If you develop websites on an Open Source platform (eg. Apache) then it is always good to have a test server so that your development isn’t done live. Yeah, I know I like to do live stuff, but I have my reasons. I also have my own development server at home and something that is great to implement on a local Apache server is virtual hosts.
If you run your websites on a shared server you already have experience with virtual hosts. They allow you to run more than one domain on the same machine and this is where their value comes in.
Dave Shea provides an excellent overview of how you can get started using Virtual Hosts within the Apache Server environment.
