free business on the net

Though born of the Cold War, the Net has
mostly been free for its users. Initially, in the days of yore, before the Internet became
a household name, it was free to Defense personnel and University students. When the Net
became more public after the collapse of Russia-and thus, the Cold War itself-we had the
likes of Netscape and id Software offering shareware programs like Navigator and DOOM for
free downloading. Then came companies like Rocketmail and Hotmail, which gave you your own
free email ID. After that, we witnessed services like Geo Cities and Tripod, which allowed
you to host your own web page.

And now, it is time for business. A service
called Hypermart is offering your own business page-free of charge. Log in to
, and you get 10 MB of free space to host your own business
content on the Web.

Before we proceed further, allow us to
digress a bit. On the Net, 'free' does not mean something similar to what you get when you
buy two bars of some brand of soap. In Hypermart, free stuff does not mean that your page
gets hosted on some shady little 386 server situated in some dingy little basement.
Instead, you get a server-securely located in an underground facility-powered by a 300 MHz
Pentium II processor, fully equipped to the gills with 196 MB of RAM and 200 GB of hard
disk estate. You also get 99 percent system availability, UPS and diesel generator
backups, and data backups on tapes stored in fire-proof vaults-the works. And all this
service for free. Ask any detergent company to match that!

The backgrounders apart, the site is well
organized. We felt that it little lacking in color, but hey, then this ain't a Playboy.
There are four buttons on the left, which allow you to learn about what Hypermart is all
about, browse the FAQ, join the club, or enter if you are a member. Compared to many
sites, this is the least complex we have seen in a long, long time. Even a blind man can
be expected to navigate around with ease.

A good feature of this service is the
excellent help you get online. You can learn about FTP, how to set up CGI and Perl
scripts, and about everything else that you need to know to get your business up and
running on the Web.

Now, you may ask, what sort of kicks does
Hypermart get from giving you a free site of sorts? Well, you are supposed to include
their ads on each page-this is mandatory. These ads will be of a professional or business
nature. But then, isn't this a small price to pay for the free service you get.

Other Features

One important feature of Hypermart is that it gives you the option of choosing which way
you want the world to access your site. You can choose something from various forms like:

The last option requires that you have your
own domain name, for which you have to pay a sum of $ 100 for registration plus two years
usage, and $ 50 for each year thereafter.

Another good feature is mail forwarding.
You get a mail address called myname@mycompany.hypermart.net, which needs to be forwarded
to your real email address. Other features include full CGI and FTP access, support for MS
Frontpage, a members-only newsgroup, and a secure server for SSL transactions. So, what
are you waitin' for, pardner? Git set for the California Gold Rush all o'er ag'in!