I'm trying to put together a little website and I need a web host, preferably under $15/month. Are there any good ones out there that you can recommend? I'm not sure how much bandwith I'll need. I'll have some trueSpace and Poser tutorials and some freebies on the site. I'd appreciate your advice. Thanks, Sue

Try ICDSoft at http://www.icdsoft.com/ For $5/month, it can't be beat by anyone, and you can upgrade your services by paying one time fees, which are also dirt cheap. I actually have 2 websites with these guys (the second one is cheaper). In each case, you get 333Mb of web space and 5G/month of bandwidth.

Attached Link: http://www.powweb.com

Check out this site - they're the best I've seen so far for the price & what you get for that price.

Here's a direct link to the webhosting package page - http://www.powweb.com/webhosting.html

Attached Link: http://www,godaddy.com

OH - and I forgot to say that if you haven't gotten a domain name yet, get it at www.godaddy.com - exceptional price *G*

Thank you both, I'm checking them out now. :) Lucy, I do have a name in mind but should I first get it at Go Daddy and transfer it or should I just get it at the web host when I sign up? (Maybe it's a silly question but I'm a beginner at this...) Thanks! Sue

Attached Link: http://www.warped.com/

heyas; i like warped, and their base price is $5 per month. not unlimited space or bandwidth, but a decent amount, and you only pay for what you use. there's also some way i get credits and stuff for referring people, but i can't remember how ;) i guess tell them bloodsong.warped.com sent you. sue: domain registrars and web hosts are two different things. sometimes a company does both, but not always. when you pick your host, see if they have domain registration, and if not, find a registrar to use.

Thank you, bloodsong. :) I'm glad I asked here, I've gotten some good leads. :)

Lucy_Fur, Poweb has the transfer limits I'm looking for. How is their customer support?

Sue, I'm with tera-byte.com ... $100 for a year, check out their 4U plan for the features, they host your domain name too. :) I got my domain name at godaddy too, then hosted it at tera-byte :)

April??? Does this 20G transfer take care of all your Poser freebies-- I know you have a lot. I'm trying to make the jump here, but don't want to get burned. Emily

queri, i do have all my freebies coming from my own site, BUT i don't have ALL my poser freebies listed in renderosity freestuff. only my renderosity store item related freebies. i think this makes a big difference! if i did link them i think i would chew through 20Gig a week, not a month. :/ i only used 3 gig last month. :) can you tell how much you are using right now? i don't like going with hosts that say "unlimited" bandwidth because as soon as too many people start using more than 50Gig a month they start putting the restrictions on OR you'll see that host die a horrible death. i've been through it before 8|

www.addr.com has a pretty cheap and competitive package. About $108/yr. 4g/mo bandwidth. Really fast response time.

I'm not using anything right now and I have plans for lots of freebies. Mostly backgrounds and haircolor. I had just about come around to deciding that rosity FS was the place to lose websites not enhance them. There are other places to put freebies. Emily

Thank you all for the great suggestions! :) Readyhosting sounds good, but I'm a little unsure about the unlimited bandwith. Sounds too good to be true... This is what they say about it on their site: "Unmetered Data Transfer means just that. We don't meter the amount of traffic you use. You won't get a suprise bill for additional bandwidth. This means that unless your site compromises the performance of the web server (which, by the way, probably won't happen), or the performance of our network - we don't care how much traffic you have. Your site should be successful. Keep in mind that we don't allow Adult, mp3 download, or software download sites." I don't know what "compromising the performance of the web server or the network" is in their eyes. I probably wouldn't have a huge bandwith usage, but I just don't know. Ratteler, did your friend have downloads on his site? Do you know how much was the biggest bandwith usage he had in a month?

markdc - I'm not sure how their customer service is - it's the company I'm going to switch my site over to. I'm not happy w/the amount of traffic my current host allows.

Sue - when you get a domain name thru the hosting company you choose it may not actually 'belong' to you, but to them. OR while they may offer the first year 'free', the subsequent years will cost you upwards of $15, $20 or more. GoDaddy has really excellent prices on their domain names & if you secure your domain name for 10 years - it averages out to $6.95 a year (not a bad run for $60.95, eh?). The most it would cost you (a year) is $8.95. Once you have a domain name at GoDaddy, you can use it at any hosting site you choose - you don't have to get a domain name thru the hosting site.

just peeked at readyhosting - they have a $50 setup fee for 'new' domains. Sounds kind of 'off' - 'free' domain name registration, but if you have a 'new' domain, it's a $50 setup fee.

also from readyhosting - "There are no setup fees on transferred domains. Signup a domain that is already registered and we'll waive the one-time $50 setup fee on that domain account."

'Transferred' and 'registered' are two different things. My domain name is 'registered' w/GoDaddy.com, but the DNS (Domain Name Server) points to my site at FatCow. I have not 'transferred' my domain name to FatCow. If I did, then my next billing for my domain name would come from FatCow. I hope that makes sense.......Because the way it seems to me - the wording that readyhosting used can confuse someone.

Attached Link: http://www.webhostingratings.com/

Thank you for your help, Lucy, I really appreciate it. I'm still checking out the hosts mentioned here. I found some web sites with reviews about the hosts and I'll be looking at more, but now it's past midnight and I need to get into bed. :) I'm attaching a link to a site with customer reviews in case anyone is interested.

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

Well, if you decide against readyhosting, there's dreamhost. I've got five domains with them and couldn't be happier. The packages start at $9.95 a month, which should be fine for the kind of site you've mentioned. I think we're up to 20GB/mo for bandwidth. I've got 3 art sites with them, 1 with freebies, and have yet to go over the bandwidth limit.

ReadyHosting sounds real good, but when one checks the ratings site posted by Sue88, their rating sucks kind of bad. On the other hand, ITD looks good (lots of votes) and Dreamhost looks good, too (but not many votes). I've put a lot in Favorites. Good information!

Thank you for the link, Sue - it has opened my eyes & also given me other places to look at for a potential site. :)

You're very welcome. :) Like Chuck said, the ratings and reviews are very good for ICD and DreamHost, but ICD's 5 GB bandwith limit sounds a little low. DreamHost sounds good, though, so I'll see if I can find more reviews about them. Thank you everyone for your help! :)

heyas; while you're looking at bandwidth, don't forget to look at the tos. if they have problems with "adult" stuff and/or nudity, they'll probably have problems of you having nude poser people on your site, even if they are just in thumbnails to model your hair. that's another reason i went with warped; they don't try to dictate your site content.

Yes, you're right, bloodsong. I don't plan to have nudes on my site, but I'd better read the TOS of the hosts anyway.

Just to jump in about dreamhost again, adult sites isn't a problem. Not to say don't read the TOS, but they've actually got a special for adult-type sites--the pay kind--so they don't have a problem with erotic. One of mine is an erotic site. Also, as far as customer service goes, they're fabulous. And the bandwidth is 30GB/mo. No, I don't work there. :) It's just so rare that I can be really positive about something like this.

It depends what you want to do with your site. Do you want to just serve freebies or do you want actual web pages? And if you want web pages, what kind- plain HTML (which every hosting company supports) or do you want "serving pages" such as ASP or PHP? Do you have a preference for server- Windows 2000/ NT, Apache, UNIX? And will you need a database- what kind? mySQL or SQL Server? What about e-mail accounts? How many do you need? Do you want to ability to check mail through your web browser? Do you want Front Page extensions? If so, go somewhere else. Just kidding... or maybe not. You may know how to do Front Page extensions, but if the server isn't set up correctly, some one else's faulty extensions could mess up the entire server... and bring your site down. What is your budget? Is $20.00 too much, even though the hosting company has a 99.99% uptime? Or is $4.95 a month the "perfect" price even though their reliability is not very good? (Remember, if Renderosity does another one of their "sweeps" and finds your stuff is not available at that time, it will be removed from the Free Stuff.) In my opinion, you should go with a monthly or quarterly plan. Yes, some hosting companies offer an annual plan, but what happens if you don't like the service after the second month? You're stuck for the rest of the year... sure, you can move some place else, but you may not get your money back. Anyway, here are two links to help you decide: Web Hosting Ratings Web Hosting Talk- do a search for a hosting company and see if people recommend them (or not) --John