On Fri, 19 Dec 2003 15:14:05 GMT,
(dragonfly) wrote:
Need advice and/or recommendations on web-site/domain name hosting. My spouse is interested in MSN’s bCentral starter package. From site info the support is for Front Page/Publisher. I’m pretty much an Adobe/Macromedia user – graphics, layout – so I would be using either GoLive or Dreamweaver when I begin to do a website if I were to think about starting/doing a website for my future needs i.e. small business maybe.
WOuld appreciate comments good/bad experiences with MSN website hosting plans, recommendations/tips to look for/be aware of, webhosting sites that would more suitable for me to look into.
Thank you.
Theo
Yeah, OT, but thanks for indicating that in your subject. If you want the scoop on a given host, try searching at google, click the groups tab, and use terms such as: msn hosting problem. Look into the alt.www.webmaster newsgroup for years of similar Qs and As. You can read past articles at google groups.
The same goes for domain names. Many pros will recommend that you use a separate name registrar from your site host, so you can move from host to host as needed, with fewer complications, as hosts can come and go, or service may degrade.
Don’t rely on your host for site building help. Many hosts offer "FP extensions support", which I guess are scripts and shopping carts, etc. specifically for use with FP. That means you can use FP exts. on their servers, not that they will necessarily be of help in inplementing them.
I think you are on the right track with using DW or GL. I recommend DW, because of the huge user/support community, including
news://forums.macromedia.com/macromedia.dreamweaver You don’t need to be a DW user to use that excellent resource. But the choice between two pro tools is mainly subjective, and you will need to learn html from the ground up to make anything beyond fairly basic stuff. So avoid over-relience on WYSIWYG.
see also:
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.site-design
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets
alt.html
alt.html.critique (take with grain of salt here, but at least you will learn the hot issues, and helpful folks for the most part)
http://www.sitepointforums.com/ –a good starting point