The Opinion Review

Hey, you ever heard of myspace ? I remember hearing those words years ago. It was brand new then and growing strong… So, I of course joined. See here !

Many web geeks then (and now) can’t stand myspace. But for all the sexual/dating/flirting/cheating computer novices that just want to have fun-You can’t beat it. It has to be the biggest free internet meat market on the net. Why join some kind of paid dating site when there are millions to choose from on MySpace. (If that’s where you go to get dates anyways)

 I have been fed up with myspace in the past while having difficulties with a girlfriend that I met there. She seemed to enjoy the excitement on the website more than me. Still, I keep my profile up and check it from time to time… I sometimes promote my blogs on there to try and build my pathetic traffic stats.

Do you like to surf pages at myspace? I always find it hard to read most pages as they tend to put up all kinds of gadgets and background pictures… Gee, It reminds me of yahoo geocities. This is the reason a lot of web designers don’t like myspace.

Profits

People sure can have a good time. With all of those “theme” sites out there. So many people are cashing in on myspace’s success…Especially Myspace itself.  (800 million in revenue 2008) And, they don’t even have to add content… It’s members do plenty of that. They just monitor the datacenter and fight hackers… No need to actually write anything.

Why don’t some of those cat’s come over here to Today and add content and make a little money on the side…But wait… This blog network isn’t a meat market is it?

Web Page Design

In order to do your own website you would either need to learn html or use some kind of “what you see is what you get” (WYSIWYG) editor like Dreamweaver or FrontPage
You can learn html at many different sites like: This One
It is actually good to use both HTML and a WYSIWYG editor.

There is a free wysiwyg editor that can be downloaded at: http://nvu.com/ It is a bit clunky however. But I have used it successfully

There is also lots of services that offer online “site builder tools” Like http://1and1.com And Homestead … I have found these things are a bit limited and clunky too. I have seen some nice sites that were built with those tools too. So that is an option.

Free Design/Hosting

It cost’s money to be on the web. You have to pay rent. Unless you want to use a free hosting service. But they are usually ad supported. The most popular free host is geocities but that is very limited. I have went through lots of hosts in the past and am currently putting together a host recommendation page and will post it if I ever have time. The new thing these days are blogs…There are many free blogging services out there.. Blogger is the first an most popular.

Quick Full Interactive Site

If you want a quick full interactive site you can install a “Content Management System” (CMS) on a server and start managing a site right away. There are several free ones out there to use. Some are better than others. You can “test drive” many of these at: http://opensourcecms.com/ You must have a server that supports PHP/MSQL in order to use one of these CMS

Images Tools

Also a site will need images… Images need to be very small on a website or they take forever for dialup folks to see… Any pictures need to be “optimized” for the web. There is a free program that can do this pretty well at: http://irfanview.com/ All Images on the web must be either GIF or JPEG format..

FTP

I typically design a site on my computer here at home (locally) and then upload them to a server after they are done. In order to do this you will need a FTP client like Smart FTP. That program will connect to your host so you can upload your pages.

Comments

Keep in mind also that any and all of the above stuff WILL require going around a learning curve so be prepared to spend some considerable time at a computer – daily. And remember the best place to find info on how to do something with computers is the internet. I have leaned lots of things by simply surfing or posting in “web design forums”. Just do a search for one with your favorite search engine.

 This is my second post of webhosting reviews. Part of a 3 or maybe 4pt host as I take a trip down memory lane and remember all the ones I have played with over the years.

Hosting Reviews Pt 2

HostGator – This one, like Dathorn is also packed with features and diskspace. They offer several plans to choose from and have all the features you could want and allow multiple domains to be hosted. I have never used these guys but have heard good things about them.

GoDaddy – I have been a godaddy customer since the beginning of my web design “career” They always seem to be the most consistently cheap domain registrar. If you go ahead and buy hosting from them they are certainly the cheapest. They have hosting plans ($3.95 monthly) but I’m not sure exactly how good the service is and what features you get for that price. They are a solid company so I suspect their hosting is pretty good and haven’t heard tons of complaints about them or anything.

1and1 Hosting – These guys have HUGE ad’s out there in the computer magazines. When they first got started they were offering “free 3 year packages” I signed up and played around with it a little but had a bit of a hard time getting used to their control panel. They offer all kinds of services to domain registration to dedicated server to simple email account. They are basically a one stop shop for all things web. And they are cheap. But, when I asked them if I could install PHPNuke on their server to use as a portal they balked and said they would allow it with “limitations”… These big huge hosting companies drive me crazy ya know? But they are consistently staying cheaper than godaddy in the domain game so I may switch my domains to them. (I never did)

Odeon Web – Don’t bother clicking the link… There is nothing there. I have included this one as an example of what can happen. This guy had unbelievable cheap plans with tons of diskspace and all the features. Everything went smooth for quite awhile. I put up one of my domains and installed portal software and everything was just humming along great. Then I started having troubles… I emailed the guy several times with no reply. Then one day it just disappeared. Never to return. I guess I was out $20.00 or so… Live and learn.

Shine on hosting shoppers. 

In order to have a professional website you need a web host. There is no such thing as free hosting. The ones that are out there are ad supported and have very limited features.The hosting game is pretty complicated because there are thousands of hosting companies out there to choose from. This is a good thing because it has forced the cost of hosting to drastically drop in the past few years. But then finding your way through the tons of hosts out there can really make a person dizzy.

So for that reason I have decided to share my insight into the world of hosting and share some of the experience I have had over the years. I have included some links to these hosts and hope you feel compelled to check some of them out. Some are better than others and this is really just my opinion based on experience or what I have heard. And you know what they say about opinions.

Christian WebHosting – I like these guys… I have several domains hosted on their servers and I have never caught them in downtime… They have been quick to answer my questions and as far as I can tell they are believers that want to spread the gospel by using the internet. Their plans are pretty cheap (about $8.00 monthly) and have all the features you need. They were also kind enough to add me to their “Christian web designer’s site”

Yahoo Hosting – Yep, Yahoo! The huge internet portal directory and search engine… Of course they offer hosting. I encounter many people who are already using them to host sites or they have bought a domain and went ahead and signed up for hosting too. Well, don’t do it. They want $11.00 or so for the smallest plan and don’t allow the server side stuff unless you upgrade to a bigger plan. Don’t get me wrong. I love yahoo, it’s my favorite search engine. But you can get better and cheaper hosting elsewhere

LynxWebhosting - I used this small hosting company when I first got started in web design. They have cheap plans and allow multiple domains each with separate accounts. They use the “plesk” control panel which I enjoyed for its simplicity. They always answered my support emails quickly and were willing to help a newbie out with many things that I had no idea how to do at the time. But, they also had downtime. I remember my sites being down for over 3 days at one time… They also had short downtimes every month. This was most likely because they allow “adult sites” on their shared servers which will lead to trouble… And I didn’t really want my site having porno neighbors on a shared server.. Ya know? (this host is no longer in business)
Hostpspace.US – This is a small company I tried out back in the day. I was amazed by the full features he offered for incredibly low prices. This is always a cause for skepticism. But he is still up and running. I contacted him through his site awhile back and told him I was going to include him in these reviews but it took him over 2 days to respond… I remember he was a bit quicker back in the day. His server back then lagged slightly but it appears he has upgraded since then. (this host apparently is not active)

Dathorn – Well this is an awesome host. When you go to the site you will notice the prices seem a bit higher than many of the other ones I am talking about but then look at the diskspace and bandwidth you get for that price. He also allows “unlimited domains” so in effect you can become a “hosting company” on your own and “resell” the server space to others because he gives full access to manage the server backend to set up hosting accounts. His servers have all the features too… Great Host!

Tomorrow I will review some more host’s I have used in this 3 part series