I have a Homestead site. Since they are taking away the ability to use their sitebuilder unless you sign up for a pay site, I want to move on.

BTW, a few thousand others want to move on too. Someone should put together a Homestead refugee package.

Anyway, I'm going around in circles here. First I went searching for a free site. Then I could see that was not going to be reliable, so I started searching for a low cost site. I settled on Catalog.com. Well I am also trying to help the webmaster of a website devoted to a rare disease that my daughter has. I wanted to get a site at Catalog & use whatever space I need, & then let her use the rest as extra pages to her website. So I asked her for an opinion on Catalog, & this is her answer.


"I would be leery of new companies. Before you joined I had sent money to a new hosting company. That company proceeded to go out of business and keep
my money. My first lesson in web hosting. So I learned to stick with the really big well known companies. These little ones are here today gone tomorrow. Of course if you plan on creating your own website I would be leery of the newer companies. The internet eats them alive. Always best to stick with the big companies. "

So now I've got to start all over, getting dizzy as there are so many host companies out there.

OK, my question is this, are there any well known big companies that have low cost plans? I really want to spend less than $15.00 a month, and I started out with the idea of totally free. I need a company name that she will recognize. I want really low cost.

I changed my Homestead site to a redirect page & pointed to Yahoo, but they are going to start charging soon too, so thats a temp solution.

Originally posted by Kaethy
"I would be leery of new companies. Before you joined I had sent money to a new hosting company. That company proceeded to go out of business and keep my money. My first lesson in web hosting. So I learned to stick with the really big well known companies. These little ones are here today gone tomorrow. Of course if you plan on creating your own website I would be leery of the newer companies. The internet eats them alive. Always best to stick with the big companies. " ...

... OK, my question is this, are there any well known big companies that have low cost plans? I really want to spend less than $15.00 a month, and I started out with the idea of totally free. I need a company name that she will recognize. I want really low cost.
Agreed, there are some hosting companies out there that will pop up, swipe money, promise the world, and then be gone the next week and pop up as a different name again.

But there are new companies who invest a good deal of money, as well. And if everyone thought like she did, new companies would never get off the ground -- or would have a hard time doing so.

If you post your needs, the web hosts that frequent this board can give you some quotes and you can choose from those if you'd like. We quote on space and data transfer (bandwidth) needs mainly. Give us as much information on your specific needs as you can and you'll get better responses.

Good luck in your search!

***** and communitech are 2 examples that.. bigger it does not mean better.

Kaethy,

I just e-mailed you so I hope you recieve our offer. In short, considering the content of the site linked from your post we'd be happy to donote the hosting you need to get your site up and running.

Best Regards,
Greg Moore

The size of a company has NOTHING to do with their ability to stay in business. More often than not, you will get better customer service from a smaller company.

The main thing you need to find out is how long has the company been in business? If they've been in business for less than a year - then their track record isn't really proven yet.

--Tina

Originally posted by akashik
Kaethy,

I just e-mailed you so I hope you recieve our offer. In short, considering the content of the site linked from your post we'd be happy to donote the hosting you need to get your site up and running.

Best Regards,
Greg Moore

your doing a good thing for her and , because of visiting her site Im going to look into the disorder as something that could be effecting one of my kids, please do let up know when your site is moved Id like to link to it :)

Lacey,

Thanks. I have a 2 year old that's thankfully suffered little more than a few bumps and scratches, the odd flu and an earache. I can't even begin to imagine what it must be like to look after a child suffering a profound illness, and to be honest I hope I never do.

Every now and then I do come across a site I think may be of real worth to a selection of people, and if I can help, then why not. It won't send me to the wall to host it, and sites like these can make a real difference to some people.

Whether Kaethy takes us up on the offer is up to her of course :)

Greg Moore

sign up with either affordable host, sipernet or f5hosting those are 3 of the many reputable companies on these boards.

Originally posted by Kaethy
I have a Homestead site. Since they are taking away the ability to use their sitebuilder unless you sign up for a pay site, I want to move on.

BTW, a few thousand others want to move on too. Someone should put together a Homestead refugee package.

Let me get this cleared. Is Sitebuilder a Homestead web-based application for creating web pages? If you have used it, don't worry; I used to use GeoCities Pagebuilder when I had my first website.

"Since they are taking away the ability to use their sitebuilder"

Now you should have realized the limits to using a web-based application like Sitebuilder. You shouldn't rely on Sitebuilder to make your webpages. You have to move on, or else. I slowly progressed from Pagebuilder to Publisher 98, then to Frontpage 2000, then to Dreamweaver.

The difference? You can edit your webpages at anytime without worrying about hefty connection charges. When you're done editing them, upload them to your Homestead account, and you're done.

Homestead, IMO, is a pretty good free web host. You should stay with them. The only thing left is to backup your website there.

My $0.02.

OOPS, double post, sorry.

:bawling: :bawling: :bawling:

Homestead is charging $29.99 a month for their new "professional" websites. :laugh:
Then they emailed everyone & told us they are going to charge about $10.00 a month for a "personal" site. If you just want free, all you can keep is 3 pages & a total of less than 8MB, & no using the offline sitebuilder (which was MUCH faster to work with).:mad:

It seems a bad move on their part. Thousands of sites will be deleted because almost everyone has more than 8Mb & more than 3 pages.

Also has anyone else ever given out software & then sometime later told people they can't use it anymore unless they start paying?:dunce:

Well OK, I shouldn't have relied on their free proprietary software, but I am new at all this, just made essentially a personal page in Jan 2000 for the first time.
I just bought Dreamweaver3 at Ebay for $60.00 so I am moving on. Now I'm just trying to figure out where I'm going. I am not staying at Homestead, won't be able to stay within 8MB & 3 pages. Their new personal plan does not appeal to me at all, it is a lousy deal. They did not research their competition before they came up with their new plan.

I believe they have cut their own throats & will die now. They are telling people sites will be deleted if the people don't pay up. They apparently never heard of grandfathering the old members in.
I was serious when I suggested someone needs to come up with a Homestead refugee offer. I just am not waiting for it to happen myself. Go to their message boards, you won't believe it. The members are discussing how to copy their sites & upload elsewhere, & they are discussing cheap hosts to go to. Homestead is pushing people out their door. :wavey: They have a huge base of clients that they are pissing off when they could have maintained good will by doing this differrently. Many have left already, & would not come back even if Homestead come up with a better plan.