High everyone, I'm new here and I'm in need of some assistance.
Somebody told me this is the place to find it.
It has been my experience that being new and asking dumb questions gets some folks irritated, I hope these boards aren't like that :)

I have a website www.texasboars.com and I'm having all kinds of troubles with web hosting and I am at ropes end with this stuff.
If it's not problems with staying online it's problems with billing or using up too much space or transfer.

At present my website takes up about 40 MB and has a transfer rate of about 6 GB a month. And its growing quickly. I have had 4 webhosts and without going into detail the 1rst three were downright disasters. The problems ranged from being off-line for 2 - 3 days a month to being being billed 2 - 3 times for the same quarterly service.
WHAT'S UP with all this :confused:
All I want is a webhost who can keep me on-line at an affordable price. I didn't realize that was asking a lot :confused:
Yep,, I don't know much about web hosting, accept how bad it can be :bawling:
Moving my website is a real pain,, It's become very clear that I'll have to do that for the 3rd time in about a years time.
SO< with y'alls' help maybe I can get it right this time.
I need about 50 - 75 MB of space and I am currently running about 6 gb in transfer. My website is mostly informational with very little advertising. I do sell some products to support the site. In other words I can NOT spend 50.00 - 100.00 a month for web hosting. There are many hosts who advertise 15 - 20.00 a month for 50 - 75 MB with no other limitations. Just would like to have a recommendation of who is dependable and can keep my web site on-line :) Is it possible??
For those with 1rst hand knowledge -- WHO CAN DO IT? Where do I find them?
Thanks for your help in advance :)

Kevin Ryer

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Welcome Texas. Your best bet is to post a request stating what features/price etc. you're looking for, make sure to post it over in the advertising forums. There are a ton of quality hosts around here, my best advice is after you've selected one...search the forum for info on them.

G'luck

I haven't been around here long enough to be able to give you a good recommendation on a host, but with regards to the 6 GB of bandwidth you use every month, I might suggest that you try optimizing the images on your site first. Your home page is a whopping 450 KB in images alone! :eek:
And your other pages are quite large as well.

I would dare say that working on your image files sizes will significantly reduce your bandwidth requirements, allowing you many more options in the $20 - $30 per month range.

Try

http://www.spinwave.com/crunchers.html for jpg images. I don't have a link handy for gifs.

Good luck.

Damn, good point, I never notice that stuff (OC-3 campuswide, we sliced off 30% for dedicated access for the academic/admin side ;))

That "dead deer image" (for lack of a better explanation) in the middle of the page could easily be cut to 10% or 20% of the current 115K size without even noticing it.

I glad to know I'm not the only one who has had to move their site 3-4 times in one year.

I searched EVERYWEHRE for an affordable host that could handle the size of my site (300mb Data, 30gig Xfer). And heres what I found:

If the site DOES NOT contain any adult content. Gearhost.com is an excellant choice. I had my big site with them briefly, but unfortunately had to move due to the adult content. However, I currently have another site with them and plan to add a couple more.

If your site DOES contain adult content (assuming everything on it is legal in the USA) then Weinbar.com is your answer. Affordable rates and they both have user friendly control panels.

Hope this helps.

DFJ

if you need some optimzing tools for your gifs or jpgs just drop me a pm!

Originally posted by vito
I haven't been around here long enough to be able to give you a good recommendation on a host, but with regards to the 6 GB of bandwidth you use every month, I might suggest that you try optimizing the images on your site first. Your home page is a whopping 450 KB in images alone! :eek:
And your other pages are quite large as well.

I would dare say that working on your image files sizes will significantly reduce your bandwidth requirements, allowing you many more options in the $20 - $30 per month range.

Try

http://www.spinwave.com/crunchers.html for jpg images. I don't have a link handy for gifs.

Good luck.


Way to big!
Do what the above says and then make each page smaller.
Your index page should always load quick or people will leave.

Originally posted by MDJ2000
That "dead deer image" (for lack of a better explanation) in the middle of the page could easily be cut to 10% or 20% of the current 115K size without even noticing it.

I took that picture and resized it down to the size the web shows, and cut it to 60% quality. You can't tell the difference, and the size was 45k. A tremendous savings on one picture, well over 60k per download, just from one of the pictures.

As far as hosts, be carefull with who you pick, but someone on the site should be able to give you a good quote for a reliable service.