It is possible to launch a website without even having your own computer. Provided you have Internet access at your local Internet cafe, you can now do a pretty good job of getting any type of website online.

If you aren't too crazy about putting in hours of work to beautify your site and are happy with a fairly plain look and feel (there's nothing wrong with this at all, and in fact, many big websites do this - i.e. google and craigslist) then all you need is a hosting service or Internet Service Provider (ISP) and a registered domain name and site prebuilder can take care of the rest.

For most people. however, it is more likely that you will want to spend a bit of time tweaking your site to get it just right before deploying it to a live server.

In addition to your actual website, here's what you'll need...

Software

Even if you are only planning on making a few small changes to your prebuilt website, it is highly recommended that you either buy or download a few tools to make your life easier during development.

You will need the following (go to our resources page for links):

• - Zip utility
• - Code editor
• - Graphics software
• - Browsers
• - Internet

In case you're wondering why we mention browsers in this list. It's because not all browsers play by the same rules. Often what looks good in one browser will break in another, so it is important to test your website through several.

Development machine

A development machine is any computer, your laptop or PC, that provides a platform upon which to test and build your website. In order to begin you must ensure that you have fairly high speed Internet access as you will have to download some software.

A development machine must consist of a Web server (usually Apache), a database (usually MySQL) and PHP (usually version 5). These three technologies combine in order to allow you to view web pages that are served from your computer.

Fortunately, setting this all up is now very easy and requires only one download in the form of the widely used and freely available xampp package.

We've also created a how-to manual that will get you up and running in no time if you feel you need assistance here.

Hosting service

Be wary when it comes to chosing a hosting service - there are a lot of poor quality, gimicky services that can be appealing but turn out to be all sorts of trouble. As a rule of thumb, avoid services that appear to cost nothing because inevitably they endeavor to make money by other means (usually by using your website as a platform for their advertisements).

In general you want a reasonably priced service that provides, at the bare minimum:

• - domain registration facilities
• - enough disk space
• - email facilities
• - administration panel
• - MySQL database(s)
• - PHP 5
• - guarantee of uptime - 99.9%
• - technical support

We've gone ahead and created hosting plans and web packages to cater for Drupal webmasters.

Domain name

A domain name is used to distinguish your website from all the others on the internet and allow users and other computers to access the site - i.e. www.siteprebuilder.com. You will have to choose and purchase a domain name and this can usually be done by your chosen hosting service.

and finally...

Armed with all of the above, and having a completed website ready to go, you can begin the task of deployment in order to launch your new website into the vast expanse of the Internet.

We've have a number of articles that can guide you through this process once you're ready.