Hey guys. I'm hoping some of you may have recommedations or advice regarding websites.

I'd like to get a site going where I can post video, stories, info, and sell my own DVDs... but unfortunately I'm pretty ignorant about the companies I should deal with and the best approach.

Maybe I should find a "Websites for Dummies" book, but I think I'm a little past that... maybe not.

I was thinking about going with 1&1 or some company like that.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

Hi Matt,

I'm in the same boat. After going through 3 providers, I've settled with ipowerweb.com (http://www.ipowerweb.com).

I've been with them for about 3 weeks and I'm happy with the service and support. I was a little turned off by their cheezy marketing and the promised feature set was a little hard to believe for the price, but they have delivered all the goods so far.

I had some DNS, technical, and configuration problems which they were able to answer and/or correct within a few short hours. I used both the telephone and their online tech support system which logs all previous queries so everyone can go back and look at the previous Q&A.

I also like their web site control panel and was pleased with the quality of the web applications they provide. Very easy to setup and configure. A forum like dvinfo.net took about 10 seconds to install and I was off and running (they use phpBB). Same for the chat, ecommerce, web portal, photo album apps as well.

So after messing around with ipowerweb's system, I'm happy. You can take a look at some of the features on my site:Bungalow28.com (http://www.bungalow28.com), right now it's just the webmail and forum but I'll enable some more when I get a chance. I set the forum so you have to register to see the posts. Feel free to register for now.

I'm still designing the site so there's no content yet. It's mainly going to be a private site for my production "crew" and family to share info, scripts, video, and photos. I'm still looking for a good web design company though that can give the site a cool overall look.

The other providers I tried were Yahoo!, Earthlink, and Verio - all very good, but they all were missing one or another feature that I wanted and charged about 3 times more per month.

For the $7.95/month deal, you have to pay for one year up front, it came out to around US$95.40/year. Include an extra $20/year to register the domain.

Thanks Michael... I only needed a little nudge in a direction and that may do it. Naturally I've googled the "best host" thing for a while and ipowerweb comes up a lot... so maybe I'll give 'em a try.

I enabled some more features if you want to take a look: Bungalow28.com (http://www.bungalow28.com)

If you want free hosting (but very little space) for your own domain try Doteasy. You can assign your existing domain name to their servers (you have to pay a one time fee) or have them register your domain (but then you have to stick with them for life I think). It also works for emai. And they have paid options like more space, more email accounts, PHP and stuff like that.

It all depend of your needs, but you should have a look at 8-95.com (http://www.8-95.com) . They host my web site since 2 years and the service is awesome! I have signed for the 8.95$ / half a year plan, which offer 50 mb of disk space, 50 emails, 1 gb of bandwidth / month, support PHP and mysql. Hard to find better. If this is not enough for your needs, they offer others great plans .

For domain registration, try http://www.10-domains.com/ . Domain name registration for 10$ / year.

i have beeen using powweb (www.powweb.com) for about 6months or so and couldnt be happier. plus for the price i think they offer some of the best specs.

check out my site. tell me what you think.

Not bad Alfred... that's about what I need for now. I don't need a bunch of email accounts but I would like to have as much space as possible and I'd like as much bandwidth as possible... for a given price.

There are a couple hosts which give something nuts like 500mb of space and over a gig of bandwidth for under $8... so that's where I'm leaning at the moment... but basically all I want to be able to do is post videos I've shot and sell DVDs off the site.

I'm not sure exactly what I need to do that, but I think the specs above will get me there with plenty of headroom... the other thing is I want the video to load as fast as possible... some hosts seem to pop video up instantly and others act as though we're hitting a dial-up bottle-neck...

There are such cool sites out there that I don't expect to have one of the coolest... but I'll be tenatious about it until it's pretty good... with plenty of audio/video...

I want the excess space so I can have the option of high bit-rate video/audio for those that want it. Some of the sound-files I've been swapping have an incredible amount of detail in them and they're 96 bit rate with no video...

Matt, you don't have your location mentioned in your profile. Are you in Vancouver? Well, I guess it doesn't matter where you live if you're looking for web hosting. I use uniserve.com - their prices are reasonable and they are a stable company. I've been with them for about 10 years.

You mentioned 1 and 1 in your original post, Matt, and I recently took them up on a free 500 MB for three years. Yes it sounded like a scam to me but it wasn't and after a month or more of hosting a number of high speed video files on their server I haven't found anything to complain about. I've forgotten what their monthly rate is for the basic package they gave me but it was quite reasonable compared to the two packages I have with Bell in Canada right now.

David Hurdon

Thanks David... I went to your site and that's along the lines of what I'll be needing. I'd like to be able to offer visitors several clips to view and have them load and play quickly.

I see your site does that very well. I'm craving a dungeness crab and pale ale... or stout. With the B.C. backdrop that looked like heaven.

If I don't go with 1&1 I may go with ipowerweb or else startlogic... both of those companies are rated high and they have an obscene amount of alotted space and bandwidth...

Hopefully later this month you'll see a "www" tag under my posts. I may not make it available until there's a reason to go there... but since I have a stupid sense of humor I might not be able to wait...

Anything comical on my site will be lost on most people, but if I can make people pose like the RCA dog then I'll consider it a success.

A friend at work raves about digitalinet.com.
I've heard that you can buy service for about a little over $7 a month. I'm looking into it myself.

Jeff Patnaude

Matt,

As did Michael W, I also went with iPowerweb. From my limited experience, I cannot say they are any better or worse than the next hosting company, but it has been problem-free for the minimal use I have made of it so far. (If you waste your time to look at the beginnings of my personal web site, you won't be impressed...but that's due to my lack of free time, not iPowerweb's fault!!!)

The reason I went with iPowerweb as opposed to something like Glob@t, which I considered and decided against, was the FINE PRINT. iPowerweb had clearly written policies that did NOT include clauses about limitations on file size, allowable file formats, or DAILY bandwidth limits that you see on a lot of the really, really cheap hosters like Glob@t. The cheap hosters tend to not like large files and popular formats (eg music files!) because then people actually USE more server system resources. But some put restrictions in place, as Glob@t did, and some don't, such as iPowerweb.

It is obviously a competitive market and it wouldn't surprise me if they regularly update their user agreements to respond to market pressures. My advice is to pick a couple of likely contenders and then "suck it up"...take the extra half hour to do the tedious reading of a few pages of user agreement to look for red flags like max file size, or daily limits.

Here's another host with a low monthly rate, high up-time, and a good reputation:

http://www.ehostsource.com/web-hosting/standard-plus-web-hosting.html

I think I'm paying just $7.33 per month for 500 MB space, 50 GB/month transfer rate and a self-renewing domain name, which they registered for me in the first place. This is a unix based server. The thing I like about it is subdomains. Suppose you register penultimatevideo.com as a domain name. With subdirectories you can compartmentalize this into many other entities such as

cameras.penultimatevideo.com

lights.penultimatevideo.com

This helps if you are really cheap and need to share a subscription with one or more friends.

using the subdomain setup page they provide.

Based on reputation, features, and total package I think ipowerweb has the best deal. They are $7.95 per month BUT you must pay for 12 months in advance to get free setup and domain registration.

Startlogic looked better with nearly the same deal. (Startlogic gives a gig of space vs. ipowerweb's 800mb) Both hosts allow 40gig of bandwidth.

I tried to find a detailed disclaimer as mentioned here about ipowerweb... one for startlogic... but I couldn't.

I'm also annoyed that startlogic pops up in so many searches BRAGGING about what they give for $7.50 per month. They don't tell you that you STILL must pay a year in advance to get that price! There is no indication of that until you're actually paying.

ipowerweb is clear about what you must do to get the $7.95 right from the start. I respect that and that's why I'll go with them.

Who cares about a .45 per month savings anyway? For an extra $5 per YEAR you get a longer established company that is UP FRONT about the total/actual package price.

Has anyone had experience with this company?

http://www.whizhost.com/

Looks pretty amazing:

$99 a year

Able to Host 10 Domains

3 GB SCSI Disk Space

75 GB Monthly Transfer

Web Control Panel for All

Anonymous Name Server

Unlimited E-Mail Accounts

Unlimited E-Mail Redirects

Unlimited MySQL DB's

Proactive Spam Filtering

CGI-Bin, Perl, PHP 4, SSI

Shared SSL, GD Support

FrontPage 2000/2002 Ext

Password Protected Files

Customizable Error Page

Graphical Statistics, Logs

Streaming Media Support

WebMail, Autoresponders

No Gimmicks/Hidden Fee

I googled whizhost and found some pretty unflattering stuff on them.

At this point I still think ipowerweb would be anybody's safest bet.

When I started this thread I should have mentioned that price is far from my first concern.

1) webspace
2) bandwidth
3) no limits on max file size
4) reputation
5) customer service
6) reliability
7) price

Normally I'd put reliability near the top, but if the other areas are well-rated then reliability will be good anyway.

I have just about decided to go with www.godaddy.com (https://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/hosting/shared.asp?se=%2B&ci=260) as my web host provider.

Has anyone had any problems with them, or heard of any complaints?

Godaddy.com seems to be the best deal by far that I've found:

ECONOMY DELUXE PREMIUM
Monthly Fee $3.95 $9.95 $19.95
Disk Space 500 MB 2,000 MB 4,000 MB
Monthly Data Transfer 25 GB 100 GB 200 GB
eMail Accounts 100 500 1,000
DB 1 MySQL 10 MySQL 25 MySQL
or SQL Svr or SQL Svr

FREE Setup. If you pay by the year it's even cheaper.

Your choice of Linux or Windows 2003 servers.

Full support for Windows 2003 servers including:
-- ASP.NET
-- ASP 3.0
-- Frontpage extensions
-- Many more

I called and specifically asked about D/L of video files. No problem -- only limited by your total disk space and monthly transfer. And if you go over your monthly transfer they only give you a warning by eMail -- no extra charges and no auto cutoff. After the warning then I guess they will limit you.

http://www.giantwebhost.com/

definetely the best!

Doteasy.com is free. I started out with 10 meg, but over the years, they bumped me up to 100something meg. Now, if I ever get a round tuit, I'll be able to post some clips.

<<<-- Originally posted by Christopher C. Murphy : http://www.giantwebhost.com

definetely the best! -->>>

Christopher,

What is your basis for this statement? They don't began to compare with the monthly data transfer of GoDaddy.com.

Plus they don't offer Windows 2003 server.

Best Regards,
Pete

Funny how fast this info changes. I previously asked if anyone had heard of WhizHost.com, and now their site doesn't even appear.

I use http://www.powweb.com, a UNIX hosting service. It's about $7 a month, has 650 POPs, allows 2 gigs storage, up to 5 gigs/day bandwidth (important if you have a lot of video on your site), 5 free MySQL databases that can be managed with PHPMyAdmin, plus all kinds of back-end goodies. I have multiple domains, my own and some of my clients, that I manage at Powweb-- and I've been with them about four years. It's a good deal.

One word of warning, though. You need to have some knowledge of server administration... especially init files and such. However, even a novice can figure things out if they search the forums.

http://www.hytekhosting.com/plans.html


Value Basic Featured
Storage: 200 MB 500 MB 1000 MB
Bandwidth: 10 GB 30 GB 65 GB
E-Mail: 5 Unlimited Unlimited
FTP: 1 Unlimited Unlimited
Subdomains: 1 Unlimited Unlimited
MySQL: 1 Unlimited Unlimited
If paid monthly: $3.00/month $5.00/month $10.00/month
If paid yearly: $25.00/year $55.00/year $110.00/year


Shared Hosting Plans continued
Extreme One Extreme Two Extreme Three
Storage: 1500 MB 2000 MB 3000 MB
Bandwidth: 80 GB 100 GB 150 GB
E-Mail: Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited
FTP: Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited
Subdomains: Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited
MySQL: Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited
If paid monthly: $15.00/month $20.00/month $30.00/month
If paid yearly: $165.00/year $220.00/year not available


Additional Services
IP Addresses: $1.75/month & $3 setup
Bandwidth Overages: $0.75/GB
Purchase in blocks of 5GB prior to exceeding your limit.
Add-on domain credit(s): $1/month for one, $3/month for unlimited

Please note: SSH access will only be provided to U.S. residents who demonstrate need for it and who provide identification (typically a state-issued drivers license). We reserve the right to withhold SSH access for any reason.

i've seen $1.99/month before but i can't remember where. you can also try:
http://made2own.com

http://www.phpwebhosting.com/

I started using phpwebhosting after many high recommendations, 10/month, unlimited email, no transfer quota!, unlimited size! (now I can't verify this, my site is 150MB :) Good service, good user interfaces. Very fast also. Recommended.