v 2.0  January 2004. Beds and Herts Churches Media Trust 

The following pages will guide you through the process of setting up your domain space, web site and email provision. If you are new to Internet issues, you may wish to read through the entire guide before getting started, but some users may be able to omit sections according to their degree of knowledge and experience. If you are using the web page version of this document, you can use the links below to go straight to the relevant section. If you have remaining questions, feel free to email us for help at support@commskit.org.uk

Convention notes.

•  Areas for storing files under Microsoft Windows are displayed graphically as yellow sleeves, thus , and are referred to as 'folders. You may also come across the word 'directory'. The two are identical.
  
• On occasions in this document, certain key names will be rendered in quotes, thus: 'stjohnsonline.org.uk' . This is to indicate that the material should be typed or configured precisely as shown, but omitting the quote marks themselves.
  
• Unless otherwise specified, all web and email addresses, passwords etc. should be typed in lower case
  
• Critical issues to note are rendered in italics

First considerations
Your control panel
Web space
Uploading files - file transfer
Advanced features - scripts
Email
Jargon-buster

Managing your website and email does not require a huge amount of Internet or IT knowledge, and this guide is designed to provide all you will need to get started. If you decide that you need further help, you are welcome to opt for the Commskit half-day tuition package, which will set up your web and email provision and provide a comprehensive introduction to your control panel. This is currently charged at £45. Email  mailto:support@commsit.org.uk for further details. Please note that this service cannot extend to undertaking to build your web site for you or to correct bugs or errors in your current web site.

An essential is Internet access. If you presently do not have access, this can be achieved at no cost, other than 'phone charges, assuming that you have a computer and a dial-up modem, by installing one of the dozens of accounts available on free CDs.  Examples are Tiscali, Freeserve and BTConnect.  Broadband connections either by TV Cable or using BT phone lines to provide an ADSL service are an increasingly popular choice.  Commskit provisions will operate perfectly with such connections.

Your personal control panel is the key to managing your Commskit account. Your introductory letter will have confirmed your User ID and chosen password. These settings are used to login securely to your control panel. No one else can access your panel unless you grant them permission to do so by divulging your username and password. Further details about your control panel are provided below.

To up-load your website files to our serving computers so that they are available on the Internet you will need to use either File Transfer Protocol (FTP) software or have Microsoft Front Page loaded on your computer and request our Front Page Extension Service (at an additional annual charge which is currently £12).

There are a number of free FTP programmes available and we have successfully tested WS-FTP LE which is available on the Internet and free for home use by individuals and not-for-profit groups. Further details about setting up and using WS-FTP LE can be found below. 

If you decide to use Microsoft Front Page Extensions then we need to set up the server computer connections differently but once that is done you do not need any additional software to up-load or modify the website files on our Internet Server computer.  The Front Page Extension system keeps track of which pages you have added or modified on your computer and makes it very easy just to change or add the pages to our Internet Server by clicking on 'Publish'.  It a particularly convenient system for inexperienced users.

The control panel gives you access to every aspect of your Commskit Internet provision. You need to be connected to the Internet to do this. You login to your control panel by connecting to:

 cp.commskit.org.uk

 in your web browser.  Please not that the 'www' prefix, as used for web sites, is not required. A small pop-up menu will request your username and password to be typed in before allowing you access to your account, as in the screen shot  below. (You can opt to add your username and password to a list on your computer which will allow you to login without typing them in future. It is for you to decide if this provides you with a sufficient level of security on your own computer).

Here, enter your username and password, as selected when you set up your Commskit account, paying attention to case. e.g., 'Church' is not the same as 'church'.

Once you have entered your details, you will see a main screen similar to the one below:

From here, you can choose a number of options from those listed across the top of the screen:

ACCOUNT is the screen you are currently viewing.

WEB allows you to adjust a few aspects of your website. More can be found on this option under 'Web space' below.

EMAIL allows you to setup addresses and passwords, to arrange aliases and forwarding and to specific multiple recipient addresses. These matters are dealt with in detail under 'Email', below.

LOGS is a section offering statistics on your web site space, e.g., the number of 'hits' on it, and the amount of data which has been transferred through your site etc. These pages are 'view only' and are not detailed further here.

HELP is a comprehensive resource and Q & A section on all aspects of the control panel and your account. Most issues can be resolved by checking the HELP pages before emailing support. 

If you have opted for the Commskit 100 package, you have 100 MB (Megabytes) of web space at your disposal. The Commskit UL package supplied an unlimited amount of space.

In either case, the address or URL (Universal Resource Locator) for your website takes the form of www.yourdomain.org.uk where 'yourdomain' the domain address you registered when you opened the account.

The above assumes that you have opted for the most common  not-for-profit '.org.uk' suffix for your domain, otherwise, your address might be, e.g, www.yourdomain.co.uk or www.yourdomain.me.uk

As an example, the Commskit website is http://www.commskit.org.uk/. (Click the forgoing and, if you are online, you will be taken to the Commskit site!).

If your domain is stjohnsonline.org.uk, your site will be found at www.stjohnsonline.org.uk   This is the address you should publicize to allow users to reach your website.

From this point onwards, it is assumed that you have a basic website, or at least a holding page ready to upload into your webspace. The Commskit server, in common with the vast majority of other providers, does not permit file browsing on web sites. This means that if you have not yet uploaded files to your web space, any attempted access will return an error message reporting: 

Directory listing denied

This simply indicated that there are no 'starting' files presently in your web space to access. Browsers look for files like home.htm and index.htm (or.html & .asp) to start access to a website.

There are two distinct management issues relating to web sites. Firstly, and most simply, you can adjust a few settings via the 'WEB' option in your control panel. Here you will find a screen similar to the one below:

The installation of FrontPage Extensions and SSL (Secure Socket Layer, e.g.,  for receiving credit card payments via your site) are extra cost items. Please email support@commskit.org.uk if you wish to add these to your account.

Submitter is the system for delivering your website address to the major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Alta Vista. Simply click the option and  enter the site URL and a valid email address to submit the entry. You can elect to individually omit search engines from the submission process.

The second major management area for your site is the process of lodging your pages in your web space and keeping them up-to-date. This is achieved by using File Transfer Software, and it is to this area that we now turn.

File transfer protocol, or FTP as it will be called from here onwards, is the Internet's system for sending files from your computer to your webspace. FTP can, incidentally, do the reverse just as easily, that is, copy files from your webspace to your computer. This could be important if the worst happens and you lose the copy of your website on your PC.

Please note that if you are using MS FrontPage Extensions, you will not need an independent FTP programme such as that described here, and may therefore skip this section.

Whilst it is not possible here to provide a complete lesson in FTP management, the single golden rule is to keep, as far possible, the 'site' on your computer and on the Internet, as up-to-date as possible. The local files are often called the site 'mirror'. Keep both your mirror and active site up-to-date and you will avoid a good deal of confusion.

There are numerous FTP programmes on the market.  If you have an existing FTP facility, then you need not use WS-FTP, as described below, and you may therefore be able to skip this section.

WS-FTP-LE was supplied free of all charges to not-for-profit organizations via www.ipswitch.co.uk, and is still available for download from www.download.com. (search for FTP).

After downloading and installing WS-FTP, run the programme by clicking the WS-FTP icon in the programme group of the same name. A screen similar to the one below will appear:

 Click the option arrow on Profile Name to find a range of FTP session already programmed in for you.  These will allow you to connect into all kinds of FTP sites around the world and download files. Do explore, but please note that these addresses are not documented or supported by Commskit.

The software needs to be programmed with a 'Profile Name' for your Commskit account. This can be any name that is useful for yourself, such as 'web site upload' or 'stjohns site' etc. What you decide on as a profile name will not materially affect the operation of the FTP software in any way.

The next setting, 'Host Name/Address', is critical. This  is ftp.commskit.org.uk/  and must be entered as written here.

The next setting is Host type. This refers to the kind of operating system, for example, UNIX, Sun,  NT etc. used by the server on which your website is lodged. In practice, you can leave (or reset) this to 'Auto Detect'. Out of interest, websites in the Commskit space are lodged on Windows 2000 servers, which most nearly equate to 'Microsoft NT' in the list.

The User ID is the unique part of your domain name, e.g 'stjohnsonline'. Again, it is specified in the welcome letter.

The password, logically, is that specified in your welcome letter. Be sure to enter it precisely as shown, paying attention to case,  Note that the password does not 'echo' as you type it in, leaving instead a line of asterisks, *******, for security.

To avoid the need to type in your password every time you start WS-FTP, check the 'Save Pwd' box on the right.

You may leave 'Account; and 'Comment' blank.

The other tabs at the top of the WS-FTP screen, namely 'Startup', 'Advanced' and 'Firewall' are all for adding configuration options to the software, but none are needed for our present purposes. Explore and configure these as you wish.

Having added all the required settings, your screen should look similar to the one below. The entry of the settings above is a 'one off' job. All entries will be automatically saved when you run the session for the first time.

Now, if you are presently connected to the Internet, you need simply to click 'OK' to start the FTP session. If not, you now need to connect to the Internet using your normal method for doing so. 

Click 'OK', and if your settings have been entered correctly and you have a live Internet connection, you will see a screen similar to the one below appear, although details of the actual files listed will be different:

This screen is the main FTP session. On the left hand side, the file list is from your own local computer. On the right is the directory structure for your webspace. By default, WS-FTP places you in its own programme directory, on the left side of the screen. You may need to 'navigate' up through your directories on your computer using the cranked green arrow at the top left of the window until you find the listing for your web files. 

On the right hand side, you will see a directory called 'www'. This is the default upload position where all your web files must be lodged, unless you specify paths in your HTML coding to other directories. The 'private' directory can be used for lodging ASP scripts. Double click the 'www' directory to open it up. Unless you have already placed files in it, this will be empty.

For the time being, set the radio button option at the bottom of the two panes to 'Auto'. We'll look at this in more detail in a moment.

Having arranged the screen with the left hand 'pane' showing the directory where your web files are stored and the right hand 'pane' showing the contents of the directory called 'www', you are ready to upload your files. Remember that it is critically important to keep the same directory and sub-directory structure in your local mirror and on line. For instance, if for convenience you have placed all the images for your website in a sub-directory called 'pictures', you must reflect this arrangement in the webspace, otherwise your links to images will 'break' and they will not be displayed on your site. 

Select the file you want to upload in the left pane by clicking it once. If you wish to upload more than one file at a time, hold down shift to select a consecutive column of files, or Ctrl to select specific individual files.  Now click the right-pointing arrow in the middle vertical bar (centre of screen below).

 Watch the read-out at the bottom left of the screen to verify that the files have uploaded. Click 'Refresh' to the bottom right of the right hand pane to check that the files are now residing on the server.

If the updated file you uploaded had the same name as an existing one in your webspace, say index.htm, the new file will simply overwrite and replace the old one. You can check that this has worked by looking closely at the time and date stamp for the relevant file. Once you have uploaded a new file, the time stamp for the original on your PC and the copy in your webspace should be identical. (assuming that your PC clock is accurately set!).

Back to the 'Auto' business mentioned above. There are three options, namely 'ASCII', 'Binary' and 'Auto'. This refers to the kind of file you are uploading, and hails from the days when software was less sophisticated and found it harder to distinguish between files. ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) refers to any text files, including your .htm, .html  or .asp web files. Most other files are binary, including, rather confusingly, modern word-processor files such as MS .doc files. If you upload an ASCII file as a binary one or vice versa, strange things can happen, most leading to your site not working. Fortunately, the 'Auto' setting renders much of what has been said above academic. Keep the setting on Auto and your FTP programme should happily auto-detect what file type you are dealing with and treat it accordingly. It is worth knowing that you can manually alter the setting however, just in case you ever run into problems.

You cannot 'damage' your webspace or your PC by experimenting with WS-FTP. Try uploading some files to get the feel of the system.

The ultimate test of your work is to connect to your webspace to ensure that the new material you have uploaded is being displayed. If you were online and had your web browser open at your site when you started the FTP session, remember to click 'refresh' (in the 'view' menu in MS Internet Explorer) to update the connection, otherwise you will continue to see the old files. Be aware that some service providers use a 'proxy' system, whereby they download frequently visited websites to their own servers in order to make them more rapidly available to their own users. Occasionally, if the proxy server has not updated or is busy, your new file uploads may not display immediately. This is not a common issue, but is worth bearing in mind before concluding that something has gone wrong with the file uploads. Remember to press F5, 'refresh' in your browser.

FTP can be a rewarding business, putting you in charge of your website, and allowing complete management of all its aspects. Do not be afraid to experiment. If however, you need extra support, email us at support@commskit.org.uk, or consider opting in to our £45 half-day tuition package, which includes setting up and using WS-FTP.

 Reminder - it is essential for your web files to be uploaded into the /www or into a sub-folder within it, depending on your site structure.  When a browser tries to open the home or index page of your site, it will automatically be directed to the /www folder. Some users have uploaded their files straight into the top level of their FTP and have been perplexed when the site does not become visible.  Any files that you can see on the same level as the /www folder, that is, those that are visible in the right hand pane of WS-FTP along with the /www folder,  will not be able to viewed online with a web browser.

Eventually, as your site develops, you may wish to add functionality such as a response form or guestbook etc. On Windows 2000 servers, such as those used by Commskit, this is achieved using Microsoft Active Server Pages, or ASP's as they are known. ASP's allow a great deal of the processing work to be done by software already installed on the server itself. It is beyond the scope of this document to detail script-writing methods, but a simple introduction is offered here. 

A basic form page can be provided on request in the form of a file, termed a script, named SendMail.ASP. The script, written in VBScript, will work with any form. 

To use this example, you will need to make a minor adjustment to the SendMail.ASP script. To do this, open the script using the Notepad editor supplied with Windows and find the line which reads:

Jmail.AddRecipient "internet@commskit.org.uk"

Change the email address (which is that used for the Commskit website response form) to the one you want the output of the form to be returned to, e.g., replyform@stjohnsonline.org.uk and save the file without altering its name.

There are other settings which can be adjusted. By adding a genuine web page URL between the "" in  the last line, response.redirect "", for instance, you can direct your user to a friendly page which you have created indicating that the action was completed successfully. 

You can also adjust the line:

JMail.Sender = "formresponse@commskit.org.uk"

to indicate your chosen originating email address.

Having done this, upload the 'formtest.htm' file to your 'www' directory, and create a new sub-directory called 'asp' to place 'sendmail.asp' in. Try the form. Once you are happy with the test, edit and possibly rename the formtest.htm page to include your own bespoke form.

To learn more about ASP and scripting, which is usually done using the scripting languages VBScript of JavaScript, do a search for the appropriate heading online or look in the computer section at a local book shop. We shall from time to time add useful generic scripts and links to our web services resource section on the Commskit website. Whilst the site is in development, a number of generic ASP scripts covering areas such as forms, guestbooks, password-restricted login and database access can be supplied by email on request, but please note that free support does not extend to writing, modifying or debugging scripts for use with your own account. 

Advanced users may wish to note that our backbone provider currently runs ASP 5 on IIS 6. Directory browsing is restricted. The default directory 'Private' has database read/write permissions enabled and is not accessible to non-FTP access. Password-locked databases are therefore not required and are not supported. Database access should be DSN less. DSN access is not supported. Server Map.Path is usable. Physical paths are of the type: D:/a/b/username/ where a and b are the first and second letters of the account username.

If you have purchased the Commskit 100 package you have 1000 pop3 email addresses to use. This should be sufficient for all but the very largest organization. The Commskit UL package offers unlimited email addresses.

There are two aspects to setting up your email. Firstly, specific email addresses within your domain, .e.g, minister@stjohnsonline.org.uk, must be configured using your control panel, and then the users themselves must set up accounts in the email software, e.g, Outlook Express, in order to use the address. These separate processes are dealt with below.

Configuring email addresses via your control panel

Login to your control panel and select the menu option 'email'. You will see a screen similar to the one below: 

Select the option 'Mailboxes' and you will be taken to another screen, similar to below:

(When you have configured new addresses, they will appear listed on this screen)

Select the single option 'Create mailbox to arrive at the following screen:

Here you have the option to type in an email name (the suffix, with the form @yourdomain.org.uk is assumed automatically) and an accompanying password.  These can be changed or deleted at any time in the future. That's it, you have created a new email address. Keep a note of it and the password.

In the first screen shown above, there were a number of other options. These are as follows:

Forwarding

You can use this facility to 'alias' other addresses to an existing address. Say for instance that your email address is mailto:'sbrown@stjohnsonline,.org.uk' but that you also wish to run an address such as 'churchsecretary@stjohnsonline.org.uk, to indicate your responsibility. The forwarding facility will allow you to do this, or to forward the new address to any other email address, whether it is part of your Commskit package or not. So, continuing the example above, if you have an existing address of 'sbrown@hotmail.com', you can arrange to forward all mail for 'churchsecretary@stjohnsonlibne.org.uk' to this address.

Autoresponders

This allows you to set up any of your created mailboxes or aliases to send an automatic reply to a received mail, useful if you are away for a while, or if you want to assure your correspondent that their mail has been received and will be dealt with soon.

MRA (Multi-Recipient Addresses)

This allows you to specify that emails to an alias, e.g. 'enquiries@stjohnsoline.org.uk' are sent to a selection of email addresses. You can use this facility to set up a group chat system or bulk mailing system, wherein a single email will go to all the addresses on the list.

Please note that, in common with almost all other internet service providers, our backbone ISP does not allow MRAs to include email addresses which are not on their server. You cannot, for example, add the address 'minister@aol.com' to your MRA. The reason that this is not allowed is to prevent unscrupulous users from setting up a 'spamming' bulk mail system, which is both antisocial and hugely demanding of internet bandwidth.

Ultimately, if you need to set up a large bulk mailing which includes email addresses which are not part of your Commskit account, then it will be necessary to look into areas such as dedicated email servers or proprietary mailing list systems.

Default routing

This option allows you to specific the email address to which any miss-typed or unknown mails go. A correspondent may for instance accidentally send an miss-typed email to mailto:'minster@stjohnsonline.org.uk', or assume that there is such an address as 'childrensworker@ etc. You can direct all such emails to a chosen existing address to 'mop up' these emails.

Configuring email software. Outlook Express

The second part of arranging your email provision is for you or your users to configure their email software with the new Commskit settings. There are a number of email programmes in current use, but by far the most popular is MS Outlook Express, supplied with Internet Explorer. The instructions which follow are specific to this programme. Other programmes will require similar set up procedures, but may vary in detail to those below. 

As a first principle, it is important to note that it is perfectly possible to run multiple email accounts in Outlook Express. If therefore, you already have a dial-up account with email, e.g Freeserve, Tiscali, etc. there is no need to alter any of these settings. 

To begin setting up your new email, start Outlook Express and click on 'Tools' on the menu bar at the top of the screen. This will provide a pop-down menu option, from which you should select 'Accounts'. This will take you to a screen similar to that below: (Click the Mail tab if any of the others are presently selected).

Click the 'Add' option on the top right of the window. A small pop-down option window will appear. Select 'mail' from this, to arrive at the following screen:

Type the name for your email in the blank field. (If you have an existing email account set up, the name used for that may appear. You can use this one or alter it). Click the 'Next' button on the bottom right of the window to be taken to the following screen:

Type your email address in here. This should be exactly the same as the one you set up on the control panel, e.g., jsmith@stjohnsonline.org.uk

Click the 'Next' button to be taken the following screen:

This a most important screen for setting up your email. 

Leave your incoming mail server as 'POP3'.

In the 'Incoming mail .. server' box, type the following:

pop.commskit.org.uk

The Outgoing mail (SMTP) server is usually that used by your existing internet provision. For example, smtp.freeserve.co.uk. This setting will have been supplied to you by your access provider when you set up the account.

Increasingly, some providers, e.g., BT, are now requiring that you prove your entitlement to the use of a domain before they will allow you to send and receive email on it through their servers. This 'email relaying' permission is present as an anti-spam precaution. If your provider operates such an email relaying rule, you may have to contact them to ascertain the procedure for gaining relaying permission.

(Experienced email users may be aware that in fact, they can use various SMTP servers for outgoing mail, for example, if more than one email address or service provider is used.  This is a personal choice, and will neither enhance or degrade email performance).

If you are unable to use your own SMTP server, you may use: smtp.commskit.org.uk

Once you have entered these settings, click 'Next' to go to the screen below:

There is scope for a little confusion here. Outlook Express uses the term 'Account name' for what is more commonly termed the 'User Id'. Here, you should type 'yourdomain-emailname' where 'yourdomain' is the domain name you registered when taking out the Commskit account, and 'emailname' is the first part of the email address, before the '@' symbol. So, for example, if you have set up a new email address in the control panel of 'jsmith@stjohnsonline.org.uk', you should type 'stjohnsonline-jsmith' in the Account name field, and the corresponding password which you specified in the control panel in the Password field.

Click next when you have entered your details, to complete setting up your email.

Back at the main screen for Outlook Express, test your work by sending an email to your own new address (or another convenient address) and check that the system polls the pop3 account and sends the mail successfully.

Other email features

Webmail and dial up accounts can be added and configured on you account at no extra cost.

Webmail access allows users who do not operate an offline email client programme such as MS Outlook to access their email directly online. Simply point your browser to 'webmail.commskit.org.uk' and enter your email username, as per 'stjohnsonline-jsmith' above, and your password at the pop-up window. it will be necessary, of course, for an email account to have been set-up via the control panel, as above, in order to use this facility.

Unlimited dial-up accounts can now be configured via the control panel for users. This facility uses a dedicated local rate telephone number and can be employed if a user does not have an alternative internet access account. Full step-by-step instructions for setting up dial-up accounts can be found in the control panel.

Spam

Spam, defined as unsolicited and unwelcome bulk email, is becoming an increasing problem for all internet users. Our servers provide as degree of in-built spam filtering, but this cannot cover all the requirements and configurations of Commskit clients.

A small tip, where you have email addresses added to your website, is to encrypt them into hexidecimal notation. They will still work, but harvesting software designed to scan your site files and acquire email addresses for spamming purposes will not recognise them. Tools for encryption can be found for free online.

Spam  Buster

We can provide a bespoke spam filtering system at an extra cost of £25 per annum. Spam Buster is a high-level provision which uses multiple approaches such as a frequently updated database of known spammers, user-configured 'white' and 'black' lists, and intelligent heuristic learning of your email practices through experience. The result is that, after configuration, a 98% rejection rate for spam can be expected. Spam Buster allows you to set the level of filtering, and also to dictated what happens to the spam, e.g, it can be delivered to a 'Spam' address of your own, bounced, deleted, or delivered with a subject label of 'SPAM'.

To activate Spam Buster on your account, please email your request to: support@commskit.org.uk

Trouble shooting

The most common problems with email arise from entering incorrect details or by mistyping passwords. If you receive error messages, it is worth checking your settings according to the above instructions as carefully as possible.

Difficulties can arise if your system is expecting to use a particular dial-up account to check for email, and this is either not present or incorrectly configured. Check the 'Connection' details in your account to check these settings.

Some dial-up accounts may have restrictions as to which SMTP outgoing mail servers can be accessed.  Recently, BT introduced restrictions whereby users of some of the packages must 'register' their domain for use of BT servers. (This does not imply transferring the domain away from you). This is to prevent the proliferation of spam emails. If this or a similar case pertains, you should set your SMTP server for your Commskit email to the default for your service provider and check with your provider as to whether you need to take any steps to obtain permission to use your domain email through their SMTP servers.

Clearly, if you are passing on responsibility for configuring email to your individual users, you may need to supply them with these instructions or provide some basic tuition for the less experienced.

Alias: An email address which can be used to redirect messages to another address or account.

ASP:  - Active server pages is the Windows system for bringing interaction such as forms, guestbooks and 
counters etc. to web pages,

Auto-responder:  The facility to send a pre-typed message to a correspondent on receipt of an email.

Control panel: Web-based options pages through which you configure your Commskit web and email provision.

Domain: A unique name, e.g. commskit.org.uk, registered by an organization for its exclusive use on the Internet.

Email: Messages sent in text form via the internet.

File Transfer Protocol. The method used by the Internet to transfer files from one computer to another. Used to 
'upload' and lodge your web files on a server, in order for users to view them.

Front Page / Extensions.  Microsoft Front Page is often used to prepare HTML web pages.  It can also be used to up-load such pages to an internet Server if Front Page Extensions are enabled at the Server  

HTML. Hypertext Mark Up Language. The form of coding for web pages. Programmes such as MS FrontPage make it possible to create website without any detailed knowledge of HTML.

Internet. Evolving from the US military computer network of the late 1960's, a planet-wide matrix of inter-connected computer and electronic devices allowing rapid communications over great distances.

Logon, Login. The act of connecting to a remote computer and validating credentials for doing so via passwords etc.

Mailbox. A virtual location on a server used to store emails designated for a particular user. Analogous to a Post office PO box.

Password: A sequence of alphanumeric characters kept secret to yourself and required by a server for authenticating your login.

Server: A powerful computer, usually running 24 hours a day, which provides a service to Internet users. Web servers for instance store web pages, and email servers handle the sending and receipt of messages.

WWW. World wide web. Both the name, and the prefix for graphically-based pages of information on the Internet.