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CGI Web Hosting - 3 Essential Scripts for Your Business
If there's one thing that people love it is a web site
that has plenty of automated features. Sites that are highly
interactive tend to get the most traffic and generate the
most business for the companies that run them. Automated
features can also play a "behind the scenes" role,
making your site easier to use, run smoothly and allow for
things like online sales and password protection.
There are many ways to get this type of automation into
your site, but all involve either client side or server
side scripting. Scripts are written in programming languages
specially designed for the web, and there are several languages
that are commonly used. Most client side scripts are written
in Java which is still one of the best web programming languages
around. Some functions of a web site must be completed via
server side scripting, however, and the most commonly used
languages for server side scripting are PHP, PERL, and CGI.
PHP and PERL are newer languages and are gaining a lot of
popularity, but there are still plenty of features that
can be scripted in the granddaddy of web scripting languages,
CGI.
Shopping Carts
No online sales site would be complete without a functioning
shopping cart and most of the best ones have been written
in CGI script. CGI web hosting is great for shopping cart
scripts because it interfaces well with most databases,
including the popular MYSQL and MS Access databases, it
can be utilized on Windows, UNIX, LINUX, and MACOS servers
with equal ease, and can be easily configured for sales
tax and shipping cost calculations. Some newer shopping
cart scripts are being written in PHP and PERL, but most
of the functioning carts on the web are in good old CGI
web hosting scripts.
Password Protection
Many web sites require some sort of registration and entry
of a password for the user to access the site's features.
This is done for a number of reasons from simply a desire
to track visitors for marketing purposes to allowing postings
on message boards and ensuring that users have paid any
required fees associated with use of the site. The automated
registration process and user name/password issuance can
be written with CGI scripts and many of them have been.
Form Managers
Have you ever wondered how the forms you fill out online
are handled? In most cases, they're handled by CGI web hosting.
When a user fills in that form and hits the "submit"
button, a CGI script takes over and sends the data in email
or writes it to a database where it can be accessed later
by the site's administrators.
These are just a few of the uses for CGI scripts on today's
web sites. There are literally hundreds of others and if
there's something that can be done on a web site, it is
something that can be done with CGI. PHP and PERL may be
gaining a lot of popularity for various reasons, but CGI
was with us first and it isn't going anywhere. As long as
there are web sites, CGI web hosting will remain king.
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