Web Hosting

I've been on Blogger.com now for about three months, and I like it pretty well, but I am still thinking about moving to my own web site. I want to expand this blog into a directory of sorts for soccer in the USA, growing fuschias, and other interests that you haven't even heard about yet!

But the feature list I have in mind is pretty impressive, and Jerry tells me that Blogger just can't handle it. I want message boards, live chat rooms, a large database of photos, and large directories of web resources. So Jerry has me looking for web hosting. He says that if I can find a great deal on a site with (and I quote, because I don't know what this means, for the most part): "shell access, ftp access, cgi priveleges, and subdomains" then he'll help get me up and running. And he wants me to do it cheaply, of course, says I shouldn't need to spend more than $25 per month.

So I've been browsing over at Web Site Host Directory for budget web hosting. This is a well-organized site showcasing some amazing deals. For example, pulling up the "Budget Web Hosting" sections yeilds several competitors charging only $4.95-$5.95 per month for a package of services that should be enough for most any blogger...but of course, not for me and Jerry! We have an almost pathological need to search out better (more expensive!) products. So I check the "Unix/Linux" hosting section and immediately found a provider offering more than I need ("2000MB space, 20GB Transfer, Unlimited Email Accounts, FrontPage, PHP, CGI, Ruby & Ruby on Rails, JSP & Java Servlets, MySQL, Crontab, ASP & .NET (Windows Only), Webmail, Spam Filtering") for only $9 a month. Pretty incredible.

So the next question is: which of these competitors is most reliable? Which ones are going to be up 99% of the time, which are going to back up my data, and which have the best tools for managing the site?

Web Site Host Directory offers some help here too, with FAQs and articles about web hosting that will help you ask the best questions of prospective providers. Also, there is an news section filled with information that is of interest to bloggers generally, not just to hosting services providers.

Link: budget web hosting