Don't know if this is the right place to ask but here goes! I'm thinking of taking the plunge and having my own web site, seems the thing to do these days [lol]. I've heard of a company called "1and1" in the UK I think and they seem quite reasonable. Anyone using them or know of anything better? Thanx!

Attached Link: http://www.dreamhost.com/shared/

Try Dreamhost http://www.dreamhost.com/shared/

Been with them for years and they are absolutely wonderful!
Megabytes of webspace and bandwidth which they upgrade for their members each month for free. PS..I'm on the "Crazy Domain Insane" packet. ;)

Message edited on: 03/19/2006 10:02

I'm using 1and1 and they're very reasonable. Support during office hours is good, however evening/weekend support gets shunted to their call centre in Asia where I've generally found I know more than the person I speak to :- On the plus side, it's very rare I've had to call them because their uptime and online help is good. They're definitely the best of the hosts I've tried. Been with them for the last 4 years now. I definitely recommend hosting with a company in your own country because otherwise customer and tech support calls can cost a fortune, as I found out when I used to host with a US company :-

Hey karen, can you point me to your site so I can have a look? Thanx! Thanx also Ardiva, much appreciated!

I've got 2 with them Gwyn: Safe Haven Forgotten Worlds My husband's got some of his own as well but he's not an L33T web coder like me, LOL

Thanx karen, looks very impressive, you can recommend them without any worries then! Which package are you on if you don't mind me asking?

I've forgotten the name of the package I'm on, but it's the 8.99/month one. That gives me mySQL, which I need for the server side stuff on Safe Haven, and enough bandwidth so that I can run my freebies from here on it and not worry.

Attached Link: http://www.1and1.com/?k_id=8908008

I use 1&1. It's great. And their 24/7 live telephone support is excellent. I get 10,000 mega bytes of storage. 500 giga bytes of monthly bandwidth POP3 emails FTP accounts plus much more for $5.99 per month. If you sign up using the above link I get credit towards my own hosting costs.

"..call centre in Asia.." What's with these Asian call centres? Both my bank and my ISP use these, and getting them to even understand problems, let alone coherently answer them, is like trying to eat soup with a knife and fork. I had problems setting up broadband with a home network and got more useful info in ten minutes via Google than I ever got from the ISP's "helpline". Ditto with bank problems :(

Because the average wage in Asia is about a fifth of that in the UK. Building regulations are not as restrictive and employees don't enjoy the same legal rights that we do. So it's incredibly cheap for companies to site their telephone support outside the UK. Unfortunately the staff turnover rate for call centres is incredibly high. The average burnout is about 6 months, although obviously this depends on the company; the better paid and treated the employees, the less burnout cases. So what tends to happen with call centres is that they will staff initially with polite and knowledgable staff who tend to be graduate-level. Thus, initially it looks like a sure win situation since the operation is both cheap and efficient. But the high burnout rate means that often within a year, the staff has been replaced en masse (sometimes several times over) and the higher-calibre applicants have run out. (This also happens in the UK but tends to take somewhat longer and isn't always as noticeable since at least there isn't a problem finding English speakers.) Another major problem for call centres abroad is that the UK has such a huge range of local accents. If you've got BBC English or a rough approximation, it's easier to be understood than Geordie. I try to steer clear of businesses which use call centres abroad, primarily because I want to protect my own career in the UK call centre market, but also because it can be very frustrating dealing with them.

Attached Link: http://pixelsbyjudy.com/

I've been with Node[1]Web for about a year now and the support is incredible. Price is great as far as I am concerned. They have been terrific. http://www.node1web.com/index.html