I’ve had several webpages in the past, all of which went flat for one reason or another. Pretty much I wasn’t all that happy with binding templates and my own custom made sites (using website building software) would not load onto servers. I’m looking for a free site, a banner add or something like that doesn’t really bother me all that much. I’m looking for reliability, not a site which will “forget” my username and lock me out of editing my site (as has happened with some free servers in the past).
I’m looking for a flexible design, moderate number of editing tools and easy interface.
I know I’m asking a lot, but does anyone have any ideas? There’s a large number of free servers out there and I’d like to make the right choice.
If you’ve got a broadband connection that gives you a static IP address, then you could host it yourself with (for example) an Apache webserver. If you have a dynamic IP, then there is a service (that I can’t remember the name of) that will handle updating the DNS entries when the IP changes.
That is what I would do, too, if possible. Host from your house. It gives you complete control and flexibility over your webspace and server config.
I can tell you from personal experience that “free” webhosts are free for a reason. Either you deal with pop up banners, lockouts, unreliable service, etc. However, I work at a small hosting company, so I am biased, I guess!
I am on a rather slow connection, (24k dialup, don’t laugh, please?) so broadcasting from my home is not a very attractive option. I will look further into that site listed above by urban ranger.
If you want rock solid stability, stick with Geocities.
Really. They used to be a festering pile of suck, but for a basic site, they’re the way to go these days. Especially if you’re not planning on running any scripts.
Free Geocities site no longer permit FTP access to upload your files.
They do permit HTTP but I’m not sure whether it’s only through Front Page.
I used Geocities for about 2 years until they turned off the FTP, so I bought a domain which is till hosted by Geocities, but at around $9.95 a month I get bells and whistles but no ASP.
Tried Freewebz.com? Theirs isn’t bad, but you can’t upload media files or anything. It requires html knowledge, but at least allows you to put their banner on the bottom of your page.
Well, it depends on where you live and what you want to do.
I live in Las Vegas and use EV1.net as a service provider. For 10 bucks a month I get 7 email addresses and 300 megs of web space. That’s enough space to put up a pretty big site. I don’t have ASP, CGI or other options but, hey, it’s only 10 bucks.
If it is for personal stuff and you only have one provider in town use geocities, though I personally hate that site. If it is for a buisness there are alot of 10 to 20$ a month web hosting services out there.
Front Page has FTP and HTTP transfer protocols built in, so when you finish your editing, you push a button in FP and it does the upload. (checking to see what pages have changed and uploading those only). You don’t ahve to switch over to something like WS_FTP and tell it which pages to transfer.
I don’t know other apps that you can use to transfer via HTTP. Also, they provide a specific site name for the HTTP transfer via FP so I just assumed that they only allow HTTP transfers via FP. I could be talking outta my bum here, so check.
You are correct on point 2, but at 5 files per upload form, it depends on how big your site it, and maybe I should have pointed that out.
My site is about 300-400 pages so I didn’t like the forms.
As the OP implies ‘several’ pages, the form may work very well.
I found a good deal from (don’t laugh) an eBay auction. http://www.dixiesys.com seems to be doing OK. I just got a $20 a year hosting plan with them, for a friend of mine, via an eBay auction from Dixiesys. $20 a year gives plenty. And, so far, their tech support seems to be quite responsive. And it’s decent hosting - no ads, no BS. Very decent indeed.
I’ve also got a “reseller” account with Dixiesys, which is $10 a month, and I can host up to 10 domains. 6 GB traffic, which may or may not be enough bandwidth, depending on what kind of sites you have. (For me, it’s enough. I host my low traffic sites there.)
Techchick recommended http://www.readyhosting.com to me, and it’s been fine. $100 a year (that’s less than $10 a month) and I get all sorts of bells and whistles (things I don’t know how to use yet). (Your second, third, etc account is only $50 a year, so that’s DIRT cheap.) But I have used a little bit of … COLD FUSION!!! which is very cool. I love Readyhosting. (Knock on wood - so far.)
I also have used http://www.pair.com (which someone else recommended) and it was fine too.