Let’s start to make this all a little
more simple for you to understand. It is involved but far less
complicated than you think. I am going to use an analogy that isn’t
perfect but should serve our purposes.
Imagine that you are given a telephone
number that is yours for as long as you agree to pay for it. No one
else can use it – just you. Now that shouldn’t be too difficult
to imagine, since there is a lot of talk these days about assigning
individuals with one number that they can use for the rest of their
lives. The trick here is this number is paid for every couple of
years (not on a monthly bill) and is unique for you. This number for
the purposes of our analogy is your registered domain name. (You
will be paying one of two worldwide companies who have the right to
register and track these domain names.)
Some people may have a free
web site but in our analogy that would be like a local telephone company
supplying you with a free telephone number as long as you buy other
services from them. Here we are talking about a number that is
completely owned by you.
Now just having the number doesn’t mean
that it is activated. First you have to decide on a carrier – like
Sprint or ATT or even a local service. (That’s equivalent to
having a Web Hosting Service.) This carrier (or web host as it is
called) is just going to
answer any calls that come to your number. However, you have to tell the
carrier what to say. This is like programming an advanced answering
service. You know the kind. Press 1 to find out about….Press 2 if
you are calling about…. Etc. If is your job to set out the script
that you want to have available when people call you one your
number. In the world wide web, we do more that just voice and we will
design the content of your web site using a software called
FrontPage 2000.
Once it is designed, you will need to call the
carriers special number and give your code and being to set up the
"answering service". In the world of the web, this is call
FTP or File Transfer
Protocol. Anytime you want to update what you
have, you make your changes in FrontPage and then "upload"
them to the web host (carrier) through FTP.
So far so good. Here’s what we have:
A unique telephone number just for you OR a registered
domain name, www.yourname.com
A carrier that provides you with service for that number OR
a web hosting service
A design of a menu of what people can find when they call your
number OR a web layout that has been designed in FrontPage
A number for your carrier to call with the password so you can
record your message and menu OR upload your web pages to
your web hosting service through FTP
At this point the analogy breaks down a
little but we can still make it work.
Let’s say someone has called
that number of yours – they get to visit your web page but they
want to send a message to someone. In the telephone business, this is
when you hit "0" for an operator. Let’s pretend that
this is your e-mail name. Someone can click on it through the web
site or just e-mail you directly. Now in our analogy, your e-mail, you@yourname.com
is an alias.
OK, what does that mean?
Well, it means that it is a
legitimate number but it isn’t hooked up directly for service.
Think of it as having a local telephone service provider for your
home telephone number and another for your cell phone service. Each
of those has its own unique number or in our analogy, a unique e-mail
address. So what we will do with the "alias" e-mail is
have it forwarded to another number of your choosing. It is just as
though you had your telephone number call forwarded to another
number and whoever is calling doesn't even know.
It is even easy to change the look of
your own e-mail to reflect your new web site. That is the same as
having your caller (still using the telephone concept here) call you
and your web site comes up on the caller ID display and not the
actual place that you are located. This is actually
important. Why? If you do change your existing e-mail service and internet service
provider (think of this as your local carrier), it won't affect how
you visitors see it or those who "call" you. It will
all be transparent to them. The whole service package might
have changes but to the rest of the world it is the same web site
and e-mail address.
