web hosting & domain registration

[heresluck]

So I'm preparing to acquire real web hosting (as opposed to taking-advantage-of-the-ex's-good-nature web hosting) and my own domain name, and I wanted to know whether those of you who have done this before have advice about the process.

renenet has been doing quite a lot of research on my behalf, and has advised me about questions to ask, and I'm

Comments

[just_eunice]

Be careful. Promotional deals like this one make me nervous, especially when one finds the following in their Acceptable Use Policy:

ION Hosting accounts operate on shared resources. Excessive use or abuse of these shared network resources by one customer may have a negative impact on all other customers. Misuse of network resources in a manner which impairs network performance is prohibited by this policy and may result in termination of your account.

You are prohibited from excessive consumption of resources, including CPU time, memory, disk space and session time. You may not use resource-intensive programs which negatively impact other customers or the performances of ION Hosting systems or networks. ION Hosting reserves the right to terminate or limit such activities.Translation: if you actually use the bandwidth we've offered you, or if there is a spike in your downloads we will take you down. It's common practice for a webhost to offer insane amounts of gigabytes for a small price because they know the vast majority of

[heresluck]

Promos make me nervous, too; hence the asking for advice about what I've missed.

The promo deal doesn't require a one-year contract; it's available by the month, the quarter, or the year. I want to sign up by the quarter because within 3 months I should have another vid out and can check what happens with bandwidth spike and what their reaction is.

The TOS sections you cite don't make me happy, but they actually look fairly standard. I checked out Velcom based on your rec, and their TOS says that

This agreement may be terminated. . . by Velcom at any time, without prior notice, if, in Velcom's judgment, you are in violation of any term or condition herein, or in Velcom's sole judgment, your use of the Services places or is likely to place unreasonable demands upon Velcom or could disrupt Velcom's business operations.It also has provisos about CPU, bandwidth and disk usage (TOS 10 and 11) that are very much like ION's. So it looks to be sort of a crapshoot regardless, I'm afraid -- which is why I'm curious about whether people have

[just_eunice]

Sigh...yeah. The reason Velcom's wording doesn't make me so nervous is 'cause the Headtilt sisters went first as guinea pigs...and if they don't get taken down with their level of bandwidth usage? I figure we're safe as houses. :-) Also they have very specific provisions laid out for over bandwidth usage...which indicates to me that they are prepared to deal with heavy download issues

[heresluck]

Also they have very specific provisions laid out for over bandwidth usage...which indicates to me that they are prepared to deal with heavy download issues.

Good point. I checked, and ION does have a policy about this (a set charge per extra GB). Plus the bandwidth limit is 50 GB, which I *really* don't anticipate hitting very often -- it's those post-posting spikes that worry me (especially given your tale of HT hitting 20 GB in a day after "Closer").

One thing you might want to do is see if ION has a customer service number you can call and talk to an actual person.

You're right -- I should. They've been very prompt and helpful with e-mail responses, but talking to a real person would probably be a help.

Someone should compile a list of "vidder friendly" webhosts along with a "do not touch with a ten foot pole" list to make this an easier process.

This is a really great idea. Maybe it could be added to the Boot Camp technical section at some point.

[vrya]

I'm also planning to purchase a domain name independently (rather than through the host) so that, if I do need to switch hosts, that process should in theory go more smoothly.

Okay, far from an expert here as this was not my part of the process, but as I understand it, the through-the-host method makes things a little easier for you to get set up, and as long as the registration is in your name (you are listed as the "administrative contact") switching hosts should be pretty much the same amount of hassle in either case.

Translation: if you actually use the bandwidth we've offered you, or if there is a spike in your downloads we will take you down

My ISP has more or less the same wording, but so far, I've not encountered any negative effects. Of course my vids are not nearly as in demand as yours, so you can take that with a grain of salt, but what I think they're really talking about here is people running complex php sites with a zillion processor-intensive requests per page that are just too much for the server to handle, ie

[just_eunice]

No doubt I'm just paranoid after our experience with Always WebHosting. Even after our bandwidth usage dipped way, way below our "limit" during a long hiatus between vids they continued to take our vid files offline, saying large file downloads were an unfair burden on their server. We were using less than half of our "alloted" bandwidth at the time.

[heresluck]

...as I understand it, the through-the-host method makes things a little easier for you to get set up, and as long as the registration is in your name (you are listed as the "administrative contact") switching hosts should be pretty much the same amount of hassle in either case.

I've read conflicting advice about this, unfortunately. I've discovered, though, that in many cases it's *cheaper* to register the domain independently because some hosts charge hidden-in-the-fine-print service fees for doing it.

...what I think they're really talking about here is people running complex php sites with a zillion processor-intensive requests per page that are just too much for the server to handle, ie really active message boards.

I hadn't even thought of this, but it does make sense. I think Eunice is right -- I should just ask point-blank about what constitutes "abuse of resources."

Re:

[vrya]

I've read conflicting advice about this, unfortunately. I've discovered, though, that in many cases it's *cheaper* to register the domain independently because some hosts charge hidden-in-the-fine-print service fees for doing it.

When in doubt, go cheap! ;-)

I hadn't even thought of this, but it does make sense. I think Eunice is right -- I should just ask point-blank about what constitutes "abuse of resources."

Yeah, asking's a good idea, though I expect the sales person will feed you the party line regardless of what the server admin may actually do on a case-by-case basis... But I think most ISP's will refund your money and cancel your account if you're dissatisfied with the service in the first 30 days, so if you time it just as you're ready to release a new video, you should be able to do some field testing without too much risk...

[jainieg]

Well, that IonHosting deal does look interesting, but the TOS stuff Eunice posted makes me go 'hmmm' (in that C&C Music Factory kinda way).

Tons of space, which is definitely a good thing, but if it was me, I wouldn't risk it.

Me, my sites are all housed at Cyberpixels.com and my domain is hosted at GoDaddy.com. Had very few problems at all (at the start, the transfer of the domain name to my new site caused a bit of trouble, since Cyberpixels had the wrong name server listed on their site - no prob, though, I just emailed them asking what the problem was and they sent me the correct info - easily solved) and so far I've had no problems with staying well within my transfer rates per month, even though stuff is being downloaded like crazy and I'm also hosting my friend's 3-D Bryce modelling art, as well.

I've got the 500 meg/20 gigs of transfers 'PixelExtreme' deal for $11.95 a month and the GoDaddy domain name was a one-time charge of $8.95. Pretty good deal, considering, I think. :D

[heresluck]

Space actually matters less to me than bandwidth, I think; getting plenty of space is easy, whereas bandwidth appears to be where people end up having problems. Good to hear that Cyberpixels is working out for you; I'll check them out as well.

Part of my problem is that because I don't currently have access to server stats, I have no idea how much bandwidth is actually being used, which makes it hard to project how much might get used if I added, say, another half-dozen vids over the next year. But I can't imagine that I'm currently using more than 8 GB or so.

[jainieg]

>>Good to hear that Cyberpixels is working out for you; I'll check them out as well.<<

Yeah, do! I know I must sound like an advert, but that's what happens when I get all happy and satisfied with stuff. lol But whenever anybody asks about site hosting, I always mention Cyberpixels. For me, 'good host' equals 'no problems and no hassle' and so far, Cyberpixels has been a great host for me.

>>Part of my problem is that because I don't currently have access to server stats, I have no idea how much bandwidth is actually being used, which makes it hard to project how much might get used if I added, say, another half-dozen vids over the next year. But I can't imagine that I'm currently using more than 8 GB or so.<<

Yeah, see, that's the thing - figuring out just how much bandwidth you need. It's a bugger. Me, I just took a really random stab and chose a deal that offered more bandwidth than I thought I could ever use and that turned out to be just about right. Better to have too much bandwidth available than not enough...!

Try searching for web hosting reviews

[morgandawn]

I found one so far:
http://www.aspin.com/func/review?tree=aspin/hosting/freehost&id=4880310

But since the review was anonymous I started a thread at:
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=158677

asking for feedback. We'll see what users say.

[heresluck]

*smacks forehead*

Search for reviews! Why didn't I think of that?

See, this is why I post things to LJ. You all are much more sensible than I am.

More WebReviews

[morgandawn]

This forum is not very friendly at times, but they do have a lot of discussion.

Here is a discussion of Cyberpixels. You can seacrh for more via their search engine.

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=132872&highlight=cyberpixels

As always take the info there with a grain of salt.