Cheap server recommendations sought

[tlshell]

(I thought I'd already posted but can't seem to find it or any
replies...sorry if I "bore" anyone!)

A friend is looking for cheap (around $5/month) ad-free hosting for a
hobby site and wants to know which ones are dependable and have good
site-building tools. She doesn't know HTML and plans to learn later,
but in the meantime wants to get the site up and running as quickly as
possible; it's to help a group of people with a specific demographic
connect with each other by filling out an information form, and then
using a login with password to access the [smallish] resulting
database and site services. She asked me about the following:

http://angelfire.lycos.com/
http://www.geocities.com/
http://www.freeservers.com/

I realize this is complicated but does anyone have any comments or
suggestions? I'll read the answers here of course.

Thanks!

 

[SpaceGirl]

(I thought I'd already posted but can't seem to find it or any
replies...sorry if I "bore" anyone!)

A friend is looking for cheap (around $5/month) ad-free hosting for a
hobby site and wants to know which ones are dependable and have good
site-building tools. She doesn't know HTML and plans to learn later,
but in the meantime wants to get the site up and running as quickly as
possible; it's to help a group of people with a specific demographic
connect with each other by filling out an information form, and then
using a login with password to access the [smallish] resulting
database and site services. She asked me about the following:

http://angelfire.lycos.com/
http://www.geocities.com/
http://www.freeservers.com/

I realize this is complicated but does anyone have any comments or
suggestions? I'll read the answers here of course.

Thanks!

For a couple of dollars more you could get a do-everything host... our host
(easyCGI.com) have some hosting plans that start around that - a proper host
with great support and lots of extra facilities. Avoid all three that you
mentioned as they are all awful.

 

[tlshell]

For a couple of dollars more you could get a do-everything host... our host
(easyCGI.com) have some hosting plans that start around that - a proper host
with great support and lots of extra facilities. Avoid all three that you
mentioned as they are all awful.

Thanks but could you be a bit more specific than "awful"? Why are they
awful?

I've heard Geocities can be slow, but I've been so out of the loop
lately that I don't know if even that is true. And I imagine if it is,
then probably all the others are, too. However, I don't know if that's
enough to qualify as "awful" in your book?

 

[Neal]

Thanks but could you be a bit more specific than "awful"? Why are they
awful?

I've heard Geocities can be slow, but I've been so out of the loop
lately that I don't know if even that is true. And I imagine if it is,
then probably all the others are, too. However, I don't know if that's
enough to qualify as "awful" in your book?

I learned how to code on a Geocities site. For the very beginning HTML
author it's a cheap way to get stuff on ther web.

But Geocities adds invalid code to pages. You cannot do many things you
really ought to do because of the limitations on your interaction with the
server. No CGIs except for their own. Nothing close to htaccess.

If all you want is to put up your Buffy reviews, I suppose it's OK. But if
you want to develop anything resembling a website, spend a few bucks.

 

[Frogleg]

A friend is looking for cheap (around $5/month) ad-free hosting for a
hobby site and wants to know which ones are dependable and have good
site-building tools.

Many (most?) large ISP's include some hosting space and a tool to
build a simple web site. AOL, Earthlink, and Compuserve all have this.
There is no charge for these. I notice that concentric.net has a
"personal web site", and may have a site-builder, too.

 

[SpaceGirl]

Thanks but could you be a bit more specific than "awful"? Why are they
awful?

I've heard Geocities can be slow, but I've been so out of the loop
lately that I don't know if even that is true. And I imagine if it is,
then probably all the others are, too. However, I don't know if that's
enough to qualify as "awful" in your book?

Slowness is one issue. Lack of support is another. Plus, they are pretty
tough about what you can and cannot do. You are also squeezed onto a server
with thousands of other customers (rather than, say, 100s), which means
you're not going to get a big slice of resource if your site is intensive -
this will just drag and drag. Plus, I don't trust really big hosts -
honestly, when they get to a certain size they stop caring about their
customers as you're just numbers to them. Find a smaller host, like
AffordableHost or EasyCGI - the latter I use and have never had to complain.
Actually, I host all *my* clients there, so I trust them with my entire
business - they run Windows 2003 .NET servers as well as Linux ones, in case
you want to try something really high-tech! AH comes highly recommended from
what I hear, and they have very competitive prices if you're not after a
Windows platform.

M.