Crap web hosting service

I have had our website at a certain webhosting provider for I guess a year or more. No problems until now. First off they sent an email saying that you had to re register or your account might be suspended. Then they said my credit card had been declined. I registered and now I find that they will no long automatically process credit card payments, instead you either have to pay every month manually or you buy credits and pay in advance.
A quick search tells me I can get the same deal at half the price.
Guess who is changing hosting companies as of now?

Fairly daft business practice! Perhaps they have had some really bad payers and figured they had to minimise their bad debts - fair enough - but shoot them for the appalling PR. An e-mail "threatening" account suspension if you don't... crazy. They deserve to lose plenty of business!

Thing is they debit the card every month, so if they did not get their money, the most they could lose in this case was about $11 - hardly a high risk.
Well impressed so far with new hosting company, an almost immediate response with the hosting details. I started up loading the webs site, and thought i had done something wrong with the first lot of files, as I blinked and they were up there - there servers must be really fast.

Looks like one hosting company is going downhill - are you willing to name and shame?

At least can you name the new, good one, so we can possibly follow your lead.

The one I have gone for is
webhostingnz
only $4 a month for 50MB which is more than adequate at the moment. I have just paid for 3 months at the moment to see how it goes, but their servers are definitely way faster than affordable hosting which was the previous company.

With the cottage being almost finished and the campsite looking like it will be approved (been told the planner is recommending it for approval) I really need to get on and get the site finished now I started on it ages ago and lost interest when things were not looking so rosey.
www.poranuibeach.co.nz

Moggy, How much knowledge does one have to have to set up a website.. I guess thats like asking how long a piece of string is.. do they help, are there multiple choice settings or does it require more than 5 clicks per action??

Do you mean write a website, or upload on?
For writing one - the answer is how long is a piece of string, as it depends on how complicated and large it is.
But if you have already written you website then you have two options either use a ftp tool, or used the web based admin panel that they give you access to.
If you have a ftp tool you just tell it where to chuck all the files, give it the correct password, click and it is done.
If you are using the web based panel it is slighly longer as you have to manually create each directory (no harder that creating a directory on you computer), then select the files individually and upload them.
In all to move the site took me about 10 minutes

Oh and then if you have a domain name, you have to tell the company that you registered with where to point it to, again there is a control panel and you just type in the number that the hosting company gave you. Takes about 5 mins to do, but a couple of hours for the domain to be moved over.

I've always used Kiwi Web Host and been happy with their smallest plan - $1 a week for 10MB. Was interested in your $4 a month plan for 50MB though because I'm really needing to upgrade to a bigger plan. KWH's next plan is $14.95 a month for 100MB which is probably bigger than I need...and more than I want to spend.

Looked up webhostingnz.co.nz/hosting.html and can't see a $4 plan. Their 50MB plan is $9.99 per month. Have I found the wrong website?

Bee Dee - creating a website is as easy or as complicated as you want it to be - I'd start with listing what you want the website to be able to do and then working out how to go about it. A website like Moggy's can be created with knowledge of basic HTML and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). HTML isn't hard to learn and there are plenty of websites that will teach you and probably books in your library. There is software you can buy called WYSIWIG editors (What You See Is What You Get) where you basically create your webpage in the same way you create a Word document, and the software creates the HTML for you. I always find it helpful to know HTML though in order to troubleshoot and fine tune things.

These days you can set up a site with a website like WordPress.com - this is one I've set up librarytraining.wordpress.com/ . It is completely free, there are templates you can use (also free) and you can do so much with it.

I use The Kiwi Web Hosting Company:

kiwiwebhost.co.nz/webhosting.htm

I have their $1 per week plan, which includes 10Mb storage, and I have added another 10Mb storage at $1/month. If I built it up to 50Mb it would be... $100/year (same as webhostingnz.co.nz). I also have a NZ domain name, which is price fixed at $39.95/year (US domains are cheaper I believe).

Building a web 'presence' is trivial, i.e. having a few simple informational webpages that people can read. Setting up an 'interactive' website is a bit more involved, but not too hard with the tools available today. Doing e-commerce requires some commitment, but again, the services are all there if you know what you want.

A

I am now using webs.com (formally freewebs) and its soooooo easy.
This is my new site ... adorabellabirmans.webs.com/
I am using their free hosting but you can buy a domain name for a small fee.

jdnz;263204 wrote:

Looked up webhostingnz.co.nz/hosting.html and can't see a $4 plan. Their 50MB plan is $9.99 per month. Have I found the wrong website?

different company - the one I am with is www.webhostingnz.com/

Bee Dee - creating a website is as easy or as complicated as you want it to be - I'd start with listing what you want the website to be able to do and then working out how to go about it. A website like Moggy's can be created with knowledge of basic HTML and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets).

To be honest that particular site was a template I downloaded and then modified, the edited using front page, so I didn't really have to bother with the html.
But at work the stuff I do is a lot more complicated involving a lot of 3 letter anacronyms (all IT geek speak does), with databases at the back etc
But I although my own website is simple in design I am quite happy with it. (other than needing more content). Websites do not have to be complicated. tbh the ones out there that try and be too clever are often the hardest sites to navigate.

Moggy thanks for your reply. but it didnt tell me anything other than yes I have no idea what you are trying to tell me..
I cant explain what I want in computer language. we want it to have informative pages and links, and a newsletter type.. the interaction section would be for donations and sales. this is going to be a nonprofit health support site. I want it to be totally separate to the forum group I have running
reading Tiggs headache just now, scares any of MM's bloomers I might have on my washing line right off.
shall go visit BBs site a bit later on

So you question is not really how to set up a web site more how do you write one.
In your case I would say start writing your content using word. Think what you want on each page an write a separate document for each page.
Then sit down with your printouts, if you have a white board stick them on that, start drawing arrows as to what you want to be able to access from wahc page eg if you have an introduction to health including saying you have information about what to do when getting a cold, you would want a link to the page which says how to treat a cold etc and on the cold page you would want a link to the contents page, etc

Next find a site which has web templates that you can download for free, find one you like and download it.
copy and paste (use paste special without formatting) your text into the template, usually you will need one page per page of word document. Then you will have to add the links to your other pages. Having a web page editor for this if you don't know html is crucial
Then you upload it all and test it.

It is not difficult, but you would have to learn more than you know now.As mentioned previously there is loads of stuff out there on the web that you can use, loads of freeware software that you could use to edit the pages and will help with uploading them. Also there are plenty of us here who can help you if you get stuck.

BeeDee....you will be able to do what you want with webs.com.
Just remember to choose a template where their advert runs across the top and not down the side then you will hardly notice it. They have heaps of templates & they can all be edited to suit whatever it is you are wanting .... I am happy to help as I have just done 2 websites for cat breeder friends using webs.com (its so easy)....