looking at hosts, some questions

[opus]

Hi, I'm in a strange spot where I know quite a bit about web design but very little about hosting. So here's my questions:

1) What is "shared" hosting?

2) What's a "mySQL Database? Does that mean I could set up ecommerce on my site?

3) If I'm creating the pages on a Mac, do I need to look for any special support from my host?

4) If I'm locked into Register.com for email for 5 years, can I still use another host for email?

5) Why might I want unlimited FTP Accounts, or unlimited subdomains?

6) What is "Fantastico"?

7) What is "PHPMyAdmin"?

[Peter_AUS]

I can host for you Kelly if you want. Contact me and we can discuss what you need, or I can direct you to a good hosting company as well.

[opus]

Oops, sorry Peter, but since no one seemed to be around here, I emailed the company and got fantastic customer service, so I went ahead and bought their service. Only saw your answer here afterwards.

I think I'm going to be happy with them though. (I actually found them through a link on this site.) Every email I have sent to them has been personally answered within an hour of sending it, even in the middle of the night. They've been extremely helpful.

my service will allow me to have several domains and subdomains in my space. Yay! (I'll need at least 4.) And much more bandwidth, hd space and emails than I'd ever need, for $14.95/month.

[Peter_AUS]

No problem, just be careful there are a lot of webhosting places that really suck after initially giving service.

I have been through this myself after some bad experiences myself and have got my own setup with the ability to host other sites, look after it myself that way.

I hope you didn't sign up for 12 months up front, that is a mistake, always best to check them out first, see how they go and then take it from there. That is how I got burnt with featureprice.com, look at www.yourhostsucks.com it is a wealth of information.

The place I use has starting packages similar to your package starting from $4 a month. I have been with them for nearly two years now without much of a hickup at all. Occassionally server reboot.

I would have done something similar for several domains and subdomains, for $9.99 per month as well. Your own control panel, you look after it yourself, need help, just ask. See how it goes anyway and let me know.

[opus]

well, I've got the first month free, and I think a money back guarantee. So if it doesn't work out I'll let you know.

[roashru]

when looking for web hosting depending on your priorities its best to make sure your web host is or at a data center connected to the main a/c power grid for best results. if your really technically good with computers you can even get "rack space" and have your own computer there!.

[grentz]

If anyone wants to know of a great webhost, heres one,

www.ipowerweb.com is awsome, there support is unbelivable and i have been with them for many months and i am very happy. Their control panel is very easy to use plus has tons of features. It also is a killer deal at only 7.95 a month for 40gb bandwidth and 800mb space not to mention free domain and all the other extras

and i am not related to them in anyway, i am just a happy customer

[Peter_AUS]

If anyone wants to know of a great webhost, heres one,

www.ipowerweb.com is awsome, there support is unbelivable and i have been with them for many months and i am very happy. Their control panel is very easy to use plus has tons of features. It also is a killer deal at only 7.95 a month for 40gb bandwidth and 800mb space not to mention free domain and all the other extras

and i am not related to them in anyway, i am just a happy customer

Fine until you read the big picture. You have to pay for 3 months, there is a $30 setup fee unless you want to pay for 12 months then it is free. You get only 1 domain name and then subdomains which for some is good, but others is inadequate.

ipowerweb.com has been around for quite awhile now, but I have read very bad comments about peoples experiences with them as well. Might be awesome to some, but terrible to others.

[Elysian]

Fine until you read the big picture. You have to pay for 3 months, there is a $30 setup fee unless you want to pay for 12 months then it is free. You get only 1 domain name and then subdomains which for some is good, but others is inadequate.

ipowerweb.com has been around for quite awhile now, but I have read very bad comments about peoples experiences with them as well. Might be awesome to some, but terrible to others.

I agree Peter. It looks all great on the outside...
It's the kind of host I would never join, especially after reading all the reviews on a site that's all about quality of web hosting and they all say the same; their service is bad and you get what you pay for.

I do think that the $14,95 Kelly is paying is a way too expensive. Your idea about prices are more what I had in mind. I only pay $4,95 and everything is unlimited, except for bandwidth and disk space of course. I only needed their help twice about a year ago; I E-mailed them and they mailed me back with the right solution in 5 and 10 min; very good! Speed is excellent, uptime is close to 100% and 30 days money back guarantee.

The reason why I went for this host is the price/options and the positive reviews it got at http://www.webhostingchoice.com (and other sites), where they are one of the few who constantly score 10 out of 10 in all the reviews of people who joined them. Excellent host, not only after a few weeks or months, but still after close to a year.

And as for registering at Register.com; they are expensive!
Now look at this register.com example: .info, regular fee 2 years $70
now 2 years $20. That's their special promotion. Yeah, too funny.
I can register .info 2 years for $14 and that's no special promotion, just a regular price and $7.95/1yr for a .com
For that amount of money I also get lots of options and great service, backed up by many sites who reviewed this registrar.

I agree with Peter, it's important to read and to compare. Don't listen to the opinion of one site or person, read the reviews on several sites and try to recognize the general trend, how people think about that hosting service. I think that most of the time it's people's own fault if they get screwed up by their host (options, service or price).

[Peter_AUS]

I have found that the best registry for domain names that aren't country specific, is www.godaddy.com their pricing structure is very good, they do a lot behind the sceens to keep the pricing lower, run specials and also allow for 10 year registrations as well (not that I am recommending that one at all but the feature is there).

They are regularly improving their services as well.

Up until last year I was paying $145 Aus for 2 year registration of my .com.au domain name and now I pay $66 Aus for 2 years with another company here in Australia, cheapest I have been able to find. Why do we pay so much, because as a society we will pay what is demanded. It only costs the registrar $7.50 here in Aus to register a domain name officially, so there are huge profits to be made with this sort of thing by the established domain name registrars.

Again, if anyone needs to have websites hosted, contact me and we can work out something that will suit your needs and budget. I have the facilities to do what you want and can help out when ever needed, in real time as well, as I am generally around a lot of the time online. Over 2 1/2 years with current facillities, I have had no more than 3 problems and they have been hardware issues that have been fixed within 1 hour of discovering problem occured.

[Elysian]

I have found that the best registry for domain names that aren't country specific, is www.godaddy.com their pricing structure is very good, they do a lot behind the sceens to keep the pricing lower, run specials and also allow for 10 year registrations as well (not that I am recommending that one at all but the feature is there).

Yes Peter, that's the one I was referring to. ;)

[grentz]

i have been with ipowerweb for sometime now, i signed up for the 1year plan and it has worked out great

everything works good and their customer serivce has been awsome (usually an email response within 10 minutes during business hours) and no problems at all, plus you can add a domain if you want for only around 6$ a year

so i guess i am one of the happy customers

[TekkenAttic]

1) What is "shared" hosting?

I am pretty sure its when you have more than on website sharing the same server space and of course each one would have to have its own domain.

2) What's a "mySQL Database? Does that mean I could set up ecommerce on my site?

SQL, PHP and XML are all database related they are used to store and process data over the net so you can have ecommerce sites, messageboards, online scheduling, interative price list, PHP however is server based and you need hosting that supports Linux to have it but, Its mainly used for messageboards.

3) If I'm creating the pages on a Mac, do I need to look for any special support from my host?

HTML, Javascript and all of the other web programing languages are universal it will show up the same on a mac as it does on a PC computer. The only time you run it to problems is with video and images, for example if you put up video that is a windows media file depending on what software the user has on his mac you may or may not be able to view the video. But most of the web programs you buy can be bought for mac and pc so it doesn't matter

4) If I'm locked into Register.com for email for 5 years, can I still use another host for email?

Yes, POP3 emails as far as I know are set up through micrsoft Outlook I am doing my website and that was how I was told to set it up. You can add more POP3 emails but and have them through different host if you wanted to

5) Why might I want unlimited FTP Accounts, or unlimited subdomains?

Subdomains are sites that are connected the main website that you have so if you wanted to have multiple sites on one server without having to pay 20 bucks everytime you want create a new site its a very good thing to have, FTP stand for File Transfer Protocol and what that is, is simply the images, html, video and whatever else you upload onto the server so it is available on the web. Unlimited FTP accounts is good for having more than one webstie on a single server if you are just doing 1 site all of those extra options are a waist of money.

6) What is "Fantastico"? I have no Idea be more specific.

7) What is "PHPMyAdmin"? I am not sure what exactly you are asking but Having administrative features on a messageboard allows to add take away post and all of those extra little features that a moderator has. You are going to have to be a little more specific with your question.