Web hosting recommendations?

Latest Articles

Web hosting recommendations?
Page Previous 1, 2, 3

Downsizer Forum Index -> IT Matters

Author

Message

jema
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 28154
Location: escaped from Swindon

Posted: Thu Jun 01, 06 9:40 am Post subject:

Forager wrote:

jema wrote:

Mals-e was hoiw I got into helping people with carts in the first place!

Arkwrights homebrew were using it, and it was just way to crude and manual for real shop use.

oscommerce is what they are on now, and this still has required me and to a degree them to tweak more php files than I think a beginner wants to do

We ran a real shop, an mp3 site, selling mp3 hardware with hundreds of products and it worked a treat for us, we seriously did not have any problems with it but I can see it isn't for everyone. This is going back six years ago though so I'm sure things have moved on in the market.

oscommerce is a workable solution, but breaks down a little once you want to do "just that little bit more". I have no particular plans to move arkwrights away from it.

Forager

Joined: 29 Oct 2004
Posts: 144

Posted: Thu Jun 01, 06 9:41 am Post subject: Re: Web hosting recommendations?

Stacey wrote:

Jema doesn't think his services will be suitable for what I need so I'll ask here as well

I want to register a domain name and find someone to host a simple site. Lots of people here have site so who do you use and what have your experiences been?

If it is not mission critical i.e. not a business site then https://www.servage.net/ "looks" good. Cheap as chips which is why I wouldn't suggest them for a business site. I keep thinking about moving all my domains over to them but the price actually holds me back as I wonder how they could provide a reliable service with so much on offer for so little!

Last edited by Forager on Thu Jun 01, 06 9:44 am; edited 2 times in total

jema
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 28154
Location: escaped from Swindon

Posted: Thu Jun 01, 06 9:41 am Post subject:

[quote="sally_in_wales"]

Fee wrote:

I use www.doteasy.com, the Unlimited Hosting package, which works out at around £5 something ($9.95) a month,

I had a glance at them earlier. Would I be able to do this Joomla thingy on them, or do I need a special type of hosting package?

You will need a mysql/php package for Joomla/virtuemart.

For oscommerce you will need a mysql/php package which allows "php register globals" as occommerce is dated and some hosts have security restrictions that will stop it working.

jema
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 28154
Location: escaped from Swindon

Posted: Thu Jun 01, 06 9:44 am Post subject:
I am almost tempted to throw the doors open on hosting. I can offer a very fast cheap reliable package. But what I can't do is offer people that for £5 a month and then field constant support questions

Fee

Joined: 21 Mar 2005
Posts: 15922
Location: Earth

Posted: Thu Jun 01, 06 9:50 am Post subject:

[quote="jema"]

sally_in_wales wrote:

Fee wrote:

Yep, the Unlimited hosting includes 100 MySQL databases and CGI and PHP. I think you have to pay an extra £1-£2 per month or alike for SSL certificates, which I haven't done yet, as I'm using PayPal. I had OSCommerce running at one point, but took it down, didn't need it at the time, was just curious

Forager

Joined: 29 Oct 2004
Posts: 144

Posted: Thu Jun 01, 06 9:51 am Post subject:

jema wrote:

I am almost tempted to throw the doors open on hosting. I can offer a very fast cheap reliable package. But what I can't do is offer people that for £5 a month and then field constant support questions

That could be a problem.

What if you made it clear that there is no support beyond confirming servers etc are running ie stuff that the customer doesn't control and that support for web desgn problems, ftp problems etc are not covered. I'd buy that for a dollar.

Or have two options: a cheap "you're on your own" package and a premium full support provided one?

RoryD

Joined: 02 Jun 2005
Posts: 692
Location: West Yorkshire

Posted: Thu Jun 01, 06 10:03 am Post subject:
My friend Pete runs an excellent service for £3.60 a month with with support too. Its here www.nativespace.com I really can't recommend it highly enough (with a pologies if I'm treading on other peoples toes). He's one of us. Honest.

jema
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 28154
Location: escaped from Swindon

Posted: Thu Jun 01, 06 10:23 am Post subject:

RoryD wrote:

My friend Pete runs an excellent service for £3.60 a month with with support too.

Its here www.nativespace.com

I really can't recommend it highly enough (with a pologies if I'm treading on other peoples toes).

He's one of us. Honest.

I always question just what can "with support" really mean for £3.60 a month? It can only in my view work on the assumption that people don't actually ask for support

RoryD

Joined: 02 Jun 2005
Posts: 692
Location: West Yorkshire

Posted: Thu Jun 01, 06 10:32 am Post subject:

I agree; the support is all Support Ticket and email based. I agree that I don't think you can expect to get all singing all dancing support for that amount of money.

It works if you are reasonably PC literate, and prepared to trawl around the Support Forums for answers on your OsCommerce shop for example. If you want new images uploaded to your site and can't do it and asked them to, i think they'd probably quite rightly say hmmm not for £3/4 a month!

On the other hand, the times i've used the support ticket it been really good- 2/3 hours tops.

sally_in_wales
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 06 Mar 2005
Posts: 20809
Location: sunny wales

Posted: Thu Jun 01, 06 11:39 am Post subject:

RoryD wrote:

That sounds good, and it comes with joomla and oscommerce already installed, so I could play to my hearts content! i like the sound of that one, may give him a try.

I'm feeling a bit nervous of moving my site over though. Is it just a case of downloading a copy of all the existing pages, transferring teh domain name then uploading them again, or is there more to it than that?

sally_in_wales
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 06 Mar 2005
Posts: 20809
Location: sunny wales

Posted: Fri Jun 02, 06 10:33 am Post subject:
Well, I signed up to have my domain transferred over to the above recommended hosts last night, and had lots of nice friendly help notes through almost straight away. Just got a couple of days nail chewing now whilst I wait for the domain to switch over then I can see if I can actually make the site work at a new home then attempt to build a shopping cart.

Forager

Joined: 29 Oct 2004
Posts: 144

Posted: Fri Jun 02, 06 10:36 am Post subject:
I find it takes less than 24 hours. In fact the last couple were up and running the morning after I transferred them so keep an eye on it today.

sally_in_wales
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 06 Mar 2005
Posts: 20809
Location: sunny wales

Posted: Fri Jun 02, 06 11:23 am Post subject:
I'm just hoping it will all become crystal clear how to upload my old site to the new home, I don't fancy days of a 'this site is under construction' whilst I work it out. However, I have been assured it will all become clear, so I'm sure it will be ok

jema
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 28154
Location: escaped from Swindon

Posted: Fri Jun 02, 06 11:23 am Post subject:
The bad old days of 24 hours are long gone, though it still may take that long for people at the far reaches of the net to see a domain propagate. Normally think in terms of 1 hour.

sally_in_wales
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 06 Mar 2005
Posts: 20809
Location: sunny wales

Posted: Fri Jun 02, 06 5:39 pm Post subject:

mine is a .com (why, I dunno, it seemed to make sense when I got it though I think if I was doing it again a .co.uk is more 'me') apparently it may take up to a week if the original host is feeling lazy. For some reason .co.uk's seem quicker to move

Anyway, I have had a couple of short e-conversations with their helpdesk. Point One: they speak understandable English! Yay! I can work out whatt they are trying to tell me! Point Two: I had a little email through saying 'you mentioned you wanted OS Commerce, we'll happily set it up for you, just tell us where you want it to appear'.

Thats service in my book!

	Downsizer Forum Index -> IT Matters	All times are GMT Page Previous 1, 2, 3
Page 3 of 3

View Latest Posts