Technologies required for e-commerce

If a website is slow, a customer is likely to choose to go somewhere else. Hardware and software All computer systems, e-commerce consists of a few different of hardware and software. This software of both the web developer and the user needs to be kept In mind. Web servers A web server holds the live copy of the web page which can be seen by everyone has can get onto the internet. Browsers Browsers are installed on a users computer and convert the data received via the modem into a visual web page.

There are a few different types of browsers available.For Microsoft, Windows, the most common is Microsoft Internet Explorer, which comes free with the operating system. Others that are becoming even more popular are Maxilla Firebox and Opera. One of the most popular for Apple products is Safari.

When a user first loads a browser, they are taken to the home page that has been set in their browser options. This Is a setting that can be changed so a browser automatically opens on your chosen website. This could be the main page of your ISP, a search engine as Google or, for a business, the organizations page.Browsers store dewed web pages in a cache so they can be reloaded quickly if viewed again. This will let you see previous pages; browsers will also give you the option to reload pages using the forward button.

In addition to this, they will provide you with a list of the history of frequently, and recently, visited sites to allow you to come back to them quickly. Most browsers have a Favorites or Bookmarks list- these are sites that the user has picked to add to the list, either websites that they can get on frequently or ones they know they will want to return to in the future.At any time, the user can get n the list and select a website. A target of web design Is to try and get users to bookmark the site, which usually means they will visit again, hopefully regularly.

If you use a cache and the Favorites or Bookmarks list, the user can get onto sites with an easy click. Browsers provide a visual Interpretation of HTML and other web languages. HTML is the generic language in which all web pages are written and hyperlink, this can be shown as menus, buttons or even imagines. Hyperlinks direct the browser to load a different page, letting a user move around the massive election of web pages on the internet.

Server software There are a few web server software applications, such as Internet Information Services (IS), which comes bundled with modern versions of the Windows operating system and Apache HTTP Server. Plus, there is software which makes uploading web pages to the web server even easier. This process is called FTP, this is because it uses the file transfer protocol (FTP). Programs such as Execute are made to make uploading more user friendly. Web authoring tools Web authoring tools make it possible for even more people to make web pages, this s because they need to simplify the process and make it less technical.

This means that making and uploading websites on to the Internet is no longer solely the territory of IT experts. Recently there has been much more debate as to whether this has helped or hindered the internet, as the quality of content on the Internet has come into question. Suggestions have been made to 'clean up' the internet, but how that would be done out if a very hard question. One answer have been to begin to develop Web 2.

0, also known as mm. '2. This is a 'new Internet which has the aim of haring resources and promoting online collaboration between different users.All web authoring tools provide the basic facilities to create a web page and upload it to a web server. There are two leader web design tools which are Microsoft Expression suite, and Adobe Dreamier.

Both of these have a massive range of tools for web design, WYSIWYG interfaces and has additional features such as templates and cascading styles sheets also known as CSS. Data systems Most of the time E-commerce websites have a database back-end storing the catalogue of products, customer records and other type of business information.This database should come together to the website seamlessly so that the user is not aware of it. Some organizations outsource the creation of their website, but keep control of the content of the database. This means that if any changes need to be made, for example. Price changes.

Then only the database needs amending and the organization can do this by themselves. Applications like Oracle, or languages such as Myself, can be used to create the database. Networking This part focuses on the ways used to connect computers together to make the network.It looks at how the specific computers are identifies so data can be sent to he correct place, the methods of data transfer across such a massive network and the naming of websites. TCP/IP addresses, ports and protocols TCP/IP is a protocol that is used when transferring data across a network.

If computers don't use the same protocol, it becomes impossible for them to understand the data transmitted between them. This is similar to humans who speak another language. Unless they agree to speak a specific language, they will not be able to understand one or another.To make sure that the data is going to the correct location on the network, each computer has its own unique number, this is called an IP address. It is a set of four numbers, each from O to 255. For example, 234.

2. 78. 233 would address a specific computer on a network. The internet is a massive global network and works in the same way as a WAN which is a wide area network. Ports ports for data to pass through, they are virtual which means they can't be seen.

Ports are like doors, each has a number and is specific to that one and it can be opened and closed. There are some default ports, for example port number 25.This is usually for email and port 80 is usually for the internet, but these can be changed for reference. For a web server, is it good practice to close all of the ports that are not being used this is because hackers can take advantage of open ports and this is usually how they hack your computer. Domain names All websites have an IP address, relating to the server which host it.

For example, if you were to type 72. 14. 207. 99 into the address bar at the top of the browser, the page for www.

Google. Com should appear. Smaller sites will always use the ease IP address.But, large sites like Google have a few, this is because they have a lot of web reverse. Businesses would find it hard to entice many customers to their e- commerce sites if the customer needs to remember the IP address, do domain names were brought into consideration. Each IP address resolves to a domain name for example.

72. 14. 207. 99 resolves to Google.

Com. A domain name is only the core part of the name (Google) and the extension (. Com) HTTP and www are protocols which tell the computer that the data is a web page. This makes sure that the computer interprets the data in the correct way.

There are a lot of extensions available.