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Ken Salisbury
04-25-2003, 6:07 AM
I am in the process of changing my web site host company. I am looking at both iPowerWeb and Web.com to host not only my current web site but also another one I am making for myself. iPowerWeb has a great price and seems to be highly rated.

Does anyone use either of these providers and if so what has been your experience with them?

I am presently using Earthlink as my provider and am having problems with unauthorized e-mail addresses recieving and forwarding trash mail to me through my web site.
<p align="center"> "Enough is Enough"

Keith Outten
04-25-2003, 7:34 AM
Ken,

Our sponsor Hampton Roads Online can host your web site, we aren't the cheapest in the marketplace, we provide quality hosting and are a full service ISP with a direct connection to a nationwide backbone. HRO is a Shopsite Certified Hosting Partner and all email accounts have web based access with ten meg of mail space.

Contact Jackie for more information.

Dan Barber
04-25-2003, 7:35 AM
Ken,

I use http://www.winsave.com $8.95 per month when purchased anually. 100 meg space, unlimited data transefer.

So far it has worked well for me ~ two years. Rarely out of service and I really like the fact that there is no bandwidth limitations.

Give it a look.

Dan

Kim Carleton Graves
04-25-2003, 7:49 AM
Hi Ken,

We’re real happy with www.godaddy.com. Between Masha and me, we have five URL's and three websites up with them!

Best,

Kim Carleton Graves
Carleton Woodworking School

Ken Salisbury
04-25-2003, 8:01 AM
Originally posted by Dan Barber
Ken,

I use http://www.winsave.com $8.95 per month when purchased anually. 100 meg space, unlimited data transefer.



Dan

Thanks Dan -- iPower provides the following is the main reason I am looking at them:

500mbs --- 300 pop e-mails -- SSL - FTP - Stats - CGI - PHP - My SQL - Front Page Ext (I use Front Page)

All for $7.95/mo - if paid anually

Wayne Johnson
04-25-2003, 8:10 AM
Ken,

Take a close look at http://www.worldwebhosters.com. This is who I use. They are a great value.

Wayne

Bartee Lamar
04-25-2003, 8:11 AM
Things to think about.

How do you communicate with them? Is it all eMail support with 24 hour turnaround? Can you actually get someone on the phone? 24/7?

How do you load your web pages? FTP? or some kine of browswer based upload system? ( I would prefer FTP, it is more straight foward and gives you a clear picture of what your site looks like. )

How much disk space do you get?

How much band width go you get? This is usually not a problem. They give you so much that if you are using it all you much have a very successful sight and should be able to figure out how to make income that would cover additional cost.

How do they support your email? You should be able to get ken@kenwood.com for your URL www.kenwood.com .

They should have a web based browswer interface into their email offering.

If you plan to expand beyond "brochure" site that may require server scripting what kind of scripting do they support on their servers. ASP ? PHP? ColdFusion? ( there are a bunch of others)

What Kind of database support can they offer? This goes with the above question. The db support is usually going to be Access, MS SQL or MySQL

Do they offer a good eCommerce solution so you can set up an online store complete with you own credit card offerings?


Try to find others who are using their hosting service to see if the response time is ok. Hosting services are putting 200+ sites per servers. This is NOT a bad thing all the time if they have done their homework and their infrastructure is good.

How long have they been in business? There are so many companies and the prices is being driven so low, all of them are NOT going to servive.

Good luck in you new websites.

Lincoln Myers
04-25-2003, 10:39 AM
I came across a GREAT hosting company about a year and a half ago. Since then I have put my site up - not related to woodworking- and have recommended this host to others including a couple of web developers who host multiple client sites there.

The main selling point of this service (aside from what you get listed below) is the UNBELIEVABLE CUSTOMER SERVICE.

They have a CS site that you place your question on. Then you get an emial notification when you have a reply. Now I have had some pretty specific requests about DNS, and Secure Shell access etc. and at all hours of the day and night. My typical response time from them is always w/in the hour, but ususally w/in 5-10 minutes. Hard to believe I know, but everytime I put in a request they amaze me with great turnaround and service.

Here's the skinny:

$5/Month (no setup fees) $60/year
$5 .com/.net/.org/.us registration
333 MB Web Space
Online Control Panel
10 day money back guarantee
24/7 FTP Access
Unlimited E-Mail Accounts
SMTP, POP3, IMAP Servers
Webmail
5 Subdomains for FREE!
24/7 Tech Support Ticketing System
Web Site Statistics
FrontPage 2002 Extensions
Personal CGI-BIN
MySQL Data Base
Password Protected Directories
Secure Socket Layer (SSL)
Server Side Includes (SSI)
Unix Based
Graphical Hit Counter
5 Gigs Data Transfer & Hits
Super Fast Servers!
Custom 404 Page Site Search Engine
PERL, C++, TCL, Python and PHP4

I just renewed w/ them for the next year and renewals are only $40.

Take a look at their website for more details: www.icdsoft.com
Their datacenter is pretty impressive take a look here: http://www.iadvantage.net.hk/facilities/facilities_megai_main.html

Tom Sweeney
04-25-2003, 12:19 PM
I know Ken - That's over my limit :D

I have a small web design company - I build mostly static - non ecommerce sites for Real Estate people.

Now mind you I always try to recommend to my clients to use a small local ISP that helped me a lot when I first started out. Probably a lot like HRO. Great people, great service but not cheap. None of my clients have chosen to use these guys in a few years - due to cost.

About 3 years ago I hooked up with a company out of CALif. called ICOM. They were cheap - $8.95 / month - had lots of storage space & all that stuff. Here's the problem -after about a year or so of everything being honky dory things started going downhill. I had 6 sites hosted with them. & started having lots of problems with all of them. Customer support dropped to Zilch. Finally they were bought by Interland - a large hosting company.
It took many dozens of hours over several months to gain control of the web sites back & be able to transfer them to another hosting company. There is still one being held by interland due to a mixup with my client paying his annual bill. Considering I picked ICOM I couldn't bill my clients for the time I spent resolving it & considering I charge $60/ hour I'd guess I lost about a thousand bucks or more due to picking an ISP on price alone.

I've never - ever had such a bad experience with any business in any industry in my 43 years - Ok Network Solutions is close.

Moral of the story - a cheap price may not be the best deal - shop around talk to people & do your research. My money's on small private companies like HRO - as long as they have the service you need and the price is not out of line. My own site is still hosted with the local guy.

Just my 2˘ worth.

Scott Stefanoski
04-25-2003, 2:08 PM
i also use icdsoft as a host. very good system, email support is good. good luck speaking with a person- they are a hong kong company.

as for my site, i will probably look at using the sponsor of this site when it is time tro renew my website, or my dsl line for my own server. if i go commercial, i kinda figure i should look into the site sponsor and see if they are reasonably close to fill my need.

Aaron Koehl
04-26-2003, 2:48 AM
With web hosting:
1) You get what you pay for!
2) There's no such thing as a free lunch.

Small businesses often run thin budgets and try to save money
whenever possible. Go to a cheap web host if reliability
is unimportant to your business.

The money you save in web hosting should be absorbed into
marketing (web design, etc). When prospective traffic picks up and
reliability finally becomes important to your business, then
choose a host that real companies use, one where your host
accepts personal <i>responsibility</i> for the upkeep of your
site, and one that doesn't count solely on economy of scale.

_Aaron_