I have a close friend who's setting up a site to showcase art and music from our community. She asked me some advice on equipment for sound etc. and I realised, I know very little about what would be needed to host a website with downloadable mp3s etc.

What would she need?

A firewall?

Help! I'm a computer ignoramus aoutside my realm of sound production. (and that is all Mac, while she's on PC) eeeeek.

If you CAN reply, treat me like a hatchling. Give the most basic info to the in-depth juicy bits.

I'll be most grateful :D

Oki, there are several ways (of course one can do this)

Fist of all, will she run the server herself from home so to speak, her own IP number IE a way to have her own formal adress to the internet.
If she does, she needs a good connection to the internet, a computer dedicated as a server, server OS, firewall programs/or a physical firewall.

If not, you are buying a web name, ie www.ourgreatmusic.com for example, rent sapce on a server that will make all the physical mainenance, and bandwidth. They also connect the IP you your www name.

After that, she needst to make the site, have either good space herself in case one, or rent a portion that is sufficient to hold all the material you like to share.

Other then that, only some small part programming for maillists, e-mails etc will be needed.

If you like to, (I know this is a short answer, mail me buddy, and I can give you better answers).

Good luck to your project!