Best interwebatron hosting service???

[Mike Lane]

So I'm thinking that I may start my own site external to my photography site. What is the best hosting service and the easiest one to integrate with smugmug?

Gracias!

[flyingpylon]

So I'm thinking that I may start my own site external to my photography site. What is the best hosting service and the easiest one to integrate with smugmug?

Gracias!
Probably depends on whether you want Windows or Unix/Linux hosting. I don't think any of them will be any easier/harder to integrate with Smugmug.

For Windows hosting, I can highly recommend CrystalTech (http://www.crystaltech.com)

I have been a customer of theirs for 5 years, which is an eternity in the hosting world.

[Frank]

So I'm thinking that I may start my own site external to my photography site. What is the best hosting service and the easiest one to integrate with smugmug?

Gracias! You might check out GoDaddy.com (http://www.godaddy.com) as they offer a choice of Windows or Linux servers. I moved several accounts from readyhosting.com which only offered Windows servers.

As far as smugmug integration, I don't think it matters. I use Dreamweaver and simply pushed my web sites to the new hosts and ties to smugmug worked the same once domain stuff was updated.

- Frank

[Mike Lane]

Really, I suppose that what I meant by "integrate with smugmug" was which one is easiest to set up the CNAME forwarding?

I'm really not sure what kind of support I want. I'm assuming that with Windows hosting I'd be stuck with .ASP in the event that I ever actually learned to code. With *nix I'd be able to use mySQL and PHP. Really my knowledge with this area is qute limited. Is this the big difference between the two?

Oh the reading I need to do!!!

Here's another, possibly dumb, question. Which type of hosting would be best for AJAX and/or Ruby or any of the other things I've heard the name of but have no idea what they are? :D

thanks!

[Frank]

Really, I suppose that what I meant by "integrate with smugmug" was which one is easiest to set up the CNAME forwarding?

I'm really not sure what kind of support I want. I'm assuming that with Windows hosting I'd be stuck with .ASP in the event that I ever actually learned to code. With *nix I'd be able to use mySQL and PHP. Really my knowledge with this area is qute limited. Is this the big difference between the two?

Oh the reading I need to do!!!

Here's another, possibly dumb, question. Which type of hosting would be best for AJAX and/or Ruby or any of the other things I've heard the name of but have no idea what they are? :D

thanks! I'm not using CNAME forwarding, I just use URLs in menus and wherever I need to move someone to and from smugmug and back to my other host.
I seem to remember some smugmug support warnings about GoDaddy and their dealings with CNAME issues.

Sorry, I'm not sure about your other techie questions. I moved from Windows server because of repeated loss of my data due to MS security issues. Not sure if that was a common problem or just that vendor, but have not had similar problems in a year with Linux at GoDaddy.

Hopefully, you'll get some more useful info from more experienced dgrinners.

- Frank

[dragon300zx]

NZ WebIT nxweit.com is pretty good (I have 3 accounts with them) and reliable however their communications are slow.

I just threw another account up with hostgator.com and they are all the rage right now. So far so good.

Websitesource.com sucks major but (just switched away from them). Their email servers as and unreliable as unreliable gets. Worst email problems I have ever had has come from them.

Vortech hosting is pretty good (I have about 5 accounts with them) pulled a couple off though cause they lost my entire account in a server upgrade and had absolutely no record of it. Which ticked me off so I will not sign up any new accounts with them again.

Godaddy is ok but they don't include alot without charging for it.

Things to look for when picking a host.

Do a search online to find out there ratings.

Biggest thing I can tell you. Make sure they have a phone number. Make sure you can call that phone number. Called 5-6 times during the time they are supposed to be open. If they say it's a 24-7 phone number, make sure it is wake up at 3 am if ya gotsta. Make sure they respond quickly to emails and that their live online help system is actually on and working and not always saying its offline. If you can't contact them with a moments notice for service before you sign up, you won't be able to when their service goes down and you really need to get their attention.

[flyingpylon]

Just a note... the choice of Windows vs. Linux does not automatically mean that one is ASP/SQL Server and the other is PHP/MySQL. The host I mentioned earlier (CrystalTech) uses Windows servers but you can use ASP/ASP.Net/PHP/Perl/ColdFusion/SQL Server/MySQL and probably some other things I forgot. The choice is really between Microsoft Internet Information Server and Apache for the server environment.

And if a site is losing data, that's a server management (or lack thereof) issue, not so much a platform issue.

CNAME issues should be the same anywhere, just that the user interface used to get the job done might vary a little. But it's a "set it and forget it" kind of thing, so I wouldn't get to wrapped up in it unless the host just doesn't allow changes which would be bad.

If you're just starting out but know that you want to learn scripting and work with databases, I would go with PHP/MySQL unless you really want to be a corporate programmer in which case you should also give serious consideration to ASP.Net/SQL Server.

[Mike Lane]

If you're just starting out but know that you want to learn scripting and work with databases, I would go with PHP/MySQL unless you really want to be a corporate programmer in which case you should also give serious consideration to ASP.Net/SQL Server.
Mmmm, corporate. No thanks.

Here's my long range goals with respect to this. 1) shore up my knowledge of CSS and get much better at photoshop for graphics and illustrator too 2) learn javascript up and down back and forth. Okay the next step is a bit fuzzy for me. After I know javascript is AJAX something that just goes hand in hand with that or is there something else I'll need to focus on for a while? The same question for Ruby on Rails? I know all of these are tied in with javascript in some way shape or form ... uh right? Then it'll be php time followed by flash and cold fusion. Actually I'll probably have to have to throw in some mySQL in before a lot of this happens. Anyhow after all of that I'll work on the .net's and SQL server.

That's kind of a mountain of knowledge I need to climb eh? I should get started:D

[jtmorales]

Hi, new guy here, just thought I'd interject.

Judging by your goals I'd suggest going with a Unix/Linux based server. They are going to offer you the best opportunity to learn almost all of the things you seem to want to learn and they are usually cheaper and more reliable as servers. As far as all the programming is concerned, you seem to be on the right track as far as learning javascript first. CSS you can do on any server, but I'd suggest using Firefox as it is fully W3C CSS compliant whereas IE is not . After you get CSS, HTML, and javascript down, I'd suggest learning XHTML and PHP. AJAX is basically a combination of XHTML and Javascript. Look here for more info. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AJAX) If your gonna go the AJAX route you probably don't need to learn PHP but, PHP will help if you ever venture into application programming. In the midst of all this you may want to poke around MySQL a bit if you can, or at least try to learn SQL, it'll make life easier in the long run. Just my .02.

And as far as a host goes, I can suggest Dreamhost.com (http://www.dreamhost.com) and Ace-Host.net (http://www.ace-host.net). Ace-host is a bit cheaper, but the customer service is far better with dreamhost and they very good plans for the price.

[rsi1986]

I went with godaddy. There prices and support are great. It has worked out good for me.http://www.digitalgrin.com/images/smilies/thumb.gif

[David_S85]

I'm using GoDaddy for a few of my domain names, and ICDSoft for hosting. Both together, they are less than $50 US per year per site. 7gig transfers & 500MB storage, with 7 sub domains per hosting account.

I'm not in favor of a hosting company also selling you a domain name, unless you are da#n sure you actually own the name yourself and have full control over it.

[JimM]

I would love to offer my companies services. I would welcome the opportunity to work with the Dgrin community and personally answer any questions. I can be reach at jim (at) turtlehut.com and I can provide you with my cell phone number from there.

More on our services at www.turtlehut.com (http://www.turtlehut.com)

[JohnR]

I just started using http://www.ixwebhosting.com/index.php

They got really great reviews and decent pricing.

[Markjay]

I have 11 websites hosted with Godaddy. Every single time I need assistance, they have 24 h 7 day a week phone tech support..... all of my calls have been assisted professionally and knowledgeably.

I pay a VERY reasonable price for the domain name and the hosting.
Setting up a CNAME record turned out to be a breeze on Godaddy....
more than I can say for other hosts I had tried doing it on.

You sound like a man who's trying to "find himself" a new profession......
don't let anyone discourage you from your goal, Mike. You are smart, you are helpful, you are flexible and you are a problem solver, all of which will get you where you want to go, in learning to create websites for people (which I'm guessing is where you might be wanting to go with your talents / knowledge?)

Don't hesitate, don't even blink your eyes......
start hitting the books, learning your craft, and give customers 150 % and a good value for their hard earned $$ and you will "make it". It just may not seem like it for a while, so you are going to have to also learn the art of....... patience :-)

I wish you success, Mike.

Mark Javer



So I'm thinking that I may start my own site external to my photography site. What is the best hosting service and the easiest one to integrate with smugmug?

Gracias!

[Mike Lane]

I have 11 websites hosted with Godaddy. Every single time I need assistance, they have 24 h 7 day a week phone tech support..... all of my calls have been assisted professionally and knowledgeably.

I pay a VERY reasonable price for the domain name and the hosting.
Setting up a CNAME record turned out to be a breeze on Godaddy....
more than I can say for other hosts I had tried doing it on.

You sound like a man who's trying to "find himself" a new profession......
don't let anyone discourage you from your goal, Mike. You are smart, you are helpful, you are flexible and you are a problem solver, all of which will get you where you want to go, in learning to create websites for people (which I'm guessing is where you might be wanting to go with your talents / knowledge?)

Don't hesitate, don't even blink your eyes......
start hitting the books, learning your craft, and give customers 150 % and a good value for their hard earned $$ and you will "make it". It just may not seem like it for a while, so you are going to have to also learn the art of....... patience :-)

I wish you success, Mike.

Mark Javer


Thanks Mark, I really appreciate that :D FYI, I've started my new online webdesign business (not much to it for now) at www.mikelanestudios.com.

[David_S85]

Thanks Mark, I really appreciate that :D FYI, I've started my new online webdesign business (not much to it for now) at www.mikelanestudios.com (http://www.mikelanestudios.com)

well... it blue! :D

[Mike Lane]

well... it blue! :D
And shiny :lol3

yeah, not really super cool for a (wannabe) webdesigner right? I mean, really. That's just the result of some photoshop fun really.

[David_S85]

And shiny :lol3

yeah, not really super cool for a (wannabe) webdesigner right? I mean, really. That's just the result of some photoshop fun really.

Then there's this (http://www.davidwattsphotography.com) work in progress too. :uhoh

[Mike Lane]

Then there's this (http://www.davidwattsphotography.com) work in progress too. :uhoh
Nice:)

[flyingdutchie]

I went with godaddy. There prices and support are great. It has worked out good for me.http://www.digitalgrin.com/images/smilies/thumb.gif
GoDaddy is already not very expensive, but you can save even more by adding promo codes:
http://www.scoreadeal.com/coupons/godaddy.asp
Or enter
'tech2' for $6.95 instead of $7.95 p/year activations.

Sssshweet. :D
-- Anton.