Web Based Applications vs Traditional Applications - Which platform?
Do you need custom software, but aren't sure whether it should be web-based or traditional? Want to learn about web-based software? For businesses or individuals who wish to develop custom software in order to help organize their work or their lives, the old method was simply to pay a programmer or programming company to develop it, then to install it on their home machines. However, in today's modern world, you have another option: to install the program on a local machine, then to run the application directly from that machine. This may seem like a strange and counter-intuitive form of outsourcing, but as you will soon see, there are very real advantages to using web-based software to run your business.
If your software is web-based, all the processing power is server-side, rather than client-side. If you or your workers computers don't have the highest quality processing power, it doesn't matter. The only computer that needs to be fast is the server running the software. This means that you and your workers don't have to keep updating the computers in order to stay up to date. Client-side computers just have to be powerful enough to connect to the Internet.
In addition, regarding installation and making updates, with web-based software you only have to update the program on one machine. This ensures greater flexibility with your business - you can test out certain features a lot more easily, and switch around how the business is run more quickly. Especially if there are a lot of systems using the software, if it's web-based it can save a lot of time lost to updates. In addition, all the data from all the computers is collected in one place, so it's easier to back up. If you have an employee who is lax about backing up company data, you don't have to worry about losing vital information.
Web-based software is also more flexible in that it allows your workers to work from home. If you have any clients, they can check the status of projects, provide immediate feedback to your business, and stay in touch. Interactivity always creates more interested clients, and interested clients translates into repeat clients, which is always good for your business.
On the other side, windows application development for windows based computers (as opposed to web-based application) is best if the software will use specialised hardware such as scanners, imaging devices, or other information-gathering devices. If what you need requires your system to have a specific piece of hardware, the software should be locally-based, rather than web-based.
Frequently Asked Questions
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QUESTION:
Desperate need help, how to run ASP.NET with IIS?
up to now i've been using the built-in IIS in Visual Studio, now i want to use IIShere's what i want to achieve:
when i type example.com in a browser i will go to my asp.net application stored in my own computer.here's what i've done:
1. i map www.example.com to the ip address 127. something in a file inside system32/drives/etc/host
2. then i use IIS manager to add the site that i am going to create and bind it to www.example.com
3. finally when i try to create a new website in VS with HTTP web location using www.example.com, it say "can't create, the web server doesn't have FrontPage server extension"really need some help please
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ANSWER:
Don't know why you are going the www.example.com way... You don't need to do that.Here's what u need to do.
1) Register asp.net on IIS. This step may or may not be necessary. But even if yo do this, it will not harm anything. To do this, open command prompt and type this
aspnet_regiis.exe -i
Hit enter.
2) Open your application in VS.
3) Right click your project file (.csproj) in Solution explorer and click publish...
4) In far right in the window that opens you'll see an button (....). Click it.
5) In the window that opens next, click local IIS. Here select Default website.
6)In top right of this window, you'll see three icons. Click on icon that displays tooltip 'Click New Web Application'. Rename the web application you just created to whatever u want.
7) Select it and then click open.
Click Publish. There are several options for you to select but for the time being, you'll do good to select the default options only.9) Finished. Now you can open Internet Explorer and type
http://localhost/
/default.aspx e.g. http://localhost/ankitwebsite/form.aspx. Thus here http://localhost/ankitwebsite becomes the root folder for your website.
10) If you make some changes, you can publish it again. by following the same procedure.
11) later you can upload this site to some third party site that hosts websites. And also, you can purchase a domain name for the same. But all this will cost u money.
Good luck!
Edit: Hey, for re-publishing you do not need to create another web application again. Just right click your project -> Publish -> And then publish again.
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QUESTION:
Which development and server platforms should I employ for a new small business?
Hello,
I am looking to get back into programming as I really enjoyed it at uni in Cape Town and now have a few business ideas I'd like to try in the UK. I'm a bit out of the game over the last few years and I need some advice as to software. Requirements are: A. It must be legal for commercial, small business (profit) use, B. It will be used in development by no more than 4 programmersI plan to use one server with some redundancy built in; now should I have a standalone with windows server 2008 r2 installed along with SQL Server 2008 r2 installed? Which version of each based on the above requirements as there are so many choices with vastly different prices (I will be using 64-bit)? I plan to use web forms and ASP.net 4.0 so should I use visual studio 2010 professional edition or should I be looking at premium for more than one programmer? Or in fact is there a cheaper version I can use for commercial employment given that it's ASP.net I want and not all the application tools that vs.net offers?
Many thanks for any help you can offer.
Cheers,
Lynton-
ANSWER:
Hi Lynton,It would be difficult to tell you what specific platforms you would need because it depends on different variables such as what type of web application you are trying to build, how much traffic will be going to your website, how much data is included in your web app, etc.
A good place to start is http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/. Through the Bizspark program, you can get the latest Microsoft software (including Visual Studio, SQL Server, Windows server) and support for free.
You can compare Visual Studio 2010 versions here:
http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/productsYou can compare SQL Server 2008 editions here:
http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/editions-compare.aspxYou can compare Windows Server 2008 editions here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/editions.aspx
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