another website hosting question

[hazineju]

hey forum friends! after many years with a certain website host that starts with a "b" i'm so d-o-n-e with it. one thing that bugs is that i can't put html on most of the pages, but worst of all the email program is very unpredictable. i've had many instances where my outgoing emails got bounced back for no reason, and where people have tried to contact me and got their emails bounced back. this is the case without my mail box being full. i contacted customer support and they were friendly, but unhelpful. i know some of you like that particular host which is fine with me, but for me personally i'm ready to try something new for my artist website. i've looked into some possibilities and would like to know your opinions on any you're familiar with or any you like that i haven't listed below. i would prefer a templated hosting site for ease of use purposes, other than that i'm quite open. here are some options i'm considering: hostbabybandvistabandzooglefeel free to post your websites here as a reference for me to check out! -juliet

[hummingbird]

Juliet, I left 'b' for similar reasons. I switched to Hostbaby and I was extremely impressed with their customer service. I needed help to switch my domain and maintain my email addresses, etc., and they were very helpful and my entire site was down for less than an hour. And on a Sunday. Since then, anytime I've had an issue I've heard back from them within an hour or two. I host two sites with them.www.vikkiflawith.com

[jazzstan]

Hi,I just set up www.jazzstan.com with hostbaby. Much (but not all) of it was pretty user-friendly but the cookie-cutter does box you into some things. However, the do offer a free hour of 'customizing.' And it will let you customize some, for example I was able to write in some <ahref ... code on to my home page for the jumps directly to the music pages. I'd need to maintain the code if I change the music-sub pages but since I speak a little HMTL it's not a big problem. Overall, I pretty happy with the result.

[hazineju]

Ok, so so far there are two votes for hostbaby. Thank you very much hummingbird and jazzstan for sharing your sites with me and the tips you have offered. Both sites look great and like they have all the necessary features.Does anyone use either of the other two?

[michael11]

I use Hostbaby (www.tunesareme.com) on recommendation from Miss Bird and their customer service is great!!I also use the other one (B) (www.mickgaughan.com)and they are OK.I must admit I don't exploit either site to anywhere near it's potential.

[llama]

Hey Juliet,I use bluehost. They cost $6.50 per month to host my site and so far so good no problems. Great customer service too. I think you've already seen my site. If not it's at www.derekjasnoch.comDerekJust saw in your post about you want a template site. Bluehost is not that but you can easily make your site with something like Web Easy that has templates and host it on Bluehost. But that's just my $0.02....

[didger]

I have some prior web experience but am no expert, and recently whipped up my new site in a weekend using a free template from http://www.oswd.org/ and a few other bits like the flash mp3 and mp4 players I found easily with a google search.And maybe I should be buying American these days, but I used my existing Swiss host I had my older site on, http://www.hoststar.ch. Hoststar is about $4.50 per month, and I doubt any indie composer or songwriter could out use what they provide. 10GB storage, unlimited traffic (up and down), unlimited email addresses, webmail up to 5 domains - I've got 3 different websites all for that $4.50. It's ridiculous what you get for your money in Europe versus here.The only catch? The sign up is only in German. But customer support and the control panel once you're signed up can be in English. I also have a full set of translated instructions for sign up they sent me if anybody wants it.And of course, I'm not affiliated with them at all. I was just referred to them while I was working in Australia, where hosting is way more expensive than the USA already. There I had to spend like $100 a month for that level of service.If you're a total newbie to websites, Hostbaby and the like would be the best solution, but if you have a little bit of savvy, those free templates (and they have better ones for a small price) and hoststar is my recommendation.

[ragani]

I've used hostbaby for the past six years. They've been great to work with. They cost a little more than godaddy or some of the other mainstream sites, but they also offer some cool tools for musicians (calendars, newsletter sends, news pages, etc.). I contacted hostbaby folks several years ago (with my website already in place), as I was trying to find a way to get a program on my website to run a poll for our live events. At the time, I was new to Dreamweaver and couldn't figure out how to do it, and they (bless them!) wrote the steps out for me and got it in place for me to use (even though it wasn't one of their programs). I also contacted them many years ago because I received too many spam posts on my guestbook (we're nice and high in the search engines for "kirtan" and "ragani", so we get lots of trash). The very nice folks at Hostbaby again went to work and made it a personally moderated guestbook, so now I approve all the posts before they go live.Hostbaby folks have been the best to work with for me. I give them Five Stars!! Raags

[hazineju]

Great, thanks everyone for the feedback!!Michael11 - i like your tunesareme bio, very concise and to the point: tunesareme Der Llama - i actually hadn't been to your website (how did that happen?), and was very impressed with it, especially knowing you built it yourself. gorgeous pic of you and the sandias!didger - i can't believe you're only paying $4.50 monthly for that site - looks great! i think i may just brush up on my deutsch and spend some time getting to know hoststar, although i will probably stick with the beginner's slope, for now, and go with an all-inclusive templated host.Raags - thanks for sharing your experience with hostbaby. sounds like their customer service is top notch. i have been to your site before, and thought you had it custom made!

[ragani]

Hi Juliet,Indeed, my website IS custom made-- by ME! Back in 2003 I didn't know much about software or computers, but I bought Dreamweaver and did a trade with a band member to teach me how to use it. She showed me how to put up a page, and the rest is history. A few hundred pages later, it is what you now see as the "raganiworld" website. And it keep growing. One day (in my copious free time, lol!) I'll just might start another one and make it more streamlined. But for now, it's a kind of resource for kirtan fans who visit.That being said, Hostbaby does have a lot of great templates, and if I didn't have Dreamweaver, that's what I'd be using. They're a great company to work with!Best wishes to you on hosting decisions!Raags