Web Hosting

[Brian 972]

General web hosting topic.

To start off, anyone here with past experience with personal sites I would love to have this question answered.

What would you recommend for photography or a portfolio type of website? I have my domain through GoDaddy and I'm currently using blogspot but I'm considering moving my site over.

Some websites I've been looking at include:

http://www.zenfolio.com/

http://www.smugmug.com/

They have a lot of designs to chose from, and also allow online stores and such, which I like very much.

[cuda 939]

I've always used the same hosting provider, it's Portuguese so there's no point in linking you, but it's dirt cheap and rarely failed me.

I would maybe take the opportunity to learn about the web and build your own photo blog (or whatever it is you want to do), those services don't sound expensive at all, but building your own website is a good experience.

[GunSmith 2452]

What cuda said. Building your site from the ground up is not only rewarding, but it also frees you from the restrictions of using a template-style service like the Blogger site you have now. For a gentle push in the right direction, this book plus this book are two fine options. If you're not willing to pay what Amazon wants, check your library.

[DuPz0r 5361]

I made my website from he ground up. I still make changes to it from time to time. I use a British host called 123-reg.co.uk they take care of your domain too, so you just pay them once a year or longer for both domain and host.

[Qdeathstar 1763]

I use godaddy for everything. No problems. They are a lot more legit. I used a couple of lesser known service providers, and they shut down (and held hostage all of my data) becuase i was using "too many resources"

Same sites on godaddy all work fine, and i have 4-5 using the same hosting plan..

[narcolepsy 581]

I use godaddy for everything. No problems. They are a lot more legit. I used a couple of lesser known service providers, and they shut down (and held hostage all of my data) becuase i was using "too many resources"

Same sites on godaddy all work fine, and i have 4-5 using the same hosting plan..

The amount of free shit you get with godaddy is excellent too. Good that you can have every on godaddy and control them all in one place.

[ConQueSteD 552]

You're wanting a site to for your photography, you should just use smugmug.

[MrMister81 473]

Building from the ground up is a great way to learn, but only if you give a shit about learning how to build a website, which you may or may not.

You might take a look at WordPress. It's feature-rich and always under active development. Pair with a no-frills hosting plan from somewhere like Hostek, and you're off to the races.

[xtJamie 0]

Building a website is a good way of learning how websites are made up but that can require a lot of knowledge and website design experience if you're looking for something particular. There are ample amounts of tutorials on the most fundemental website design languages such as: HTML and CSS. Adding content and images and styling them with the help of a few guides is okay but once you start looking beyond that and look more into applications, functionality and interactivity; you go beyond the scope of those languages and more into more advanced languages such as JavaScript and PHP for example.

As for hosting, that is pretty much down to your requirements and what you think you will be needing. Obviously there is an abundance of webhosting companies such as HostGator, GoDaddy, Siteground, Hosting24 and One to name a few.

You would most likely benefit from using a hosting company that offers a free domain, otherwise you will have to buy the hosting/domain separately and then try and propogate them via name servers. Ideally you're looking for unlimited bandwidth, unlimited download space, you don't need to look into unlimited disk space as you won't be using a huge amount of memory for a portfolio. Whenver you look into separate control managements such as: Drupal, Joomla or Wordpress, you can be a little bit overwhelmed by the amount of content and features each platform offers and for a beginner, it can be come extremely convoluted.

Until you're comfortable with web hosting, domains and web design; look at a pre-configured portfolio package that allows you to edit content, upload/edit images and add new content without having to touch any code. Lots of them exist.

Apologies if this is considered 'grave digging'.

[Qdeathstar 1763]

If anyone is thinking about using host gator, i got a referral link which will give us both 25 bucks

Preconfigured things suck, so unless your in a rush, learn to code, there are a ton of guides