by
Larry L Piper
Creating web pages can become a lot of fun. We all felt pretty smug after writing our
first web page. Then, after realizing how easy it was, we continued to create
more and more web pages. Sometimes it was only about our cat, but later it was
about our family, our clubs or our business. At first we just hope that someone
would actually see our page; later we begin to worry that the viewers will
think our pages ‘worthy’. Of course, all our pages were published to free host
sites.
At this point in one’s web publishing life, you
begin to see the shortcomings of the free host sites. Your web pages don’t seem
to be available during peak times. You get frustrated with all the pop-up and
banner ads. You bump up against storage limits. If you have photographs, you
may even exceed transfer restrictions. As your programming tools get stronger,
you chafe at the lack of advanced services like ftp, FP extensions and all the
server-side services like SSI, PHP and mySQL. And it takes forever to upload
files one at a time.
Those free web hosts like AOL, Geocities, Tripod
and Bravenet are great starting hosts, but now it is time to set those aside.
You need a spot to call your very own. This means two things: (1) acquiring
your own domain name and (2) finding a host site for your domain. I will try to
explain the process, the cost and the timing involved to accomplish these two
goals.
First, let’s cover some background. A domain name
is what goes in front of the “dot com”, as in www.google.com.
Technically, other extensions like .org, .edu, .gov and .net are available, and
just recently seven addition extensions have been opened up: .biz, .news, .us,
.info, .ws, .cc and .tv. However, it doesn’t take much imagination to realize
that in the short 10+ years the Internet has been in existence, most of the
good and/or short domain names have been taken.
Let’s jump ahead to the second part of the
equation, a hosting site.* In order for your domain to communicate with the
rest of the world, it needs to be ‘located’ on a server that is permanently
connected to the Internet. There are literally thousands of companies that
provide this service. And here is where a problem arises: Which one do I use?
They all vary in cost and services provided. But your big problem is that you
really can’t determine their actual service until you plop down your money and
sign up. I will give you a list of recommended hosts that will get you started
in your search. Of course, you should ask your geek and geekette friends about
which host they are using, but, alas, you will likely find few that have
advanced (?) this far. Also, you will find that businesses use a host that
charges $40-$50/month—way out of your budget. So let’s examine the table below.
The table is in the order that I ranked these web hosts. I went with PowWeb, so
the information listed below is based upon my experience with them. They are a
no-nonsense, one size fits all company who are not in business to hold your
hand. If you have never written web pages before, you might want to select a
different host.
* In the early days of the Internet, many users
ran their own web servers. You could easily spot them because they had two
propellers on their beanies. This was analogous to having your own power supply
at your house. It’s legal and can be done; it just normally isn’t worth the
cost and effort.
|
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Web Host Providers |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Name |
Cost |
Storage |
Transfer |
Setup fee |
Domain |
|
|
|
$/mo |
M |
Gs/mo
|
$ |
Name, $ |
|
1 |
PowWeb |
7.77 |
250 |
25 |
0 |
15 |
|
2 |
GoDaddy |
6.00 |
5 |
0.2 |
0 |
9 |
|
3 |
GoDaddy |
9.00 |
50 |
1.5 |
0 |
9 |
|
4 |
Blue Domain |
10.00 |
50 |
2 |
0 |
15 |
|
5 |
ANHosting-Bravenet |
10.00 |
650 |
20 |
0 |
? |
|
6 |
Yahoo-Geocities |
9.00 |
25 |
10 |
15 |
0 |
|
7 |
Host Rocket |
13.00 |
350 |
20 |
? |
20 |
|
8 |
IMHosted.com |
10.00 |
500 |
18 |
15 |
? |
|
9 |
Jumpline |
15.00 |
200 |
7.5 |
10 |
20 |
|
10 |
Tripod Plus |
5.00 |
25 |
3 |
? |
? |
|
11 |
Brinkster X4 |
13.00 |
60 |
6 |
13 |
No |
|
12 |
Hostway |
14.00 |
200 |
6 |
? |
? |
|
13 |
Infinology |
9.00 |
50 |
? |
? |
? |
|
14 |
Website Source |
20.00 |
200 |
6 |
10 |
15 |
|
15 |
BIZ Hosting |
18.00 |
50 |
? |
? |
? |
You can find the above information and much more
by going to each of these hosts web sites. Most of the free hosting sites have
a low-cost plan that you might also want to check out.
The first thing you will notice when you visit any
web host site is their search engine for you to see what domain names are
available. Certainly, this is part of your homework before you can get
registered. ** You also should have two
sets of usernames/passwords in mind. Get out your credit card and log on to
your choice of web hosts. I felt it was best to register my domain with my web
host, but you can make other arrangements—see ** below. Also, you can have more
than one domain name, but the host will charge you an extra $15 one-time fee
for each domain name you wish to ‘park’ on their site.
The entire online process took about 20 minutes. I
have not needed any subsequent transactions with PowWeb, either by phone or
email although both these help services are available. There are voluminous
online help files available in the form of general notes, FAQs and user forums.
I have received three emails: (1) thanks for the order, (2) confirmation of
charges on my credit card ($15 registration + 12 x $7.77= $108.24), and (3)
codes for a temporary and permanent URL, password confirmation and pop3 email
information. The actual website was ready for use within 36 hours—remarkable
since I did all this on a weekend.
So what are you waiting for? Now that I have
virtually unlimited web space and ftp transfer, my creativity and productivity
have soared. You can see my efforts by logging onto www.pipers-place.com. Let me know what
you think.
Larry L Piper
** Technically, the www.icann.com
site has responsibility for domain names. They have delegated the registration
process to www.internic.org, who in turn
have further delegated this job to about 100 registration sites whom you can
see at the internic web site. Most of these registration sites charge about
$35/year for a domain name. However, almost every web-hosting site will
register your domain name, many for free. How can this be? Obviously, the free
registration is a come-on for you to use their hosting services. Each web host
has some ‘arrangement’ with an official registration site, which effectively
means you can register a domain name anyplace you want.
Larry L Piper, 10-27-02, CQ:C:\My Doc\domain.doc