WEb Site help

[DavidGrieves]

Hi All

It's not strictly a boating question but I'm hoping there might be somebody out there who can help...
I'm trying to put together a website for the local sailing & boating club, I've got it put together in a draft form and stored on my PC. I need some advice about web hosting, and the costs. Has anybody else on the forum designed one? Any tips on the server to use?

Thanks in advance

David

 

[aran01]

OK here I go seeing as no one else has.
Right David you have your website on your C: and it looks great. Now you need to world to see it. You have a number of choices that I will try to explain.

Usually your ISP that you use for dial-up be it modem or broadband offers free hosting for their users. The catch however is that the URL (website address) is not so attractive and is usually something like www.bigisp.com/”username e.g. www.aol.com/”david/ or the like. Now this is not very good if you want to give your website address to someone down in the pub!

The second method is to use version 1 above and also register your preferred hostname e.g. www.ouryachtclub.co.uk with a good online register like http://www.easydns.com which will then "point" and mask your ugly name to your freebie hosting option 1 above.

Finally you can just go an sign up for a hosting plan with the domain included and there are many many providers to chose from. I suggest you get google out and see who is offering what services and match that to your needs. The big guns like www.yahoo.com are now offering hosting for $5 per month.
Hope this helps,
M

 

[ShipsWoofy]

I use, and have had no problems with, 34SP

here

http://www.34sp.com/

50Mb for £15.00 p.a. + £5.00 p.a. to host .co.uk address.

hope this helps

 

[pvb]

David, I've got a couple of websites at the moment. One is running on my ISP's free space, the other is with Web Mania. Web Mania charge £23.50 a year (inc VAT) for 500MB web storage and 6GB data transfer a month. Their service is also brilliantly easy to use and includes graphical statistics.

You'll need to upload your website to a server; I'd recommend you download a free 30-day trial of Cute FTP Home, which is one of the simplest upload programs around.

 

[VicS]

You may find the forums at http://www.webuser.co.uk, a sister site to YBW, or at http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk useful sources of specialist advice.

 

[celandine]

I use "Fasthosts": reasonable charges, 24/7 helpline, not had any unsolvable problems

Mick

 

[reeferjon]

If you're running a community site, look at using an off-the-shelf content management system. Some ISPs, such as http://www.vizaweb.com and http://www.flexihostings.net off free content management systems.

These mean that you don't have to spend loads of time designing the site, but can concentrate on posting content. Check out http://www.mambo.org for an example of free content management software.

I'm currently working on a marine electronics site which I'll be launching soon. By using Mambo, I can allow users to submit articles, syndicate contents, run a forum etc etc etc... without having to write a word of HTML. It's not that I can't (I'm a web developer by profession), it's just that I can't be bothered!!!.... Well, you know what they say about a builders house....