Looking for a super deal on website hosting  promo that offers both php and cgi? Hostmonster.com (sister company to blue host) has provided us with a deep discount link for visitors of 1SourceHost.com. While most hosting review sites recommend bluehost (rightly so as they are a fantastic hosting company) you can get the same set up, same great offer from Hostmonster.com and save!

• Hostmonster.com Review - Save With This Link $2 a Month!
Plans start at $6.95 $4.95 a month and include 1,500 gigs of disk storage and 15,000 gigs of site transfer.  Adequate CGI and PHP features.

To get the most out of CGI hosting, PHP web scripts are being used to address the various issues with CGI when it comes to server side problems that occur when creating complex and dynamic websites.  CGI, or Common Gateway Interface is a specification that allows data to be transferred between a web server and a CGI program.  These programs are usually stored in a CGI bin or directory and are usually written in a basic programming language like Visual basic, C, Java, or Perl.

CGI is very commonly employed as a means for users to dynamically interact with web servers because of its ability to handle information submitted to users from servers via HTML pages. The main problem with CGI, however, is that every time a new request is made to a page served by a CGI program, the process of running the program starts again.  Because the use of CGI technology is a server side solution, this repetitive process can slow down the server of a busy web site considerably.  Also, because CGI allows regular programs to be run within the server system, it opens up the opportunity for security breaches.  Debugging CGI programs can take up a fair amount of a programmer’s time because the programs also usually have to be compiled at the same time.

This is where PHP comes in to take the load off the server.  PHP or Hypertext Preprocessor is also a server side scripting language for producing dynamic web pages, but it is easier to work with because it is an object oriented, lightweight and a consistent interface for accessing data bases. Originally written in the C language, PHP works like other server-side scripting languages such as ASP.Net, JavaServer Pages, Mod Perl, and Ruby on Rails.  In effect, all of these programming languages and frameworks were created to improve upon CGI to provide dynamic content from the server to the user in the simplest and quickest way possible.

Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of CGI hosting/PHP Web will help your customer’s web browser download pages from your web site faster, which is the whole idea behind the scripting programs.  Don’t be worried if you don’t understand everything about CGI and PHP.  If you purchase a monthly web hosting plan, you will notice that in the control panel, they are side by side under the software section.  All you have to do to get started is click on the icons after you watch one of the tutorials and you will get a better feel of how the two programs work.  BlueHost.com is the best place to start because they offer Fast CGI, which allows a server to handle more web page requests at once.  Hostmonster.com has only adequate CGI and PHP features and while Ipowerweb.com is the cheapest per month, it has less PHP and CGI features.

Filed under: Hostmonster Hosting

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!