Best Hosting Company Options

[JBmtk]

So, I've been bulidng this website on my own local server at home running Xdsl with xampp installed. Now, I'm wanting to make this store become live, so I decided to lookup hosts. So far, I'm goin wtih the 1and1 beginners package, simply because of its cheap price and its components. It says it comes with

mysql (one for catalog and one for forum)
1 email address (order@mywebsite.com
300GB transfer (I don't want it to become all that popular, its a modding website)
20GB webspace (more than plenty)
and some more odds and ends.

ONly thing I don't like is that it appears it dosn't support SSL, maybe i'm wrong bout that...?/

Anyways, do you think this is a good idea to buy? Also, could I install xampp onto this, or do I simply just upload my files, cause that would suck. Its a linux host it claims, but I dont know if that will have any real impact on me.

[twistedsymphony]

I use 1and1 for all my hosting stuff.

you're correct that you don't get SSL, at least not until the more expensive packages.

the beginners package is pretty limited.. I'd at least recommend upgrading to one of the packages with stat tracking as I find that to be an invaluable feature in seeing things like what browsers your visitors as using, what sites are referring most of your visitors and which pages they're visiting the most.

I don't know anything about xamp so I can't really comment. I write all of my pages using PSPad and just FTP thm up.

EDIT: looking up xampp no, you can't install that yourself... these are shared servers meaning other people are using them for their websites too... there's a fat chance in hell you'll find any host allow you to install your own OS/Server software on their machine, even if they're offering dedicated boxes.

The Linux service already comes with apache installed, IIRC it's got PHP 4 and 5 and most of the features and popular packages enabled for both Apache and PHP.

This post has been edited by twistedsymphony: Jun 11 2007, 07:44 PM

[JBmtk]

ahah, i guesss your right. First though,I think i'm gonna clean up my site and bit and revamp a few things, then i'm gonna go with 1and1. thanks

[xboxbox451]

Anyways, do you think this is a good idea to buy? Also, could I install xampp onto this, or do I simply just upload my files, cause that would suck. Its a linux host it claims, but I dont know if that will have any real impact on me.

XAMPP is NOT for production use, which is clearly stated on their website. XAMPP is basically an easily installed LAMP package, which is for the design and testing of websites, scripts and such, and not for publicly hosting sites since its security functions are limited.

If you want to easily make a website, then look into a CMS package such as what JOOMLA has to offer. Then, if your creating a forum, just link it to your CMS. 1and1 should have all the tools needed to get your web site and forum off the ground, which is just having the ability to create a few SQL databases. As for upping files, you could use an ftp client, and if your designing a site via an HTML editor such as NVU or Dreamweaver, then you can easily edit your site with their integrated FTP file manager.

[bucko]

I use http://www.ipowerweb.com, unlimited storage and about 50GB a month bandwidth, most I've ever used a month is 3.5GB. Had a few downtime problems in the past but all been resolved, I tell you America web hosting is so much cheaper than British hosting in terms of cost .

This post has been edited by bucko: Jun 12 2007, 09:49 PM

[greenday54261]

A friend of mine and I have sort of a joint website on 1&1.

I came in after he set it up, and apparently he got the Business package. For $8 a month, you get a ridiculous amount of bandwidth and storage space (250GB each - we've never come close to filling it), plus SQL databases, website building tools, SSH access, admin tools, etc. Basically a whole crapload of stuff we'll never use, for almost nothing.

As far as I can tell, 1&1 seems to get you the most for your money. Excellent service, too... we've never had any downtime. Ever.

And being on a Linux host probably won't mean anything for you. You can upload everything that makes up your site, and the server will host it. If you have any knowledge of UNIX-type terminal commands, you can probably connect to the server with SSH (Secure Shell) and do command-line things with it.