I’m thinking about taking some of the cash that has accumulated in the tip jar (a big thank you to everyone who chucked money at me!), and using it to pay for a year or two of web hosting. The domain is available, and there are lots of things I could do with a paid hosting account.
Then again, I don’t get nearly the traffic to need the bandwidth, and the swank features of a hosted site would be largely like shooting a sparrow with a howitzer. I mean, 1 terabyte of storage? Ten terabytes bandwidth per month? Three thousand email accounts? My budding media empire is not nearly big enough yet to fill those shoes.
Still, I could finally re-do my personal site, which went offline when we canceled our DSL in Knoxville, and I’d have room to grow, as they say. Plus, all the cool kids have their own hosted domains, you know?
10 Comments
March 31, 2008 at 7:16 am
At the very least you should go ahead and by the domain name; once someone else gets it you’re not likely to ever have another shot at it. You can set it up to redirect to this site until you decide to go ahead with hosting.
I’d also suggest using a registrar that offers private registration so your personal info stays out of the WHOIS database.
March 31, 2008 at 7:16 am
I remain resolutely uncool.
Running WordPress on my own hosted domain would start smelling awfully like Work.
March 31, 2008 at 8:12 am
TD hosts my site for me, via his Dreamhost account. I let him worry about the techie stuff, and so far he’s not done wrong by me in any way, so I’d listen to his advice.
(yay, i’m a cool kid!)
March 31, 2008 at 9:31 am
I got my own because I didn’t trust putting my data in direct control of somebody else’s service terms. Sure, hosting has terms too and they have your data, but the content isn’t assumed to be theirs generally speaking.
ICDSoft has always done right by me. At $6/month they fit in a good spot for a personal site.
Now, if I could find my way to the actual website part of the concept sometime…
March 31, 2008 at 10:52 am
+1 on TD. Doesn’t WordPress have an option to use your own domain? If later you need other hosting, you can always create subdomains like photos.munchkinwrangler.example , and have those hosted at a different paid account.
My host will charge you a penny at a time for just the bandwidth you need.
March 31, 2008 at 11:06 am
I am lucky – I have a girlfriend who works for Q9 so my hosting is free. I admit sometimes maintaining WP or working on my rusty SQL skills gets frustrating, but for the most part I just get it working and then leave it alone.
March 31, 2008 at 11:51 am
Dude, if you want just space on a webserver, you’re more’n welcome to use some of mine – despite using it to pump large quantities of animation data and renders around the planet, I hardly ever approach my quota. Not actually hit it yet. I’d say spend the money on a hundred klicks of fibre and run your own line to the nearest exchange instead.
March 31, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Hey Marko, check out Lunarpages. Cheap, really really reliable, and they actually answer the phone when you call ‘em. One click WordPress install, even. Easy as pie.
No matter who you go with, you’ll get a ton of storage and all sorts of funky bells and whistles. Yay cronjobs!
March 31, 2008 at 9:52 pm
tam might not need to work but you sure as hell do; that’s the voice of experience having funded the raising/wrangling of three young’uns …and quality work requires quality tools,
any business requires investment; to the extent that the website enchances and simplifies/facilitates your production and efficiency (hour/income ratio), it is a business expense along with newfangled hardware and maybe even that einstein desk.
again, i don’t know shit about any of this stuff, nor much give a ratsazz as long as what i am reading is laid out well and easy to manipulate (those kids are cool, huh? don’t know how much of that is due to their sites, though).
and, uhh…well…a few points larger typesize would be a little easier on 50+ eyeballs… don’t snicker, it happens in a f’n flash, but i’m not bitter… jtc
April 2, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Paid hosting is usually worth the investment. There is no advertising and the hosting provider has a real reason to provide better support and service than a free host. (There’s money on the line).
Good luck!