Apartment, Villa or Mansion ?

You need to decide what kind of residence suits you most. Rented apartment is obviously the most inexpensive solution, specially if you are not sure where to drop anchor. On the disadvantage side - you do not have permanent address and in the anonymous world of Internet people may not take you seriously.

Many people on the Web have an address something like www.server.com/~fredflintstone or www.server.com/bedrock/~barneyrubble. What you have is a section of the server, but your section does not have its own identity or IP number. Do not worry, I shall explain IP number in a while. When someone comes to see your site, they put in "www.server.com" first. That is the address that carries the IP number. You are found after the IP address is used to find the server. Your portion of the server is denoted through a tilde (~, pronounced "Till-day") or through the use of /sub-directory/after/sub-directory. Much like 205 Nehru House where the address is Nehru House where you occupy apartment no 5 on second floor.

By the way -- a tilde (~) is a computer command that means, "There is only one directory in this entire server titled fredflintstone -- find it!"

May be I want an apartment to start with... - There are many places in the Net where you can construct your own home page. You need not be a computer/Internet expert - the hosts offer excellent tool-packages that make the job of home page creation simple. What's more all these are free - yes including the server space ! Please check the Free Home Page section for a list of such hosts.

I want my own villa - If you are serious about e-commerce, you should better look for a permanent place in the Net. Remember, this is going to be your business premises and considerable money will be spent in promoting your business (with this address). Any change of address later means not only waste of money and time but also creating confusion as your old address is certain to remain in old telephone directories (search engines) and address books of your customers (bookmark).

In the anonymous world of Internet, a permanent place also means more credibility - something extremely important for any business transaction.