I've become thoroughly fed up with the apparently limitless incompetence of my current web hosts, 1&1. My web site has about 90 html pages, 4 ASP pages, and gets about 30 visitors a day. What I need is a Microsoft host (for the ASP) that supports at least 2 web sites (different domains).

I'm currently paying about ?7 a month, but I guess I could go a bit higher for a company that's reliable and provides decent phone support.

Any suggestions?

Paul

These guys will treat you right...

Easily.co.uk

I use http://www.webfusion.co.uk/

WebFusion Entry ALL NEW!
Seriously Easy Web Hosting with a huge number of features at a low price.
600 MB of super fast UK hosted web space, 7GB Data Transfer (Bandwidth) per Month, 300 POP3 accounts Unlimited E-mail Addresses, Full CGI support, Graphical Statistics, Mailing Lists, Autoresponders, Free Microsoft FrontPage 2002 Extensions, Spam Filtering, Real Audio, Active Server Pages, MP3, and FTP ..... more.

Their support is great, always had a answer and the right answer back within 24hrs.

We moved ours to UK Web Solutions Direct after having a dreadful time with our previous hosts, and a year later are very happy with them:

UK Web Solutions Direct

For ?60 a year you get the Platinum service which includes 250Mb of space, 10Gb of bandwidth (plenty, even with a busy discussion board like ours), 40 mailboxes, unlimited forwarders, 8 MySQL databases, 16 sub-domains etc etc etc., although their prices start as low as ?20 a year ...

I use Easyspace for my websites. They have unlimited bandwidth and will handle all domain issues. Cost about ?80 per year plus VAT for 100mb webspace - they also have special arrangemets for registered charities.

You need a Windows host therefore I think I would consider easily.co.uk as mentioned by Mark or what about brinkster?

Brinkster

Easily

Both Very Good, I am an easily customer for most of my sites and they really are fantastic, if you ring them up with a problem they fix it however you may not be able to host 2 sites therefore brinkster maybe a better option.

What I'm looking for is a provider I can FTP to without having to dial into their servers as I've just got BT Broadband. I'm currently with FreeNetName (who are now, after about two years taking on new clients). It's just such a faff having to change modems/control panels/wiring just to dial in for a page update.
I would quite like .php access too as I'd like a forum like this for member/former member "chit-chat".
Any suggestions?

Moth, see my post above about UK Web Solutions Direct. Most of our site is PHP orientated, we have a fairly busy discussion board, and everything's done by FTP...

We go for the "top of the range" platinum package at ?60 per year but it starts from as little as ?20 I think.

Most web Hosting companies do online FTP allowing you to update without a special download phone number. It is usually the sites that have a monthly limit on uploads and actual hits that use a separate dial in.

I have seen some providers where unless you pay a fortune the site access is cut around week 3 of the month as the allowed monthly bandwidth has been used up.

I am a novice computer user, our Theatre has a curent website, the person who updates it for us, a member of our group, can no longer look after it, I have volenteered. (fool) Is it that difficult to post all our current calendar on the web, I have been told I have to learn "raw code" am I taking on too much, I am willing to learn a new skill at my vintage age, but just a bit panicked. Help please, answer in non computer speak
Lizz

Ditto!

Lizz,

Drop me a line at simon@adlingtonmusicSPAMFREEandarts.com show below and I will see if I can help! (remove SPAMFREE!)

I started about 3 years ago, not knowing a thing and I have slowly built things up to something I am a little more impressed with.

I should be able to give you some pointers!

I use easyspace. There is a simple ftp link to the site and no bandwidth considerations. I can download as many times as I want. Also there is a rebate scheme for registered charities.

My apologies for awakening this slumbering giant, but I have a problem and need your collective advise.

Our website is currently hosted for free by ?Portland Communications?. I say currently hosted but it?s been down for two weeks and after initial contact I just get a bog standard 'we are trying to fix the problem'.

I have resigned myself to having to move to a new host and to having to pay for the privilege.

I was just wondering if any of the recommendations made over a year ago still held true, or if there?s others out there that are reliable and affordable at the same time.

Our website is fairly small at the moment as it relatively new (year old) but would love to expand it. Any suggestions?

Hi John

We're still very happy with our hosts, UK Web Solutions Direct - we go for the most expensive option of ?70 a year but they do much cheaper solutions - they've been nothing but helpful and efficient.

www.ukwebsolutionsdirect.com

Just as well its free. Anyone who's trying to make a business out of it and leaves your site down for two week ain't going to last long.

Now then, what are you like as a customer? High or low maintenance? High or low technology? If you don't need much support and you just have html pages then try someone like Low Cost Names whose packages start at ?30 per year.
If your needs - particularly your support needs - are more complex, then look for a recommendation from someone who does more complex stuff and calls on the support (Helen or Simon)

I went with OpenHosting (www.openhosting.co.uk). They use Microsoft, which I needed for the ASP. Costs ?70 a year + VAT to host all 5 of my domains, but they have cheaper options. They've been very good - very little down time, and responsive via email. But what's unusual about them is that there's a very strong set of Forums, with knowledgable people on them, who can usually sort out queries very quickly.

If you're quite techie, I'd recommend them. There are probably better options for the less geeky.

Well I still go down the Wanadoo route. You dont have to upload to the bit that puts their banner at the top and it is free. I suppose if you have a hell of of pictures then you might find their capacity limiting, but I have no problems with the four sites I have with them.

Does anyone else have the problem that they have to reply in order to see the latest posts?? I think this must be one of the very old threads that got corrupted from ages ago ...

Today, logged in, it seems to be okay, but yesterday (not logged-in and therefore a guest), I couldn't see the second page of the thread. The forum told me the thread had two pages, within the thread it only appeared to have one page.
You are probably right about the cause - I think the symptoms were similar.

Phew!


thought it was the 'thought police' at work as I had logged in at work for the first time!

Thanks for the feed back and since you asked - well some of you asked. it's a pretty small site with next to no support needed at the moment (so I guess that puts me in the low maintenance, low technology bracket - might expand one day!)

Am I techie?
Bit techie not quite geeky no where near a nerd (apologies to all those out in geek and nerdland)

Thanks again, like the look of UK Web Solutions Direct, hopefully copthorneplayers.co.uk will be back on line soon!

Unix servers pah

At a guess I would say you were reseller for

Heart Internet Ltd services based in Telecity Manchester?

Yup.

And is there any other sort of server?

A reliable one.

regards,
/alan$VMS_is_still_the_one_true_operating_system

Unix manages to serve more than 50% of the world's sites quite reliably. That's a lot of pages.

VMS? I haven't heard that word since about 1987. Just looked up some sites for it. Didn't realise it was possible to get more nerdy than Linux people. Might have a look.

A

Not surprised - the world's textbook victim of stealth marketing. It retrenched into applications like stock exchanges, lottery systems, banks, nuclear power plant control, etc.

The stuff, I'm afraid to say, for which Unix implementations (back then) weren't reliable enough. I've still never seen another operating system with such a well-designed failover mechanism when one host failed - linux, Unix and Windows ones just ain't anything like as flexible, manageable or powerful.

But you're right, this is rather geeky!

regards,
/alan