Imagine having a filing system that could withstand a nuclear war. Hmm, I wouldn't like to prove it, but in theory that is what the Internet could resist with its virtual existence. If you transfer files of information around the Internet, operating in virtual space, it would be difficult to lose that information if you had a mind not to. Possessing a website has advantages for many varieties of users; serving a range of different purposes. For example, Net presence is of enormous benefit to businesses of all shapes and sizes. Conventional filing systems, where everything is stored as a hard copy, are cumbersome, and space consuming. With a website, all existing documents can be transferred one way or another, to the Internet and neatly organized using 'hyperlinks' (virtual pathways) for quick, easy reference. You no longer need to waste your time digging through a mile high pile of paper to find what your looking for, with your own website all it takes is the click of a 'mouse'. A website wouldn't only save you space and time, but cost too. The Internet is worldwide and a website can be used as a powerful promotional and marketing tool, viewed by prospective clients around the world. One can see what you offer in Hong Kong and Madrid at the same time. Imagine the money you'd save on promotional printing costs. Your website could reach the four corners of the globe and be available 24 hours a day. There is no longer a need to allocate high budgets to printing promotional material for prospective clients, they are able to access the information instantaneously, and download what they need. Imagine, neatly organized links that move you, quickly to your destination. A website is your identity on the Internet, kind of like an interactive 'business card'. It can be the prospective client's first point of contact, presented by a knockout, easily updated, design, your site can sell you, your products and your services. Once you have organised your web site and patted yourself on the back, that you have made your first flight into 'cyberspace', your next step is to have somewhere to 'dock' it, a place to put your website. A place such as M6.net - http://www.m6.net a 'web host' a place to 'host' your web site. A web hosting company provides a space for you to put your web page documents (FrontPage, Dreamweaver files), images (gifs, jpgs), and more advanced pages such as ASP's, those pages that have intelligence behind them creating such items as forms, news, bbs, chat; interaction. If the Host is clever enough, friendly, supportful; it will offer a whole range of facilities, that you or your webmaster can take advantage of, to create an interactive, humanised, mechanised and automated business presence, on the Internet. For businesses in the new millennium there is no future without an Internet presence. Trade costs will lower; communication will get smarter and faster. Reliability will be greater. Thus there will be a vast gap between businesses with Net presence and those without. Every one will have a presence on the Internet some day, wether it is a corporate business, Aunty Flo's bric-a-brac stall, or the family's photo library. Alec Ellis m6.net - www.m6.net GloPro - www.glopro.com