Looking For Reliable, Inexpensive Web Hosting

[Lopburi99]

Very generous of you Martin, thank you. I'll try again with Joomla, which is my first choice because it seems to be one of the most popular.

I'll log into my Godaddy account now and look for the panel you mentioned. Rather than PM you, I'll post here so others facing a similar install challenge can benefit if you don't mind.

[klikster]

Caution: http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/Nasty-Cloake...es-t368985.html

As for domains, I am satisfied with Namecheap and Dynadot. Although, I have had some problems with the https pages on Namecheap timing out while trying to set nameservers and make payments. Dynadot requires more steps in the ordering / payment process, but has been rock-solid.

For hosting companies, do some reading in 'webhostingtalk'. They allow naming and shaming.

[klikster]

I seem to be one of the few here recommending non-CMS solutions. If a site is fairly simple, use a 'template' and learn simple HTML .. use SSI for menus, headers, footers, ad codes, etc. Static pages will display faster than database queries. And your site will be more secure

A pretty good and free ftp client is "Filezilla".

Make sure you can edit your own .htaccess file. For a site using lots of images, using 'gzip' will help.

Another thing that makes images load faster is if they are optimized for the web. Irfanview, besides being a great, free, small-footprint, viewer; also has an optimize plugin.

[Lopburi99]

Very generous of you Martin, thank you. I'll try again with Joomla, which is my first choice because it seems to be one of the most popular.

I'll log into my Godaddy account now and look for the panel you mentioned. Rather than PM you, I'll post here so others facing a similar install challenge can benefit if you don't mind.

Well that's more like it. Went to my GoDaddy Hosting Control Center, selected Joomla as an app to install, set a password and off it went. Ten minutes later it was installed.

Anybody should be able to install Joomla (or Drupal or others) this way if this old fossil can.

Now if I can figure how to actually use this puppy I'll be all set.

Thanks Martin. Now I am on course again.

[Forkinhades]

yeah well done. Joomla can be difficult to install, when you do it yourself. When your hoster has it via a control panel, it is relatively simple.

[losworld]

I'm tellin ya luckregister.com Arizona based company with zero down time and pretty advanced features. Very very good customer service. You can always speak with a rep and they will walk you through everything.

[JSixpack]

Well that's more like it. Went to my GoDaddy Hosting Control Center, selected Joomla as an app to install, set a password and off it went. Ten minutes later it was installed.

Anybody should be able to install Joomla (or Drupal or others) this way if this old fossil can.

Now if I can figure how to actually use this puppy I'll be all set.

Good. I've installed Joomla both ways, and automation wins every time.

It will take some time to get used to Joomla but you can do it if you work at it a bit. It's really not complicated, really it isn't, but there are a lot of details because it is so extensible and scalable.

Wordpress is simpler and can probably do what you want. So if you get frustrated w/ Joomla, uninstall it and go w/ Wordpress. I think somebody already mentioned Wordpress favorably. Both of these, Joomla and Wordpress, are serious, heavy-duty programs not likely to disappear anytime soon and well-supported.

Joomla has a vast number of extensions at http://extensions.joomla.org/. And there is an active forum at http://forum.joomla.org/ where you can get lots of help on Joomla and on extensions. It can do anything a website can possibly do.

If you can't find free Joomla themes to suit you, I'd subscribe to http://www.rockettheme.com/. Beautiful, sophisticated stuff.

Similarly w/ Wordpress. Extensions at http://wordpress.org/extend/ and forums at http://wordpress.org/support/.

As far as learning HTML and CSS to roll your own, me, I'd avoid that. So boring; and you'll likely get stuck w/ a lot of maintenance and general fiddling around. I love the idea and usefulness of extensions some other hack has already written I can just plug in.

Good luck on that and let us know how it goes.

[JSixpack]

I'm tellin ya luckregister.com Arizona based company with zero down time and pretty advanced features. Very very good customer service. You can always speak with a rep and they will walk you through everything.

Do tell us again. All I got was a 404 Not Found, so I don't see how the customer service can be very helpful.

[losworld]

I'm tellin ya luckregister.com Arizona based company with zero down time and pretty advanced features. Very very good customer service. You can always speak with a rep and they will walk you through everything.

Do tell us again. All I got was a 404 Not Found, so I don't see how the customer service can be very helpful.

my apology should be www.luckyregister.com - guess I missed that one letter

[silentnine]

try webdesignthailand.net they are a local pattaya firm who have 2 servers in a data centre in the USA somewhere . there speeds are good and support is great,. they charge 2000 baht per year

[klikster]

try webdesignthailand.net they are a local pattaya firm who have 2 servers in a data centre in the USA somewhere . there speeds are good and support is great,. they charge 2000 baht per year

I saw several different levels with different bandwidth & storage from Bt 2k - 8.5K, a Dotnet(?) CP and Windows hosting.

[withnail]

I would definitely advise against 3ix after the "service" they have given me recently.

I have hosted 3 websites with them and the first two were relatively problem free. There was some downtime and at one point I wasn't receiving certain emails but the livesupport was quick and very helpful.

Recently, however I have had problems receiving a large percentage of important emails and have been getting nothing but the same response from their support team who are suddenly not speaking English so well and not fixing any problems. My emails have been getting ruder and ruder but they still tell me the same thing 'We have corrected the issue and now we are able to receive emails from...' but then, of course, I can't. They have not apologised or explained the problem.

[dave111223]

My most despised domain registrar is Yahoo:

* First year is cheap. They have since increased that to $30!!!

* Which would be fine, except the control panel doesn't have a way to transfer your domain elsewhere.

* The underlying registrar is actually Melbourne IT, and it will take you 3 days of calls and being bounced back and forth between them and Yahoo to actually get them to move it. Pain!!!

My worst mistake was buying my first domain through a Thai reseller. Total lock in, no way to get out, use their service or lose it! Never again!

Yes i got burned by Yahoo's domain scam too, i hope they go bankrupt.

For webhosting, IMHO there is no such thing as a "Good host" they all suck, there are just varying degrees of suck. I use hostgator.com as they suck least in my experience.

I've heard a lot of people mentioning godaddy. They are good for domains, but i'd never host with them their servers are notoriously slow/overloaded. Plus i like cpanel i've never found a half decent host that didn't provide cpanel, or at the very least plesk. If the hosting as their own half asses homebrewed host management panel...RUN

[Crushdepth]

Shared webhosting sucks. For quality facilities get a VPS, downside is it costs significantly more.

You get what you pay for. It still amazes me that people will try and save $2 on their domain registration, even if it means using a second rate service instead of a reputable one.

Not a very good deal when you consider the cost of your time trying to fix problems with an unresponsive company. Consider the economics of a $1 a month hosting plan. How much time do you think the company is willing to spend on solving your problems?

[klikster]

Shared webhosting sucks. For quality facilities get a VPS, downside is it costs significantly more.

You get what you pay for. It still amazes me that people will try and save $2 on their domain registration, even if it means using a second rate service instead of a reputable one.

Not a very good deal when you consider the cost of your time trying to fix problems with an unresponsive company. Consider the economics of a $1 a month hosting plan. How much time do you think the company is willing to spend on solving your problems?

IMO, VPS are not for beginners .. unless you also buy and get good server management. For starters you need to know how much RAM you actually need from your VPS and how much you're actually getting in your package. A VPS with 256 mb RAM can get really slow if it has CPanel. Most shared servers will have 2-6 gb RAM, so you do get that benefit unless it is overloaded. And VPS get oversold as well.

Maybe most important .. if someone doesn't know how to secure a server, a shared server from the right host can be much more secure than a VPS that hasn't been locked down by an expert.