Final comments and instructions

Sitting through this series

If you've gotten this far, I congratulate and commend you,
brave soldier! I know that this subject matter is not exactly on the same
"fun level" as riding a roller coaster, but I tried to keep it as
straightforward and to-the-point as I possibly could. By now, you should be
able to walk away with a fully-functioning, feature-packed, somewhat-secure
(just kidding on that one) Web server of your very own to play with.

As your guide through the rough terrain, I can look back and rest easy tonight
knowing that someone with the very same questions as me will now have answers
to [some of] them.

What to do with this guide

You could:

• Print it out for reference;
  
• Save it to your hard drive;
  
• Give it to your niece as a Christmas present;
  
• Let your dog relieve hims--nevermind.

If you found this series useful, spread the word by emailing your friends,
posting a link back to it in your blog, or even writing a short blurb on your
site about it.

Going live with it all

Everyone loves .coms

If you have a broadband (cable, DSL, T1) connection to the Internet, you've
probably got this crazy notion in your head that you can just leave your computer
on all the time and start printing your IP address on your business cards
in place of a URL. Well, you could do that, but I've got a better
idea.

I suggest you read about DNS2Go at http://dns2go.deerfield.com/.
The program is free to download and use, and you can even get a free subdomain
of your choice when you sign up. If you've already got your own FQDN (Fully
Qualified Domain Name), you can even use that, too! There are far too many
good features of DNS2Go to list here, so instead of trying, I'll just remind
you to check out that URL above.

Server security concerns

If you're planning on making your computer available to the world 24/7, you're
going to need some protection for it. Luckily, half the work has already been
done, because we're using Apache instead of IIS. However, there are a few
more products you'll need to obtain in order to have some system security.
I recommend getting:

• A hardware firewall (Linksys makes an excellent router/firewall);
  
• A software firewall program, such as ZoneAlarm by Zone Labs;
  
• A good anti-virus program, such as Norton AntiVirus by Symantec.

Also make sure that Windows is fully patched and that your virus definition
files are up-to-date. IE6 is notorious for having gaping security holes, so
just keep an eye out for any alerts or warnings you read.

The inevitable © garbage

All I ask is that you don't slap your name on the front page and publish this
guide elsewhere to gain quick recognition from your friends and family. If
you want to re-publish this on any site or actually anywhere, for that matter,
please just get my permission first by dropping me a line. I'd be more than
happy to help you out.

Thanks for investing your time by listening to my drivel, and I hope this has
been as much fun for you as it was for me!

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