Urban Vancouver

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Shane Birley
http://www.shanesworld.ca

Domains and hosting are two separate things, so Shane is right, it depends on what you need the host to do. (I'm not sure how much of what I'll tell you in the following that you already know, so if you do, then this is for the benefit of future readers.)

If you want hosting, which means access to FTP, SSH, and the ability to install your own software, basically the rule is you go with what your friends recommend, since they're all very cheap and they no longer compete on features and price but on customer support. Myself, I've gone with Vervehosting, which is based in the Eastern United States. You'll find cheaper hosts if you shop around, but I've always been happy with their customer service. They charge a monthly rate for a set amount of bandwidth, but I've recently come across a novel concept at nearlyfreespeech.net, where you deposit cash and pay for the bandwidth and space you use, rather than being given an upper limit.

The other option is hosted service: I work for a company called Bryght, which runs a Drupal-powered hosted service. To show that I'm not too biased, Six Apart run TypePad, a blogging service, which allows you to 'host' domains. The advantages of a hosted service (either my company or others that offer hosted services) is that they generally built the software they run the service for, so they're intimately familiar with it, and are better able to support it directly. Also they'll update and maintain the software without extra charge or any work by you. The disadvantage is that hosted services generally cost more and give you less control over what software's installed.

Domains are a separate issue: you can have a domain regardless of whether you go with a host or hosted service. I generally recommend Namecheap because they're easy to use and fairly cheap (there are cheaper, but Namecheap is among the cheapest and very easy to use). You can point individual domains (even subdomains!) to any server you want.

Nearly Free Speech is, IMHO, awesome (http://www.nearlyfreespeech.net). You basically pay $1 per gigabyte of transfer, and something like $.01 per megabyte per day of storage, and the way it works is that you send your payment and carry a balance that they deduct from. Full FTP/SSH access, if you like that sort of control. Maybe not the prettiest thing to look at, but they also do mySQL tables. The only downside might be no real mail, they just do forwarding on the entire domain. I have two sites hosted on them. And their support people have always seemed pretty decent, and they just give a no-bull kind of attitude. Decent uptime as well. I don't think I've had my account for longer than 177 days.

This is an experience I contrast with a ridiculously bloated corporate operation that I went with for another site, that was hacked, uses Fantastico for script installation (meaning all the scripts are difficult to customize), and they force me to go through a web-based file management and editing tool to which I have lost several hours of my life. *shudder* Although for features, they do have the upper hand--subdomains (i.e. anotherword.yourdomain.com), email addresses, multiple ftp accounts... As Richard noted, it mostly has to do with your level of confidence with manipulating the tech.

Good luck with your search!

Hi,

I'm using a free web host that offers a "no frills" 20MB site, in exchange for registering my .ca domain with them. They want $50/yr for that. No PHP or SQL unless extra fees are paid.

Checked out Namecheap and they want $18.70Cdn for that; a much better deal.

I suppose I will lose my current host by switching to a new/different domain register.

Looking into Nearly Free Speech. Keep the advice coming.

Thanks.

My Urban Garden projects (Vancouver, BC)
http://urbanwild.diary-x.com

My credit cards indicate I paid $14.41CAD for a .ca domain name for one year from them.

You can email them to me, if you want.

Thanks,

urban

My Urban Garden projects (Vancouver, BC)
http://urbanwild.diary-x.com

My friend's website, significantly less splashy because I was doing it for free :), is also on nearlyfreespeech: http://www.smpromotions.ca.

for registrars, you probably can't beat namespro.ca ...12.88 for .ca names, and a bit more for com/net/org. The thing is, they have INCREDIBLE service, theya always get back to you to resolve any problems within a few hours. Always. All your domains go under one easy control panel. It might cost a bit more cash wise, but the sense of security is worth it.

For web hosts, I have been using Nearly Free Speech and they too are really good. You do have to know what you're doing, but like namespro., they have terrific support. The best thing abotu NFS is the price: I have spent less than a dollar there in two weeks just setting things up and serving a few video and audio files for my site. You only pay for what you use-- $1 a GB of transfer, and 1cent per MB of storage. If you are looking for a cheap host, but a quality one that isn't going to shaft you, then this is the place.

BY all means, stay away form Doteasy etc and their big bandwidth plans. the recurring $10 or $20 fee for multiple gigs of bandwidth is a racket: bandwidth, according to NFS, costs less than a dollar per GB! Why pay for more than you use?