Web hosting: where to host your weather page

some good prices here!

http://onehop.com/news/modules.php?name=Prices

http://www.e-rice.net/

I recently switched to www.hostpc.com They are great they answer questions within the half hour (instantly if you use IRC)

http://adkweather.com

$5 a year!?!?! 8O

I wonder how reliable they are… seriously considering getting a domain now.

$8 per year for the domain and another $5 for hosting?!

I signed up with www.e-rice.net just to see if it was really possible to get good hosting for pennies, turned out to be very good. They have a $10/year plan (regular price) that’s fine for WD and WDL. It’s a bit like WD, the owner answers questions directly in the suport forum, if you like it here, you’ll feel very at home there.

There have been recommendations for www.godaddy.com for low cost domains, but I haven’t used them (yet).

I’ve used GoDaddy for years and have been very satisfied. You have total control of your Domain (Changing DNS Servers etc).
They have the .info extension on sale for $1.95 US for the first year (expires 10/31/2004). You can ‘Go Live’ very inexpensively these days. Your biggest investment you’ve probably already made (wx-software). Just a few years ago, it would cost (on average) of about $20.00 - 30.00 per month and were very limited in the scope of what you could do.

I’d recommend trying to stay with the main domain hierarchies rather than using .info .tv etc… There is a reason why .info is so cheap… many business, school etc sites block those because they are used a lot for spammers and fraudulent schemes etc…

I’ve been using Godaddy since they showed up. They are very good.

Note that most hosting companies will need to have your domains pointed at their nameservers to allow you do control the subdomains etc…

Have you ever transferred a domain to a new registrar? Did it go easily?

I have. It did. BUT they were both reputable registrars charging reasonable fees. I have heard that some of the cheaper registrars don’t like to lose customers so make it difficult/expensive/slow to migrate away from their service. They might not be able to commit to exactly which day/week/month they’ll release the tag, so your site might be off air for quite a while whilst the transfer takes place.

I’ve transferred a number of domains to and from Godaddy, Network Solutions and Register.com

If it is a sale of a domain, normally what I do is setup the nameservers to point to the new owners names servers first, before starting the transfer so they can use the domain right away and any time it takes to transfer doesn’t hold anyone up. The transfer then is just a formality that doesn’t need any rush since the new user can already manage the dns on them.

Most transfers are fairly quick though. ORG domains require an extra step. They want a password first and some registars are a bit dumb on that.

GoDaddy will transfer domains for free if they already are the registrar for that domain.

Thanks for the input :slight_smile: I have a couple at Register.com but I’m having a hard time understanding what I’m getting for the extra $$, especially for a hobby.

Ok, stupid question time…

Should I get the domain name first and then the hosting site or get the hosting site setup and going then link the domain name?

(I know it’s pretty green question but I haven’t owned a domain name is 3-4 years. :lol: )

Here’s what I would do:

a: Register the name - then you’ll be sure what it is

b: Sign up for hosting, they’ll need to know the name from “a”

c: Go back to the registar and give them the DNS IP addresses you’ll get from the hosting co in step “b”

d: Wait maybe 24-48 hours until the DNS info propages across the net and then you’ll be able to see your site.

All of my domains are with GoDaddy.

At work, we have about 30 or so with Register.com. Only two of them are on their “primary” servers which means if I make a change they are supposed to update the server within 15 minutes. These have 1 hour TTL time. The rest are on their “Free” servers which can in theory take up to 47 hours to update (both update once every 24hours 12 hours appart).

The only reason why the corp is with them is due to some of the other country support. Otherwise, I would move them all over to Godaddy.

At $43 per year for the privledge of Register.com… I’d stick to Godaddy.

A 1 hour TTL will be increasing the DNS traffic quite considerably. I tend to set 24 hour TTLs on the grounds that DNS changes are rarely needed and usually planned well in advance, so you can reduce the TTL a few days before the change (to 15 minutes last time I did it) to get a quick change once the server IP is changed and then change it back to 24 hours once you’re sure the change doesn’t need to be undone.

There have been recommendations for www.godaddy.com for low cost domains, but I haven't used them (yet).

This site seems to have vanished I have been trying for several hours!
Anyone got any addresses for cheap domains? :smiley:

godadday works fine for me
just tried it

Just registered my domain name with godaddy.com … was very easy.

My wife thinks I should add a link to the city (www.cityofcarterlake.com) right on the main page because I have a better domain name then they do now.

it appears to be back. I just tried it
http://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/default.asp

One note here for those who still aren’t convince to buy a domain name.

Godaddy (and I’m sure others) allows you to redirect/mask to your current hosting site for free.

I’ve decided to go this route at the moment, while continuing to use my ISPs free hosting option for the site.

So when you go to www.carterlake.org, you are really going to http://members.cox.net/carterlakeweather

Advantages:

  1. Everything stays free
  2. No hassle domain name (takes mere minutes to setup!)
  3. Can register domain name with search engines
  4. Previous visitors notice nothing… all links still function as before

Disadvantages:

  1. Creates another layer which needs to be working for site visits (i.e. godaddy.com goes bye bye and no visitors through domain name even though site is up and working)
  2. Masking masks refer stats (I can no longer tell where people are coming from)
  3. Unable to bookmark individual pages
  4. Possible page rendering glitches with Firefox (looking into work arounds for those)**

** Got that working again… had to change some of my Javascript to be WC3 compliant

Update: It is now 24 hours later and it appears that “godaddy” has indeed gone, still can’t raise the site, has anyone else been able to? :frowning: