Well, I've decided to buy my third domain and now I'm looking for a host. This one will be different because it's going to be my webdesign business (but I might want to host a few friends as well), so major downtime is out of the question. Feel free to put your input about the hosts I've listed as well as recommend your own.

I'm looking for

- Unix host
- 99.5% uptime
- 100+ MB
- 4+ GB bandwidth/month
- control panel
- php/mySQL
- cgi-bin
- unlimited email alias, forward, and POP3 accounts (although 10 or so is fine)
- subdomains (5 or more)
- additional ftp accounts (5 or more)
- costing about $8-12/month ($9.95/month ideal)
- 15-30 day money back guarantee
- must take Visa check (debit) cards, because I don't have a cc (got rejected :blush: )

Hosts I'm considering
1. Aletia Hosting (http://www.aletiahosting.com)
2. Tera Bye (http://www.tera-byte.com)
3. Palmversa (http://www.palmversa.com) (current customer)
4. Prime Net Hosting (http://www.primenethosting.com)

I've only found one thread here about Prime Net Hosting. Do not recommend Hostrocket to me, please. I am a current customer, and I've grown displeased with their service as of late, in particular the 1-2 minute outages I encounter everyday.

Some people recommended Interscot (http://www.interscot.net/) to me but I'm skeptical.

Visa check (debit) cards? ThatHostingCompany (http://www.thathostingcompany.com/) use Verza billing system, and they accept debit cards, you might want want to try a link from lockergnome.com's special offer in case you decide to host with them.

Does a merchant really have to do anything different between a debit or credit card if its a Visa or Mastercard?

I've often used my debit card online and in the 'real world' at places which ask for a 'credit card'. I always assumed that they don't know the difference. A Visa is a Visa to them and what happens at the back end of the transaction is not their concern. Is that not the case?

:agree:
I say Tera-byte! Good support, decent uptime, 20 G of bandwidth.

I think paypal and all those places take Visa/MasterCard Debit, so I would assume that any place that takes credit card, also takes debit. Although, I have heard that the transaction fees for a debit card are higher than a regular visa/mastercard credit card.

So you may want to ask a host before you actually decide to sign up.

Jim

I've asked my bank about this and basically they said that if I use the ATM or anything else that takes credit cards to mark "credit" and not "debit", otherwise I'll be charged about thirty cents per transaction. I've also asked about things like double-billing with debit cards and they seemed to not be knowledgeable about stuff like that, or probably not familiar with hosting...just told me not to stick my PIN with my debit card. :rolleyes:

I'll recommend F5hosting.com... they have decent packages/prices and from what I've seen, their customer service is great. Personally, I'd avoid Aletiahosting.com - they gave my wife quite the run-around over e-mail probs.

Good luck

I would take a look at hostingmatters.com, great service!