Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/

[David Matusiak <dave AT matusiak.org>]

Sarah,

I have been with DreamHost since January 2005 and despite what you  
might read online, they have been excellent.  In fact, their customer  
service lately has been *outstanding*.  They offer a helluva lot for  
the price and their administrator panel is the best I've seen in this  
industry (that doesn't mean it is perfect).  If you go with DreamHost,  
do me a favor and use my referral link:

http://www.dreamhost.com/r.cgi?76712

[You can also sign up and give them my registered email, which is myLastName AT ibiblio.org 
] <-- Don't miss that substitution/obfuscation!  LOL

Now, while I stand by DreamHost, some folks have had major problems.   
I often find these problems stem from two sources:

1. They don't have a clue what they are doing (or even asking for) and  
continue to make configuration changes that would negatively affect  
services.  This is not DreamHost's fault.

2. They want everything completely customized for their needs and  
really should have purchased a Virtual Private Server (VPS) instead of  
shared hosting.  Again, I see this as a caveat emptor and not as the  
fault of DreamHost.

I find the easy domain hosting, email account set ups, and the  
fabulous One-Click Installs to be well worth the ~$10/month.  If we're  
talking storage/bandwidth/subdomains/accounts/etc then I have been  
granted unlimited resources in that department.  When I need things  
fixed or I need help, I ask nicely and they have solved every problem  
promptly.  I've got nothing but praise for the DreamHost support staff  
and tell them all this regularly.

Have there been outages?  Have there been issues?  Has anything ever  
gone wrong ever?  Of course, but find me a host that cannot claim  
similar.  Nothing is perfect and those people asking for that are  
insane (and have probably never worked in a data center).

Stan mentioned Google Hosted Solutions and I think that is a great  
idea.  In fact, I set up a new domain at DreamHost this week and they  
now offer a feature (directly in their control panel) which allows you  
to set up Google Hosted Solutions easily and brainlessly via them.   
Basically, DreamHost will point your domain and host DNS, but you can  
have a mix of services live on Google.  You can have it all on Google  
(email, calendar, docs, etc) or just host your email with Google.  I  
think this integration is fantastic and it made me love DreamHost even  
more.  Sure, I could have gone and done all this via Google Apps, but  
I'm sure I would have had to read half the internet before getting it  
to work.  In this case, it took less than an hour.  I was amazed.

My new fascination in the web hosting world is Squarespace.com.  This  
is basically the dummy tool I've been waiting for my entire life.  I'm  
never going to learn CSS and all that web design BS, so I want an  
online WYSIWYG editor that can read my frickin' mind.  Squarespace is  
probably a year away from achieving this goal (the reading my mind  
part), but for what tools they've employed currently, it is one  
incredible package.  Lots of good templates -- all customizable.   
Lovely photo galleries with LightBox built in.  More features than I  
can list/describe.  In short, I'm madly in love with Squarespace and  
plan on having it's baby.

http://www.squarespace.com/

What is the downside to Squarespace?  They don't host email.  You'll  
have to do that somewheres else (DreamHost?  Google?  Many  
possibilities).  They will give you a nice contact form, and have  
those responses sent to an email address.  This is the path I chose as  
I figured it was simpler and quicker than customizing DNS/MX records.   
I don't want to give the impression that I can't figure this stuff  
out.  Instead, I'd rather spend my eyesight/creative juices/time on  
producing work and valuable content instead of configuring software.

Squarespace.  Take the tour.  Drink the Kool-Aid.  LOOK INTO THE FUTURE!

I hope this information helps.  Please feel free to ask me other  
questions as this is a topic of great interest to me and I am  
constantly speaking to folks about their hosting solutions and level  
of satisfaction with them.  These are the best I have found and I'm  
always willing to explore another option.  If you can find a better,  
more extensible solution at a cheaper cost, then my name ain't Nathan  
Arizona!

Best,
David Matusiak

 . . . . . . . . .
http://matusiak.org
 . . . . . . . . .


On Feb 20, 2009, at 10:55 AM, Sarah Kahn wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> Can anyone recommend a good web hosting service for a small  
> business? I've been mooching off of ibiblio forever (love you guys!)  
> so I don't have a relationship with any particular host at the moment.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Sarah