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beau · 18-05-2007, 18:01

I want to set up a simple web site to record my journey though my boat design, boat building, cruising lifestyle etc
Similiar to what a lot of you have out there.
What is your recommendation:
Web Hosting?
Software package?
No selling will be involved.
Value for money and low cost

maxingout · 18-05-2007, 18:21

I have five web sites with Hostway. They have been affordable and consistently responsive whenever there is a need for technical service.

If you go to Hostway - Web Hosting, Dedicated Servers, Domain Names -you will find that you can get a personal web site for $8.95 per month. You can check out their website and see what is included in a hosting package. The basic hosting plan has many more features than you are likely to use.

We use FrontPage 2000 to construct our web sites. It's a relatively easy program to learn how to use. We also had Dreamweaver on board our boat, but found that it was more complicated than FrontPage. But the truth is, it's more a matter of preference about which software package to use.

Photoshop or some other type of picture editing program would be a help as well.

When we first started making web sites, we used free Site Kitchen software that is found at Hostway. You can use their free software, but it severely limits what you can do on your web site. FRUSTRATION! When we finally moved up to FrontPage 2000, our life immediately improved. The appearance of our sites was much better as well.

For most people, a blog site with photos will make a nice "web site", and it will either be free or very cheap.

You don't need to be a rocket scientist to have a nice web site, but it does take a lot of time. If I was just getting started, I probably would start out with a blog/picture site, and then if I found out that I enjoyed it, then I would invest more time and money in a personal web site.

Good luck on your web site,

Cheers

hellosailor · 18-05-2007, 18:23

Beau, do you have an ISP? Do they offer free web hosting?

There are some like AOL and Tripod who will actually give anyone a free web site. AOL will give you a domain name along with it--but with any of htem, check who OWNS the domain name if that's important to you. A web search will find you plenty of free or cheap web hosting services, but free usually means cluttered with ads, and cheap always comes with limits. Limits on bandwidth or storage but they may not matter to you.

infopubs · 18-05-2007, 20:16

Beau:

Blogger is a Google product and is completely free. We've been pretty happy with them. They also host photos so you can add pictures to your blog. If what you want to do is record a work in progress, a blog is a good choice as it is chronological. Blogger does not contain ads unless you want it to.

We use Picassa for managing and uploading photos, also a free Google product.

You can also set up your own website, but I recommend that you start with a free blog to get your feet wet. Most people don't need more than that.

Bob · 19-05-2007, 01:38

Sailblogs is a great product for blogging - has some really good features for cruisers (photos, map tracking, post by email, etc.). It was developed specifically for sailors and the support is great. Well worth looking at.

SailBlogs | Sailing Blog Hosting

Strygaldwir · 19-05-2007, 07:17

Frontpage is relatively simple, supports most of the HTTP features you use in straightforward websites and is supported by a large number of vendors in the industry.

WWW.AFMU.COM offers free hosting, you have to register your website via them, I believe that's about $28 per year. They give you 100 megs of storage space, they have some restrictions on bandwidth per month. They support frontpage which makes website maintenance pretty easy. Pretty good.

There are a number of templates available out there, some free, some for a small charge. This is largely a matter of taste and site objectives.

Good luck.

StoutWench · 24-05-2007, 14:43

We have our web site with Yahoo, but it costs $$$$$ if you want multiple pages. Is it possible to transfer the data from our yahoo site to a cheaper site without having to reinvent the wheel?

Thanks