[Veltliner]

I'm about to decide about where to host my business website.

Favorite is at the moment Lunarpages, runners-up GoDaddy and IX web hosting.

What's your experience? I have the impression they are all very good, but Lunarpages offers the most services, IX web hosting the most storage space and throughput for the money.

[Doofy]

Altogether now...

[besson3c]

What do you need from your host as far as features go?

[irunat2am]

I liked HostRocket, had them for years. Didn't like how they had some stuff setup, but they were a solid host.

I've been with IX Web Hosting for over a year now and love it. If you'd like to get no discount whatsoever, but let me get a referral deal pm me for my info. I love you, too. Thanks *blush*

Good luck with your new host!

[johnner69]

I've had a good experience with lunarpages. Their support really seems to be on the ball unlike some other hosts i've dealt with. Hostgator is also pretty solid but i find lunarpages support to be better.

[iranfromthezoo]

i like startlogic.com its been the best so far

[Veltliner]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

What do you need from your host as far as features go?

Honestly, it is my first website, and I haven't even decided on HTML or FLASH. It will be a photography website, and I heard flash websites are easy to plunder images from.

Actually, you are stabbing right at the center of the question.

What IS the most imporant feature to look for in a host? Which services are key?

Thanks!

[Spook E]

So who would you guys recommend for a really basic website?

I'm just going to whip something up with iWeb, bit of a blog, some photos etc and really only need the basics, i guess.

Who's cheap and cheerful?

[irunat2am]

Originally Posted by Veltliner 

What IS the most imporant feature to look for in a host? Which services are key?

Might be a bit different for other people. But I'd look at:

1. Price/Support
2. SPACE
3. PHP/Flash support

I have 60 gigs with ixwebhosting for really cheap (plus 3 free domains). The plans were starting to get much more storage at Hostrocket.com before I left, too. Both have great customer service (in my experience). IX has 24/7 online chat with support. Hostrocket has support tickets they repond to via e-mail. The longest I waited with them was about 4 hours.

Most places you get tons of e-mail addresses, easy ftp setup from control panel, yada yada.

Originally Posted by Spook E

I'm just going to whip something up with iWeb, bit of a blog, some photos etc and really only need the basics, i guess.

WordPress.com � Get a Free Blog Here
www.blogger.com
LiveJournal.com - Start a Free Blog / Journal Today

Who knows if you're interested...but it beats the crap out of paying. Tons of templates, and you can host pictures, blogs, etc.

[IceEnclosure]

Originally Posted by Spook E 

..and cheerful?

dreamhost, all happy and stuff.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Veltliner 

Honestly, it is my first website, and I haven't even decided on HTML or FLASH. It will be a photography website, and I heard flash websites are easy to plunder images from.

Actually, you are stabbing right at the center of the question.

What IS the most imporant feature to look for in a host? Which services are key?

Thanks!

Flash doesn't require any server side support. If you are looking to create a dynamic website or use a content management system (CMS), you will need support of a middleware language and database, and unless you've installed a CMS yourself before, you might want to pick a host that has the CMS you want preinstalled and ready to go.

If you want a dynamic site, the first question is whether you want a Unix or Windows based host? A Windows based host will allow you to run programs written for Coldfusion or ASP/.Net. A Unix based host will allow you to run programs written in Python and a host of other languages including PHP and Ruby (although many of these same languages also run on Windows). A Windows based host will likely support MS SQL server, a Unix based host will support PostgreSQL. Both support MySQL.

The Apache webserver generally runs better on Linux based hosts, as do languages such as PHP. While many of these languages run on Windows like I said, Linux + PHP + MySQL is probably a more typical combination than Windows + PHP + MySQL.

So, what does all of this mean?

I personally think that pure Flash websites are a PITA, and are difficult to maintain. There are a lot of benefits of going with a dynamic, database driven website, especially if you plan to host a blog. If a dynamic website is in the cards for you, start researching what software you plan to run on your website (e.g. blog, CMS, photo gallery software). Find out the requirements of this software. This will narrow down your choice of host.

One feature that people overlook in a host is backups. If you have data in a database, will your host backup this data for you and provide you direct access to it? Will they backup your HTML too?

Another thing I suggest doing is Google the company's security ratings, and look for hosting forums where people discuss their experiences with this host. If the host has crap security, it is likely that downtown will be high and/or the quality of their services and products poor.

[mdc]

Originally Posted by IceEnclosure 

dreamhost, all happy and stuff.

While I agree with IceEnclosure's suggestion of DreamHost, I have to say that I have been a little unhappy with them lately. I've been with them for around 3 or 4 years now and have only ever had a handful of times that I noticed my website down.

This weekend though it was down for a long while. I contacted support and 4 hours later I received a generic response.

Hello,

Sorry about the slowness and downtime you experienced earlier. Some of the file servers
connected to your server had to be rebooted after some mounting issues arose. There were
some residual problems with apache web services, which were fixed shortly after. The admins
are looking into the issue and how to avoid it from happening again.

We appreciate your patience and understanding, and let us know if there is anything else you need.

Thanks!
DreamHost

I never mentioned any slowness. I told them my entire domain was down.
The fact that it took 4 hours to reply to a domain down bothers me. I would've appreciated an email saying they will look into it and will contact me later with more details. Their status page never said a thing about servers having to be restarted, and still doesn't say that they had to. Do they hope people just didn't notice?

The thing that has bothered me about them is their almost "oh it's no big deal" attitude towards issues. When they had that large outage and sent out their email they said something along the lines of "it's not a big deal since you probably didn't notice it... unless you're awake at 4am." That attitude really got to me.

[Railroader]

ICDSoft.com - The Ultimate in Web Hosting

[irunat2am]

I actually canceled my dreamhost account within my first 2 weeks. I could not STAND how it took an hour and a half (literally) for their system to create/give me access to a new e-mail address after I clicked 'add/go'..whatever the button was to submit.

I wrote them an e-mail saying I'd never experienced anything that slow, and I needed to have the addresses added immediately as they were created (like every other host I've had..and I was actually very nice about it).

They had the balls to write me back saying that it is completely normal to experience that long of a wait for creating an e-mail account and that I basically have no idea what I'm talking about......I canceled. Good luck. Hopefully now they have a post 90's setup. :/

[mdc]

I have my email hosted with Google, with their GMail for your Domain, since I find SquirrelMail atrocious.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by mdc 

I have my email hosted with Google, with their GMail for your Domain, since I find SquirrelMail atrocious.

RoundCube Webmail is very easy to install. It is light on features, but it has a great interface for basic email usage.

[besson3c]

The problem with picking out a web-host is how they attempt to manipulate in competing with these laundry lists of features... One will come out with one week saying:

- 329048029348 gig of bandwidth
- every programming language under the sun
- see No Uptime Hosting - Guaranteed server downtime! (free Steve Ballmer!
- 5 cents a month

Then some other company will try to one up the other in the following week.

The thing is, do you really *need* access to all of these features? How many do you really need? There is always a catch when you offer 23402938409 services for 5 cents a month, you spread yourself too thin. You either don't have the resources to support these services properly, or you grow to be such a monstrosity that you can no longer offer personalized support and resort to sending out form letter responses to support tickets.

I get the sense that this is what Dreamhost has become.

[Peter]

not Dreamhost.
Consider using flickr alone for photos

[goMac]

Dreamhost. I know some people don't like them, but they're one of the only hosts I know of that has SVN and nice shell access.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by goMac 

Dreamhost. I know some people don't like them, but they're one of the only hosts I know of that has SVN and nice shell access.

How does SVN authentication work on Dreamhost, just out of curiosity? svn+ssh? WebDAV? Native SVN?

Svn+ssh doesn't allow you to designate which SSH accounts have access to which SVN branches, so I don't think this would work well (unless each site was its own virtual machine). WebDAV allows this, but unless each site has its own IP and SSL certificate you cannot do secure WebDAV connections, and native SVN is also insecure and mostly deprecated, AFAIK.

So, just wondering how this works on Dreamhost. How do you create and checkout your repository for the first time in your shell?

[goMac]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

(snip)

Subversion - DreamHost

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by goMac 

Subversion - DreamHost

Thanks... They do support svn+ssh, and secure WebDAV if your site has an SSL cert (a service which I'm assuming costs extra). I wonder how they pulled off the svn+ssh thing? Do you know if each account is its own virtual machine, or whether each user gets their own private SSH server?

[goMac]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Thanks... They do support svn+ssh, and secure WebDAV if your site has an SSL cert (a service which I'm assuming costs extra). I wonder how they pulled off the svn+ssh thing? Do you know if each account is its own virtual machine, or whether each user gets their own private SSH server?

I'm not sure how it works. I can add and remove SSH accounts as I please. We're not in our own virtual machines though.

Security isn't a HUGE concern for me. My code is not all that critical.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by goMac 

I'm not sure how it works. I can add and remove SSH accounts as I please. We're not in our own virtual machines though.

Security isn't a HUGE concern for me. My code is not all that critical.

Yeah, but I'm sort of thinking more along the lines of a system administrator here, as by default SSH passwords are the same as your general system/account password, and obviously authentication in the clear is generally avoided as much as possible, particularly when you are using the same password for other services.

Can you set a separate password for each of your Dreamhost services? I'm also sort of wondering how they manage a single sign-on authentication type thing... I'm assuming that LDAP is the magic ingredient here combined with Kerberos. I need to learn more about LDAP...

[Veltliner]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Flash doesn't require any server side support. If you are looking to create a dynamic website or use a content management system (CMS), you will need support of a middleware language and database, and unless you've installed a CMS yourself before, you might want to pick a host that has the CMS you want preinstalled and ready to go.

If you want a dynamic site, the first question is whether you want a Unix or Windows based host? A Windows based host will allow you to run programs written for Coldfusion or ASP/.Net. A Unix based host will allow you to run programs written in Python and a host of other languages including PHP and Ruby (although many of these same languages also run on Windows). A Windows based host will likely support MS SQL server, a Unix based host will support PostgreSQL. Both support MySQL.

The Apache webserver generally runs better on Linux based hosts, as do languages such as PHP. While many of these languages run on Windows like I said, Linux + PHP + MySQL is probably a more typical combination than Windows + PHP + MySQL.

So, what does all of this mean?

I personally think that pure Flash websites are a PITA, and are difficult to maintain. There are a lot of benefits of going with a dynamic, database driven website, especially if you plan to host a blog. If a dynamic website is in the cards for you, start researching what software you plan to run on your website (e.g. blog, CMS, photo gallery software). Find out the requirements of this software. This will narrow down your choice of host.

One feature that people overlook in a host is backups. If you have data in a database, will your host backup this data for you and provide you direct access to it? Will they backup your HTML too?

Another thing I suggest doing is Google the company's security ratings, and look for hosting forums where people discuss their experiences with this host. If the host has crap security, it is likely that downtown will be high and/or the quality of their services and products poor.

Thanks, besson3c, for your reply. Well, I'm still trying to translate your response into English (which means, some computer terms sound very similar to Chinese, Kisuaheli, or a rare North SubSahara'n bedouin dialect. Maybe you can help me catch up with web and server talk by taking a look at my questions? (Thanks)

1. If you are working from a Mac, isn't a Linux based system better?

2. DYNAMIC WEBSITE: this sounds like a particular and specific term. I can only see it as opposed to a static website, which only has one page. But what exactly is dynamic about a dynamic website?

3. Why are pure flash websites difficult to maintain? I actually didn't know you can have HTML and flash mixed. Regarding flash: Lightroom has webgalleries both in HTML and FLASH, but I'd like to have a bit more, add some text and thoughts.

4. All those programming languages... do I really have to speak them? (laughter from the audience). I currently have no time to learn any complex programming, so I'd like to know in what way those languages concern me. Are they items on a laundry list I check against a web host's "the following programming languages are supported"?

5. What does content management system mean? Is it an application that builds the actual site? Middleware languages? I have heard of middle earth languages...

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Veltliner 

Thanks, besson3c, for your reply. Well, I'm still trying to translate your response into English (which means, some computer terms sound very similar to Chinese, Kisuaheli, or a rare North SubSahara'n bedouin dialect. Maybe you can help me catch up with web and server talk by taking a look at my questions? (Thanks)

Sorry, I tend to start off my responses at a technical level just to gauge people to see where they're at. Let me know how I do with the following...

1. If you are working from a Mac, isn't a Linux based system better?

Well, you don't have to worry about things like different line breaks when you are working with a Linux (or Unix) system, so that much is good. If you end up using a programming language, you'll be able to run those same languages on your Mac off the same web server, so this is also an advantage. Otherwise, the differences shouldn't affect you too much.

All in all, my advice is to go with a Linux host unless you specifically need to run .Net, C#, ColdFusion, MsSQL, or any other Windows-only software. There is a ton of great free/open source web applications that you may wish to make use of that generally seem to be Linux more centric.

2. DYNAMIC WEBSITE: this sounds like a particular and specific term. I can only see it as opposed to a static website, which only has one page. But what exactly is dynamic about a dynamic website?

A dynamic website is a site where the content is driven by some sort of programming, often connected to a database backend. A static website is a bunch of separate HTML files that link to one another, based on nothing more than straight HTML - no programming involved. A very simple example of dynamic content is a programming command that prints today's date. If you need today's date, it would be a complete pain in the butt to manually have to change the date every day at 12:00, right? Using a programming language, this content can be generated dynamically, as opposed to statically.

Even though you think as a beginner that you may never want or need a dynamic site, lots of useful software can be used with a site such as this, such as the WordPress blogging software, the Gallery photo gallery software, the Mediawiki wiki, or the Joomla content management system. You may make good use out of any of these existing free software packages, but each of these have particular prerequisites and requirements for the host. In this case, each of these applications require the PHP programming language, and the MySQL database.

3. Why are pure flash websites difficult to maintain? I actually didn't know you can have HTML and flash mixed. Regarding flash: Lightroom has webgalleries both in HTML and FLASH, but I'd like to have a bit more, add some text and thoughts.

Because every time you update a Flash page, you have to upload this entire file again. Using a content management such as Joomla or WordPress, you can make these changes from anywhere using a web interface.

Flash also obviously requires the Flash software to be installed to create this content, and sometimes adding new content to an existing Flash site can be difficult. With an HTML site, you can add easily pages that wrap around your existing site design/template in a very fluid way.

I'm just not a fan of Flash at all, but perhaps you ought to get a second, less biased opinion.

4. All those programming languages... do I really have to speak them? (laughter from the audience). I currently have no time to learn any complex programming, so I'd like to know in what way those languages concern me. Are they items on a laundry list I check against a web host's "the following programming languages are supported"?

If you really want your site to sing, it would be imperative to learn HTML. HTML is not a programming language, but a markup language (a markup language is a kind of programming used to generate various layouts and formatting). You can use a tool such as iWeb or Dreamweaver to automatically generate this code for you, but this is sort of like using a software language translator to translate human language - the results are not always great. Working with a poorly coded site can be a pain in the butt, and your site won't rank as well in Google's search rankings.

A lot of work can be spared for you by existing software packages such as WordPress, and in the case of WordPress there are a ton of free website templates, if you don't mind a predesigned site. WordPress is blogging software, but it can also be used as a content management system.

5. What does content management system mean? Is it an application that builds the actual site? Middleware languages? I have heard of middle earth languages...

Middleware languages are languages such as PHP, Coldfusion, ASP, Perl, etc. These languages are sort of the bridge between what people see in their browsers and the server on the back end. That is, these languages can make requests to the server (e.g. automatically resize an image or save something to a database), or simply allow you to change what people see (e.g. automatically insert today's date).

For starting out, you don't need to learn such a language, but if you wish to use certain web applications they will require one of these languages to be installed on the host.

Why don't you tell us more about what sort of content you wish to provide on your site, and we'll let you know if there are any free web applications that might help enhance your site? Otherwise, if you simply need a jump on HTML, perhaps some of us can direct you to some useful resources. If you are really anxious to get something online, a "WYSIWYG" (what you see is what you get) editor such as the aforementioned iWeb and Dreamweaver will get you started, but I still strongly recommend you learn as much HTML as you can to really get a handle on things.

[residentEvil]

i've been with lunarpages now for a few years; had several projects there and now just down to my own personal site. can't say i ever dealt with customer service as i haven't had any problems. their forums are good for help if needed and they keep you updated on any outages (server moves for example) or software changes.

[Veltliner]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Why don't you tell us more about what sort of content you wish to provide on your site, and we'll let you know if there are any free web applications that might help enhance your site? Otherwise, if you simply need a jump on HTML, perhaps some of us can direct you to some useful resources. If you are really anxious to get something online, a "WYSIWYG" (what you see is what you get) editor such as the aforementioned iWeb and Dreamweaver will get you started, but I still strongly recommend you learn as much HTML as you can to really get a handle on things.

Thanks for the explanations.

Yes, I want to have a website up in about two weeks, so I have to do something without being able to write HTML. It will be a photographic website, where I am offer photographic services, and show my work. There are some web galleries template in Lightroom, the Adobe photo application, but I also need to put in a few pages of text, faqs, and, later, a blog, open for user comments.

I see that HTML is something one has to know when dealing with the web, and that not knowing it is possibly a kind of web illiteracy.

Regarding those WYSIWYG editors, is it the fault of the editors or the people working with them that so many websites don't look good? Are the limitations so great?

[CMYKid]

Originally Posted by Peter 

not Dreamhost.
Consider using flickr alone for photos

Worst. UI. Ever.

Seriously, I've always been at a loss as to how something owned by Yahoo can suck so hard. A charity I'm on the Board of uses Flickr for all of their images and its the most annoying thing ever. Luckily JetPhoto, which is WAAAAAAAY better, lets you one-click upload to Flickr accounts so I dont have to deal with them too very much anymore.

One notable about Dreamhost (which I learned here ages ago) they used to be one of the few hosts that support AFP, which was nice, being that you'd just mount your hosted domains like a drive on your desktop. Havent tried that in a while though.

[MacosNerd]

I use icdsoft and found them to be very good. Technical support seems to be far above many other hosting sites, the server speeds are nice. I was on dreamhost for a short amount of time a while ago and they had a lot of outages and performance issues. With the slowness in getting any word from them caused me to jump ship and the reviews for icdsoft was top notch.

the same cannot be said for lunarpages, a number of complaints, I'm not sure about godaddy. I used them to register my domain but I don't have them hosting it.

[Veltliner]

Originally Posted by MacosNerd 

I use icdsoft and found them to be very good. Technical support seems to be far above many other hosting sites, the server speeds are nice. I was on dreamhost for a short amount of time a while ago and they had a lot of outages and performance issues. With the slowness in getting any word from them caused me to jump ship and the reviews for icdsoft was top notch.

the same cannot be said for lunarpages, a number of complaints, I'm not sure about godaddy. I used them to register my domain but I don't have them hosting it.

You mean lunarpages are not fast? I haven't heard anything negative about them yet. Could you please specify?

Thanks.

[villalobos]

These guys are not as big and well known, but they are pretty good. Never had an issue with them so I cannot comment with the customer service. :-)

[MacosNerd]

Originally Posted by Veltliner 

You mean lunarpages are not fast? I haven't heard anything negative about them yet. Could you please specify? Thanks.

In reading various reviews people were complaining about lunarpages, their customer support and some speed issue but my post about speed issues and outages was directed towards dreamhost as I had a first hand experience with them.

So to set the record straight, I read lots of complaints regarding lunarpages, while I was looking for a host that was better the dreamhost because of outages and performance issues. I did not want to jump out of the frying pan into the fire. I'm extrememly pleased with icdsoft. They answer my support questions in about 10 minutes. Very fast, great uptime, reviews and these guys always seemed to be at the top or near the top of various ratings that I read on the net.

[Veltliner]

Originally Posted by MacosNerd 

I'm extrememly pleased with icdsoft. They answer my support questions in about 10 minutes. Very fast, great uptime, reviews and these guys always seemed to be at the top or near the top of various ratings that I read on the net.

Thanks! I'll definitely take a look at icdsoft.

[besson3c]

Veltliner: you definitely need to look into using the Gallery software to manage your photo galleries:

Gallery | Your photos on your website

As you can see, you can embed a gallery within an existing site design, or else create standalone galleries. Gallery includes a TON of features: Gallery Features | Gallery

This is really popular software that many hosting providers provide access to.

[davesimondotcom]

Dreamhost or (mt)

[Veltliner]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Veltliner: you definitely need to look into using the Gallery software to manage your photo galleries:

Gallery | Your photos on your website

As you can see, you can embed a gallery within an existing site design, or else create standalone galleries. Gallery includes a TON of features: Gallery Features | Gallery

This is really popular software that many hosting providers provide access to.

Thanks, besson3c. I'm very happy with this recommendation.

Does anybody know about e-mail attachment size limitations with web hosts? I sometimes need to mail PSD files (Photoshop picture files), and they are awfully big (6MB DNG file converted to PSD is 32,5MB )

I would really love to be able to send e-mails with a 200mb attachment.

[Veltliner]

Originally Posted by davesimondotcom 

Dreamhost or (mt)

Who is (mt)?

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Veltliner 

Does anybody know about e-mail attachment size limitations with web hosts? I sometimes need to mail PSD files (Photoshop picture files), and they are awfully big (6MB DNG file converted to PSD is 32,5MB )

I would really love to be able to send e-mails with a 200mb attachment.

You are not going to find a hosting provider that will let you send 200 mb attachments. The Postfix default is 10 mb. You might find some providers that might up this limit a little, but nowhere near as high as 200. SMTP servers are built to process a lot of small messages quickly, there is no way that anybody would accept a 200 mb attachment even if your web host allowed you to send 200 mb with their SMTP servers.

There are many other ways to send and receive attachments of that size.

[Eyenovation]

Originally Posted by Veltliner 

Who is (mt)?

(mt) is Media Temple - http://www.mediatemple.net

We use them, and are quite happy with them. You get what you pay for, let me be the first to tell you.

[Veltliner]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

You are not going to find a hosting provider that will let you send 200 mb attachments. The Postfix default is 10 mb. You might find some providers that might up this limit a little, but nowhere near as high as 200. SMTP servers are built to process a lot of small messages quickly, there is no way that anybody would accept a 200 mb attachment even if your web host allowed you to send 200 mb with their SMTP servers.

There are many other ways to send and receive attachments of that size.

Like a good storyteller, you are leaving the hint as a cliffhanger.

So I am asking now: which are those other ways to send and receive messages of this size? (and does the recipient have to be specially equipped, too? )

By the way, gmail allows 20mb. Great, but not big enough for me.

Which

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Veltliner 

Like a good storyteller, you are leaving the hint as a cliffhanger.

So I am asking now: which are those other ways to send and receive messages of this size? (and does the recipient have to be specially equipped, too? )

By the way, gmail allows 20mb. Great, but not big enough for me.

Which

Free web-based services such as this, secure copy/SFTP, Appletalk over TCP/IP (AFP), WebDAV, etc.

[Veltliner]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Free web-based services such as this, secure copy/SFTP, Appletalk over TCP/IP (AFP), WebDAV, etc.

Yousendit sounds great, the other things I'll have to research per google and wikipedia how they work.

Appletalk sounds to me like an intranet solution between a computer network, or is it not?

Thanks.

[Chuckit]

AFP is most often used for intranets, but there is nothing preventing you from opening an AFP connection over the Internet.

[ghporter]

For not so basic, but very simple hosting, I like 1 And 1. Inexpensive, apparently very competitive space and transfer quotas, good service. I'm happy.

[Kenneth]

Originally Posted by Eyenovation 

(mt) is Media Temple - (mt) Media Temple

We use them, and are quite happy with them. You get what you pay for, let me be the first to tell you.

I like media temple too.

[Veltliner]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

For not so basic, but very simple hosting, I like 1 And 1. Inexpensive, apparently very competitive space and transfer quotas, good service. I'm happy.

Going to check this out, too.

[kenada]

Host Gator and Steadfast.net have been great for me.

[Silky Voice of The Gorn]

TextDrive FTW.