WD Web Site

Thought I’d start a new thread here as I’m at the very beginnings of creating a web site. I don’t even have a web host yet. I’ve seen others mention www.e-rice.net. Since I’m a Canadian resident, can anyone recommend any Canadian web hosts that will work well with WDL? How about other reputable US-based web hosts? Should I first start with WD default website options without WDL, or should I start right off the bat with WDL? I like the “live” feel for viewing that WDL would provide.

Someone recommended hostpapa which looks quite good to me. Anyone here at WD land use them?

All these forum members use e-rice http://discourse.weather-watch.com/t/45579, it’s very basic, very inexpensive, and does the job. That’s not to say it’s right for everyone. Beware of combined domain/hosting arrangements, it can be very difficult to move to a new host if the old host doesn’t play nice. If you own your domain name directly with a major registrar like godaddy.com you can change your hosting provider yourself any time.

Am I required to get a domain name before a web host? Sorry for these most basic questions. And what is the package with e-rice.net that most users find necessary- Standard 1, 2 or 3?

I registered a domain at godaddy for $10 per year and e-rice for another $10 per year. $20 per year - hard to beat that. E-rice does have some minimal downtime now and again, but considering the low cost I don’t mind. Where else can you go and spend $20 per year for a service that you will use 24 / 7 / 365 ?

Yes, register a domain first, you will need it in order to sign up.

For most yes and I believe that the majority of us would recommend getting your own domain name, and as Niko noted get your domain name directly with a Registrar and many of us would also recommend GoDaddy for that.

No apologies necessary for asking basic questions, that is what these Forums are here for :slight_smile:

I do not use erice myself but based on what many others have posted it may be one of the best for a Weather site hosting for the price…

Good Luck,
Bob

Standard 1 is fine for most purposes.

Bob’s right, there are other more expensive options that will (may/should) give you more support if that’s better for you.

Any advice of how to choose a domain name? I would strictly use it for my WD data, but what if I wanted to use it for other things?

Would try and keep it simple and short. Maybe something to do with the town you live in.

Okay. Got my Domain Name registered with godaddy and bought 1 year with e-rice.net. Seems like my Domain Name is already secure. Not sure if there is a waiting period with e-rice or not. What would the next step be? Go into all my ftp settings in WD?

e-rice will send you a confirmation email. Be sure it doesn’t get lost as spam.

Once you have that email you can go into your godaddy account and set the DNS servers for your domain to the e-rice ones. That change can be live in a few hours but can take up to a day to update all around the internet.

If you open your website URL in a browser and see the e-rice placeholder page instead of the godaddy page then everything is ready to go and you can start work on the WD side.

Please tell us your domain name then we can help you better through the setup stages if we can see the page.

My site is www.goosebayweather.com

Thanks.

Good choice :smiley:

Just got confirmation from e-rice. Is there a section here that explains the setup in simple layman’s terms?

I still see the godaddy default page, did you set the nameservers in godaddy to point to e-rice yet? If not login to your godaddy account, select goosebayweather.com (may be automatic since you only have one domain), look for a button like “set namesevers” which should lead you to a page like the one below. Set the nameservers to the ones that e-rice specified in your email. After a while goosebayweather.com should show e-rice’s default page instead of godaddy’s and you can move onto the next steps.


gdns.GIF

Can’t find anything to do with “nameservers.” I do see that my domain is set in e-rice’s domain manager. Not sure where else to go. Hold it. I finally navigated there.

Okay. I set those Nameservers. I was told it may take some time to refresh. I think I’ll call it a night. Thanks for the help. Hope to get back here tomorrow.

The wd side is pretty straightforward.

Good news, I see your domain is connecting to e-rice now.

Bob’s FAQ is a good start, or you can use the wizard in WD.

The information you will need is:

FTP Host: ftp.goosebayweather.com
FTP Username / FTP Password: You need to first setup an ftp username and password in your e-rice member area, those are not the same as your e-rice login.

Path to web files directory: /web

Name servers have been updated now…

http://reports.internic.net/cgi/whois?whois_nic=goosebayweather.com&type=domain
Domain Name: GOOSEBAYWEATHER.COM
Registrar: GODADDY.COM, INC.
Whois Server: whois.godaddy.com
Referral URL: http://registrar.godaddy.com
Name Server: NS1.E-RICE.NET
Name Server: NS2.E-RICE.NET

I see this now…

If you see this page, it means:

  1. This website is not properly configured; OR

  2. This website is not alive yet; OR

  3. This website has been suspended.

-Bob