to cover some of the important points to think about to get ready to create a hosted web site. Then, we'll step quickly through what it takes to get a basic but functional web site up and running using Joomla! 3.3

1. Hosted Joomla! website
How to take your first website
and put it out on the web for all to see.
Presented by:
Douglas Pickett
for
Joomla! User Group Toronto
23 September 2014

2. What you need
 Hosting provider, and credentials
 Domain name (optional in some circumstances)
 Joomla!
 content

3. What we'll cover here
 Some background on how to get a domain
name, hosting account, DNS, email, ...
 Use the Protostar template to create a very
simple Joomla! brochure-style website in 15
minutes (or so).

4. Domain Names
 Just what are they, and why to I need them?
 They're a friendlier way to remember IP's
addresses
IP (Internet Protocol) uses IP addresses to
communicate, not names.
Higher level protocols, like http, will work with IP
addresses or names, but virtual hosting on a web
server makes use of the names.
 You'll need your own domain if you want a
website or email in your own domain.

5. IP naming, some history
 Once upon a time ...
people just remembered IP addresses, or had a
local lookup table (/etc/hosts)
IPv4 addresses:
192.168.1.1
IPv6 addresses:
FE80:0000:0000:0000:0202:B3FF:FE1E:8329
FE80::0202:B3FF:FE1E:8329 (short(!) form)

6. DNS (Domain Name Service)
 Provides a way translate names to IP
addresses, and IP addresses to names, where
to deliver mail, ...
 gTLD (Top Level Domain)
originally .com, .edu, .gov, .int, .mil, .net, .org
established in 1984.
 Added 2 letter country specific domains (ccTLD
)starting in 1985. The first were .us, .uk, and .il
now include .ca, .cc, .tv, .to, ....
 Some country domains restricted to local
registration, others to anyone.

7. DNS now
 New domains like:
.info, .biz, .company, .email, ....
 If you want your own domain, and have about
$100K, you can register it.
 Increasing support for UTF domain names
(example from http://www.w3.org/International/articles/idn-and-iri/)

8. ICANN list of TLD's
 In the list updated
Tue Sep 16 07:07:01 2014 UTC
712 top level domains listed
from .AC
(Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha)
to .ZW
(Zimbabwe)

9. Domain names – why do I care?
 If you don't have your own domain, you can
look like a lightweight
 It can be used as part of your branding
 It can make a statement of where you operate
(.ca vs .com)
 Some domains are cheaper than others – and
if your budget is really tight, maybe you don't
care.

10. Pricing comparisons
 Price per year (most registrars will give multi-year
discounts) – these prices are just
representative, YMMV
 .ca - $10.45 to $13
 .com – $0.99 to $13
 .tv - $30
 .menu - $39.95
 .xxx - $129

11. Why are some registrars so cheap?
 They're using the domain registration as a loss
leader.
 They hope you'll also purchase hosting and
other services from them, so they can make up
for what they're losing on the domain.
 Not all supplementary services are equal.
 “Special” offers – e.g. two years, $3.99 first
year, $17.99 second year.

12. Additional services from Registrars
 By definition, a registrar will register your
domain name
 Often they'll offer DNS services, email services
(forwarding, hosting), web hosting, ....

13. Virtual Hosts
 Once upon a time one, and only one, set of
web pages would be associated with an IP
address
 But that is pretty wasteful of address space
 Virtual Host feature of a web server looks at the
URL and decides based on that which set of
web pages you're really trying to connect to.

17. Hosting types – Why do I care?
 Virtual host – you're sharing with many other
websites on what is probably a “best effort”
basis
 Virtual machine – you're sharing a server with
fewer other websites, with defined amount of
resources
 Dedicated server – you have your own system
Pricing (from least to most expensive)
 Vhost -> Virtual Machine -> Dedicated server

18. Hosting – what are they telling you?
 Cost – quoted per month, for at least a year but
sometimes longer
 Bandwidth – how much data per month your
website can use (up + down) for clients
connecting from the Internet
 Storage – how much space the files that
comprise your website take up on their server

19. Terms ...
 Unlimited – probably the most abused term
 Unlimited portion of a small pie shared with
hundreds? thousands? of other websites
 Unlimited as long as your usage doesn't exceed
the profile of all the other users they're
comparing you to.
 Unlimited as long as you don't use too much in
the way of resources
 If you really need a lot of resources, you really
will need to pay for them

20. Terms...
 Memory – probably not an issue for most simple
sites
 Cores – with a virtual machine, how many CPU
equivalents are you guaranteed to run your
website code
 CPU time – how much time a CPU is tied up
doing the calculations for your request
 Requests – more with cloud storage, how many
times can a request to upload or download a file
can be made per month.

21. Terms...
 Control panel – web application for updating
DNS, creating mail accounts, installing CMS, ...
 Support method – do they only communicate by
email or web ticket, or is there a phone number
to call and talk to a human?

22. Email
 Not required for a website, but you'll probably
need it
 No cost option is Gmail/Yahoo/Outlook – but it
may not give the right image
 Once you've got your domain, you can have an
email address of
myname@myshinydomainname.ca
 Instead of myname20483@gmail.com

23. Options
 Your registrar will probably offer something
 Mail forwarding – take mail for your domain and
forward it to your Gmail/Yahoo/Outlook account
 But when you reply, the from address may still
show the free account name
 Mail hosting – mail hosted on their server, with
both to and from address being
@yourshinydomainname.ca

24. Hosted Email
 Limits on number of distinct email names
 Limits on size of stored mail
 Web vs client
 For client, POP3 or IMAP (clear or encrypted),
authentication options

25. Demo vs Hosted
 First thing you'll notice is the URL, it'll be
something like:
http://yourwebsitename.hostingcompany.net
 If you have your own domain name:
http://www.myshinydomainname.ca
 With hosted, you can decide which country your
info is stored in (some types of info must be
kept in Canada)

26. Cloudaccess.net
 Current demo hosting company for Joomla!
 30 day limit
 New demo hosting company Siteground.com
 90 day limit
 Unlimited duration free hosting should be in
place by the end of the year

27. Demo.joomla.org
 Getting started – sign up for demo account

30. Basic Demo Site (front end)

31. Basic Demo Site (Back End)

32. Useful Extensions
 Your choices may vary, but I like certain
extensions
 I'm going to install:
 JCE
 NoNumber manager, and Add to Menu
 DJ-ImageSlider
 Abivia MultiTwitter

33. Add Install from Web

38. Change default editor

39. Change the Getting Started Page

40. Quick Home Page

41. Change Module status

42. What changed
 Published DJ Image Slide, MultiTwitter
 Unpublish front page Login form
 Now we'll assign MultiTwitter a position

43. Assign position, follow

44. Enable where it appears

45. Change site title

46. What it looks like now

47. Replace Image at top of page

48. Upload images to folder

49. Add a “Staff” menu

50. Define a Category

51. Adjust some settings
Set up the heirarchy you want for your menus
Adjust some of the article options to reduce some
of the clutter (Author, publish date, hits, icons,
etc.)

53. What it looks like now

54. Add a contact page

56. And now...

57. Not fancy, but there
 This particular web site will get erased in 30
days (soon to be 90 days) unless I start paying
for it.
 By the end of the year you should be able to get
an unlimited free web site (but without your own
domain name).
 This isn't really pretty, it is functional and fast
 The hardest part is usually creating the text and
images

58. My soapbox statements...
 Make sure your spelling is correct
 Make sure you haven't got homophones mixed
up (to/too/two, their/there/they're, ...)
 Don't only use images from a stock photo
service
 Don't steal text or images from other sites

59. If you need to contact me:
Email: dpickett@voggtech.ca
This presentation is available on Slideshare