cPanel Shared Web Hosting For Beginners ISMagazine.com Patrick Stevens Development Corner cpanelfantasticopluginsshared web hostingwordpress May 31 2010 cPanel Shared Web Hosting For BeginnersLots of people are interested in web hosting. Who doesn't want to have their own website where they can tell the world about themselves and what they do? But, on the other hand, who wants to learn how to program in order to do so? And who wants to run a server in their house and go through all the complicated steps of keeping it up, running, and connected to the internet?That's where cPanel shared web hosting comes in. Shared web hosting is when you pay a company a monthly fee to run the server for you while others are doing the same thing. Since others are also paying to be on the same server, everybody gets to pay less to be there. That way, you don't have to run your own servers. This fixes one of the problems with a beginner trying to get into web hosting, but what about the programming part?The cPanel part makes the programming a lot easier. In fact, in most cases, no programming is required at all. In web hosting, cPanel is a type of control panel that allows you to change all kinds of things without looking or changing any code at all. Most cPanels use a program called Fantastico that allows you to install website running software, like forums, wikis, and WordPress blogs, with just a few clicks of the mouse. A WordPress blog is great for beginners because you can very quickly change themes and start writing whatever you want about yourself.Almost any functionality that you want to add to a standard WordPress blog can be added through plugins, which you can search for and install without ever leaving your own WordPress installation. You could be blogging on your own shared hosted website in less than 15 minutes, as long as you don't want a ton of customization.The other installations that Fantastico handles will allow you to run a wide variety of websites with only limited programming knowledge. The forums can be done with no coding skills, and the wiki can be used once you learn the very simple wiki programming language. Of course, if you do have programming skills, you can modify all of these in more unique ways, adding more specialized functionality. Even then, Fantastico is a great way to get you started. If a cPanel does no support Fantastico, it almost always has some sort of similar installing program that usually works almost as well as Fantastico. You should make sure that the cPanel web hosting you are considering has such a program. In short, cPanel shared web hosting will allow even a beginner to run their own website with a wide variety of options. So don't let a lack of programming experience keep you from running the website you've always wanted to.