ISPs, domain registration, webhosting

[Steve MacLeod]

Most of us use an ISP to get to the WWW. The ISP's frequently provide some complementary webspace and some email accounts. That's where my website/email have been.

I'm looking into a faster ISP connection and have found that the complementary space (up to 50 meg w/ some of the Cable modem or DSL providers) continues to be more than enough for my needs.

What I'd also like to do is to change my website from www.iserv.net/~macleod (http://www.iserv.net/~macleod) to something more like www.kalamazoopipeband.com, (http://www.kalamazoopipeband.com,) but its not clear that I can register the "complementary webspace" with that name.

I seem to be falling into a crack between "home" and "business". It's also not clear that the people on the other end of the telephone have any technical understanding other than "what is your credit card number?".

I don't really want to pay for an additional webhost when I get that sufficient space as part of my ISP package. (BTW- I pay for the site myself - w/ no help from the band. That's why I'm being cheap!)

Any suggestions? What does your band do?

[Marc]

A friend of mine has his own server to host his own dotcom. Our website is hosted by him on his server. Lucky enough he'd like scotland and also the pipes, so we don't have to pay him for hosting. But we made him a patron of our band. Of course we pay our own for our top level domain registration. :smokin:

You don't have any computer geek in your band or members of computer clubs? May they have contacts to others geeks/pros who wants to gain some bucks per year. And also made the bandsite a business of the band with its own budget. It's easier and cleaner. I made it after a while of testing.

[Ian Nelson]

While I have not personally done this I know you can register your domain name and then simply forward the user to your site on your ISP space.

Try a site like register.com. They offer the free service of forwarding (it does place their add on your site) or for an annual fee the add is removed.

If you do decide to use register.com here is a little trick. Go through the registration process but on the last step close the window (make sure to disable any pop-up stopper) a pop-up add will appear (or they might email you) with an offer to knock the registration fee in half (19.95 a year).

Just a suggestion.

Ian

[Todd Oberlander]

Take a look at http://www.active-domain.com. (http://www.active-domain.com) I've registered several domains with them with no problems. The cost is $7.95/year. Todd

[Peter Van de Reep]

Dot TK is an interesting site (www.dot.tk (http://www.dot.tk))

It allows FREE domain registration, and all it does is forward the domain to any webspace. The only problem is that it was a little slow on the registration, but now everything works well!

Email me if you want more info, but DotTK will answer most of your questions.