CodeCharge StudioAssuming that you already have, or plan to have, content that you'd like to make accessible to other Internet users, you will need a web server that is always running. If you have a high-speed connection at your home you may be able to run a web server on your local computer, as long as your computer always stays on (or whenever you want your server to be accessible) and your IP address doesn't change. You'll need to find out from your ISP if your IP address is static or dynamic.
A dynamic address is reassigned to you each time you connect to the Internet and the address will probably be different on each connection. If you provide your dynamic IP address to access your web server you will need to resend the IP address each time it changes.
A reliable and commonly used option is to find a web hosting company that has a web server installed and running 24 hours a day. Unless you purchase a dedicated server, you will obtain a space on a shared server that hosts hundreds of web sites. This is called virtual hosting. The hosting company divides the space on their server's hard drive into partitions which they allocate to the domain names they host. Visit TopHosts (http://www.tophosts.com) to find a hosting company that matches your needs. If you plan to create Web applications, make sure that the plan you choose includes database hosting such as MS Access, MS SQL, or MySQL.