personal Web site

[jbthehut]

Not sure where to ask this question so I will start here. I want to start a web site to cronicle our adventure, and give people a place to go to find out about us. I know a lot of cruisers do this. What service do people use to set there site on/ Don't want to spend to much on it (free would be best)... any advise?

[SilentOption]

I looked at Yahoo and they offer free sites through Geocities but the storage space is very limited. 15MB

If you post photos, even low res files you will use up the 15MB in no time.

Yahoos pay site costs about $12 a month and affords unlimited storage space.

I'm sure you could find some other similar situations. I just looked at Yahoo initially when I was looking for a host. I ultimately went with IX Webhosting for other reasons.
I really like the web idea it has been a great way to not only document travels but to also share photos with friends and family. I travel alot for work and often put up photos or messages on a private page just for family.

If you make changes to your boat, specifically making upgrades and document that on your site it can be a great resource for others who own the same hull.

[jackdale]

Your Internet Service Provider may provide web space. Mine allows 100MB.

Jack

[maxingout]

I have nine websites, and all of them are hosted by Hostway.com. I use Frontpage 2002 because it is user friendly. Hostway is affordable, but it's not free.

If you are just getting started, I would recommend that you go to wordpress.com for a free blog using one of their beautiful templates. You will be able to post pictures, links, and even videos. Don't be put off by the idea of a "blog". It's still a website, and you can put anything you want on it.

Go to the following link and you can get started:
The Features You’ll Love « WordPress.com

[AnchorageGuy]

Lots of cruisers use Blogspot and really like it. You can post to your site via email if that is your only access at times. Click on either of the links on my signature line and have a look. Very easy to set up. Any dummy like me can do it

[Lostmt]

The best design program that I have found is webstudio.com and hosting at mtwebhosting.com If a host provider offers cpanel you will have access to free blogs along with a ton of other items in Fantastico.

[daniel]

I would recommend TripSailor.com - it offers a blog like tripjournal, photoalbum, map tracking, mobile updates, guestbook, ... - all for free.

Just have a look, here are a two blogs hosted by tripsailor I followed recently:
Connecticut to Texas or US/Canada East Coast 2008

[MikeZ]

My whole business has been entirely online for ten years, and the ONLY way to go now is a blog.

You don't have to learn any design stuff or uploading or anything. It is VERY cool. You can even post new information/articles/updates to your blog site via email. You can add photos, video, audio, whatever you like with "plug-ins."

It's all point-and-click. Easy to learn. And the sites can look really good, too. You just use a template. There are LOADS of them to choose from. (Buy a professional one -- they're cheap -- or use one of the standard ones provided by WordPress itself; there are lots of free ones you can download but some have "dirty code" and don't always work right.)

Speaking of Wordpress, it IS the best. Incredibly powerful. And free.

You can learn all about it right here:

WordPress › Blog Tool and Publishing Platform

Have fun with it!

Mike

[jbthehut]

Thank you all for the information, this should give me a good start.

JB

[jbthehut]

Maxingout

Have you had any problems with waves slapping the underside between the 2 hulls? I have read that unless you get a very high end boat with lots of free board that even in moderate sea's the slapping will drive you nuts. Any validity to that?

JB

[nautical62]

As mentioned above, getting a free blog space may be well suited to your needs.

My experience has been with both the free and paid geocities and now I pay a very reasonable fee for yahoo small business.

As someone who is not incredibly computer savy, I really like that both offer easy to use features that go beyond the basic template driven systems. Geocities does this online. The yahoo small business option means you have to download some software (you can do template stuff online) Having it on your own machine is faster and means you can do design work when not online, but also means you can't make a simple update from any computer. That might be an issue if using internet cafes is your internet access when cruising.

I have found Geocities can get frustratingly slow (to update) which is one of the main reasons I switched to yahoo small business. Yahoo small business also offers phone support and way lots of space, as well as your own domain name.

If you wish to share a lot of images cheaply, consider a photo sharing site. Flickr offers some fairly easy to use services for free and their pro account is only something like $15/year. For more professional services, I've been very happy with smugmug.

[witzgall]

SailBlogs | Sailing Blog Hosting & Social Network is another option.

Chris

[normd]

I'm using the free TripSailor sailing blog site for my blog. It's basically the same like sailblogs, but it has all the great features for free with a cleaner interface.

[Maren]

Originally Posted by MikeZ

My whole business has been entirely online for ten years, and the ONLY way to go now is a blog.

I agree. If you look at pretty much any of the sites of the more savvy technophiles out there, you'll see this is true and has been true for some time now. Some are even done as a domain with is composed exclusively or mostly of blogs. See Nomadness.com and Panbo.com for a couple of excellent examples.