RE: Calling All Webpage Guru s

[kathybrj]

 I have a free page at Tripod which is always shut down due to bandwidth excess.
 
 First- does anyone know of a web hosting site that offers more space (without charge).
 
 Secondly- how does one set up a mirror site? Would that be something that would be useful to me?
 
 I m not sure I m ready to pay for my website- it s not as informative as other pop up sites or as large.
 
 Any help is greatly appreciated.

[JemJen24]

 kathybrj
I had the similiar problem with geocities.  I was unable to find a FREE service with more space that could cater to my needs.  Sooo, I popped out $100 bucks for a whole year of a LOT of space usage.  www.fatcow.com
 
 I guess you " could"  open another free account (say with geocities) and simply place links to link to the new pages.  Tho , Im not sure how well this would work.
 
 Good luck!
 
 Jennifer

[Redwolf]

 kathybrj
www.123ehost.com has some very good rates, starting at $50 a year for 100Megs.  They re very competitive, and came highly recommended in several reviews of web hosting sites.   They ve got a very good bandwidth, and $10 a year domain registration.
 
 I starting hosting my site on my own server recenting.  The Grand Canyon Trip pages doubled the size of the space required, and with the Utah trip coming up...I d either have to remove older trips, or pay more.
 
 Best of luck with your site.
 
 

[gsm x2]

 kathybrj
Kathy,
 
 I couldn t get into your site to check it out, but I have some thoughts.
 
 1.  Are your pictures large, or why else would you be creating such a large load on bandwidth for your page?
 2.  Who is your ISP and can you just use the webspace they provide you for your site.  Most of them over quite a bit of space and bandwidth may not be as big an issue for them.
 
 Good luck.
 
 gsm x2

[kathybrj]

 kathybrj
My ISP offers 5MB of space, significantly smaller than the 20MB I get from Tripod.
 
 Pics on Tripod are grainy- a comon complain among some other users. They look great on Webshots, but never on my Tripod site.

[brainpause]

 kathybrj
I pay 8.95 per month with Yahoo!/Geocities. With that, I get 25 MB of space, 10000 MB of data transfer a month, and I even got to pick the domain name! (www.larryandhollycrockett.com). I have been happy with mine, and have had no problems with being shut down, even though I ve had 5000 visitors (nearly) in a year.
 
 Larry

[Wayfarer]

 kathybrj
GeoCities works fine for me:  25meg space, FREE,[/u] and I ve never had any problems.  Been using them for years.  Yes, you can open another free site and link the two.  For photos I use YahooPhotos, again FREE,[/u], and I have opened three different photo sites (just use different names and passwords).  Check out my website - link below.  Might meet your needs.  Keep in mind that me (or you) and my (your) close friends are probably the ones who go to the site most often, and since I m not trying to sell anything or overly impress folks, you can t beat the price.  And, for something like $4.25 a month you can have a site with no ads.
 
 Of course, you will have the " geocities"  in the address which really isn t all that bad.  If that bothers you, however, you can do like some others and pay out the big bucks.
 
 Most of all just do what makes you happy or turns you on .  In my estimation paying for a website and vanity address is kinda like paying to have a book printed by one of the " vanity publishers"  - it may look good but does not really impress folks all that much.
 
 Have fun building your site!

[kathybrj]

 kathybrj
Nice sites all!
 
 I liked Tripod, except for the picture quality issue. Now I have to wait to even go back in there and reupload smaller pic files to try to correct the problem.
 
 If I get things fixed or moved, or created new, I ll change my homepage info!

[Tim5055]

 kathybrj
OK, here is my $ .02 ---
 
 Web hosting companies are selling two things, web space and bandwidth.
 
 Web space consists of the size of the files you store on their servers to make them available to the public.  Many internet service providers give you 10 megs of space for a family web page when you sin up for an account.
 
 Bandwidth is the transfer of files form the server to someone requesting to see them.  If you have a picture that is 1 meg in size and 100 people " request"  it then yo have used up 100 meg of bandwidth.  So a page with a few pictures graphics and text can use up bandwidth quickly.
 
 Now my history.  I started my web site with [link=http://www.homestead.com/]Homestead.COM[/link].  They provided free space and tools to let you set up a page easily.  The downside was that because it was free they had banner ads, pop up ads and restricted bandwidth.  I originally used their tools to set up my site but quickly was disappointed with all the ads.  I decided to move on and it was then that I discovered that using their tools made it difficult to capture and move my pages to another site.  As a mater of fact, you can still see what is left of my old home page which is still on their free service [link=http://www.tim5055.homestead.com/]My Old Site[/link]
 
 I decided against another free site because of the ads and other " costs"  associated with " free"  sites.  I found [link=http://www.webstrikesolutions.com]Webstrice Solutions[/link], based in Australia (remember it s a small world - plus their servers are in Denver) which gives the first 12 months free.  They do charge a $30 set up fee.  They are a little expensive when it comes to domain registration, but you can do that somewhere else if you want.
 
 I used Webstrike for the first year free and was well into the second year ($84 for a yearly hosting contract) when my site got really popular.  I was going over Webstrike s 2 gig per month transfer limit and it began to cost big bucks.  So it was off to find a new host.  I found on that provides 5 gig per month transfer for $90 a year which I thought was a good deal.
 
 What did I learn through all of this?
 
 [ul]
 

• There is no free lunch.  You will pay in some way for a free site.  Banner ads, pop up ads, transfer limitations and the like are all common problems
• Learn HTML or use a commercial HTML editor to create your site.  Using a " web tool"  provided by the hosting company will limit you in a lot of ways
[/ul]
 
 My site is one of my hobbies.  It lets me think about camping when I m not able to go out and camp.  I just keep telling myself, hobbies cost money.
 

[kathybrj]

 kathybrj
Thanks all again.
 
 Let me just add this-
 
 I posted this post on another forum and I have to say that I appreciate the responses here. No one makes anyone feel like an idiot and for that I am grateful (because I am computer illiterate in many ways).
 
 I am currently reducing the resolution on my pictures. What I don t understand is the " hits"  my page has received. it s on the Webring for pop ups and, since I added the counter (2 months ago) it s recorded over 2,000 hits. I can t say, but would assume, that the number reflects my usage of the site (updating).
 
 Can that be? Or are counters inaccurate? Someone on the other forum asked if I thought my site was " that"  popular. I don t know. All I know is I get quite a few emails from it and I can only go by what the counter says.
 
 Thanks again. The people here on these forums are continuously gracious and unpretentious. []

[kathybrj]

 kathybrj
I went ahead and eeduced the resolution on all my site pics, reuploaded them and now I m down to 5.0 MB out of 20MB allowed (I was up to 19.5MB before).
 
 My bandwidth usage is (as of this am) 1006.2 out of the 1.0GB allotted.
 
 So what is that telling me? That I used it for the update on my page?

[LoadedCamera]

 kathybrj
I have my personal domain (www.loadedcamera.com) which costs me $15.00 a year to register housed with Jumpline.com for 11.95 a month.  It s a great service and I have had very little trouble with them over the last couple of years that I have been using them.
 
 If you want to pay monthly, then it would cost you $14.95 a month for 200mb storage and tons of bandwidth.
 
 Just a thought.. its not as expensive as some lead ya to believe...
 
 

[LoadedCamera]

 kathybrj
1006.2 out of 1000mb is telling me that you are over your alotted bandwidth..
 
 You will need to to wait until your account is given additional bandwidth at the end of the cycle.
 
 

[Gone-Camping]

 kathybrj
Well, this is probably not helpful to your needs, but both my racing site and gonecamping.net (both domains owned by me) are hosted on a family server up in Biddeford Maine. I get free hosting & unlimited bandwith, domain registration at cost ($8 per year), and free technical support (my brother).
 
 He does offer hosting services, usually from $15-25 per month for unlimited bandwith depending on your needs and the type of stuff you have. He charges extra for scripting services such as cgi-bin, sql, and php scripts.

[Firefyter-Emt]

 kathybrj
Yea Kathy.. Look into dumping Tripod. They were good before that bandwidth thing got so bad.. Like Tim said, there s no " free lunch s"  left. I am lucky enough to have unlimited space on my off road club s server (Nice server tucked away in a New England college somewhere I won t mention) []  As for the amount of hits you get.. You may be suprised! I tend to run about 500-800 hits a month and I have no idea where they all come from, Heck I am not even on here all that much! You could also split up your photos to a second server, keeping your pages clean and small..