Jardine Engineering Systems
Webhost Problems

Hosting headaches

If you are either writing pages professionally or just trying to help out your non-profit club or organization, you've probably been thru the hassle of finding a good and reasonable host for your site(s).

I've been thru it all! Here are some of things I've tried:

Running off of my employer's site with a URL like "www.xyz.edu/deptA/~yourlogin/yourorganization". Doesn't that look neat on your flyers?
Using the 'free' space given by your ISP so that you wind up with something like "www.zzz.com/users/~yourlogin/yourorganization" and these usually give your visitors those wonderful popups and banners.
Using a re-direct service that held my URL registered and sent people into my /users/!~name page with my .com URL. Problem: when you bookmarked the page it had the /users/~name on it.
My own URL with all of inherent costs: registration, using a local service, finding that after a couple of years you were "grandfathered out " of the increased space, etc., now given for free to newer customers.
A hunt thru Computer User's subsidiary Webhostingrank.com database of $10 sites.

What worked for me

What I finally settled on was Webmasters.com. Now this wasn't by an exhaustive database and web search, and not by the tried and true dart-throwing method, no indeed: I found them recommended by SpamCop.net, to whom I have sent all of my spams for years, because they are one of the world's most dedicated and efficient spam fighters. I have been so satisfied with SpamCop that I chose their pay-for mail service and no longer deal with any spam. $30 a year and no forms to fill out nor black/white lists nor filters to set up.

The only recommendation, outside link or banner, that appears on SpamCop.net's site is the one to Webmasters.com.

So, anyhow, Webmasters.com gave me 750MB of storage and 300 e-mail slots (among other things, but this is what I cared about) on the first site I set up there for the Livermore Scottish Games. A short while later I talked the Monterey Games into moving over as well. In May 04 I moved this site to Webmasters and in July I transferred the Caledonian Club of San Francisco over. I list all of these sites so you that you can do an eval on them for download speed and the like.

By now, however, the amount of storage space had increased to 1GB! I went back to check on the first site and it had increased as well, so we were all being treated equally. No more being left in the lurch by companies that signed you up and left you with the minimal services you agreed to pay for last year. All customers are upgraded, retrofitted and treated equally. Nice touch.

The best example I have of savings is for the Caledonian Club site: the old host was charging $500 a year for 100 MB, and with Webmasters they are paying $120 for a Gig - a real no-brainer there!

Even further savings

Webmasters.com isn't the only host to offer this service but it's worth knowing about. You will note that instead of a .com suffix, this site has .us.vu. This is a "virtual" site (but you're reading it!), and because Webmasters.com hosts it, the registration is free. No yearly $35 fee to register it with Network Solutions. Sure, it isn't as cool as being a .com or .org, but it saves your organization a few dollars a year.

Advertising stuff

I refuse to put banners, popups and the sort of advertising gimmicks that detract from the site I am trying to promote. As a matter of fact I won't link to any participants' sites that have popups. In the case of our sponsors I have to list them, but I put a warning sign that the link will give popups.

However I was impressed enuf with Webmasters.com to put the small link that brought you to this page, and if you want to check them out, simply click on any the links above.

Links:

Contacting JES

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Jardine Engineering Systems Webhost Problems

Jardine Engineering Systems
Webhost Problems