I just obtained a domain name from register.com with the new "us" suffix and wanted to set up a web site that would only be used for posting family photos and news(we have a large family). I have no experience with or interest in learning how to set up a web page and would like to sign up with a reasonably priced host who provides an interface that is very easy to use for designing a simple web site. I found "Homestead.com" and they look good, but then I found this forum and thought I could get some good suggestions.
So, what recommendations would you have for someone with my set of requirements.
Thanks in advance for any help offered,
John Castagna

Actually buying a hosting account may not be the way to go. I know there are many services out there for free which allow you to post your family photos with a very easy interface and customizable pages.

Then if you wanted it to be accessible by your own domain name and get it redirected. (If you even want to use it)

Take a look at : http://familyinternet.about.com/cs/postingpictures/

Its actually a page about what companies support posting pictures. Some at a price and others for free.

Of course another option for you is to buy a low end hosting account, and use FrontPage to make the website. Although it wont have that professional look, its simply for family photos as you said and doesn't have to look too pretty :)

MSN has a photo place, with a a few goodies, for that type of thing.

If you want your own web site tho post this over in web hosting request, you can get some offers from hosting companys and see whats out there.


Monte

homestead is not a good bet....service is poor, and sites load slower than one would expect

When I had last used GeoCities three or four years ago, they were acceptable. I believe that they still are from pages that load from their servers. You can get a free account, or pay a fee for about $5 per month for a small account. It might be worth it, it's probably 'okay' and I believe has several tools to help less advanced users.

geocities is ok free wise, if you dont expect to have many people visiting (the data transfer limits are very low)
however if you are willing to pay for geocities, you would be better off to go with a budget host, simply because geo has poor service and you dont get much for what you pay for anyway

edit: geo does have good uptime though ;)

Well, you can try one of these:

www.microworld.com
- one-time fee of $30 for life-time domain hosting w/out ads
- fast and reliable
- does NOT support PHP/mySQL

www.portland.co.uk
- free domain hosting
- can be slow sometimes
- ftp is often unavailable due to max users

www.surfsites.net
- free hosting w/out ads
- seems fast and fairly reliable
- URL is www.surfsites.net/mysite (just use URL forwarding on
your domain)

I hope this helps.

You could go with Angelfire Plus, they have 25M of space and have templates you can use to make your page's really easy.
And you can get your own domain name through them, the only drawback is, I beleive they are having bandwidth problem's, so traffic would have to be low!
Thats what I started with anyway.

I could have sworn the .us suffix was only for state and local government organizations.

But anyway, you might try Cyberwings (cyberwings.com), as they have plans starting at $2.10/year if memory serves, and have a decent service. Just watch out for the long setup time. I don't know if you'll be able to get an account with them, however, as I've heard they are going to be switching to reseller-only (except for the existing customer base) soon.

I was once a fan of cyberwings... I have a few accounts with them. The last one took 6 weeks to set up and I was hassled the entire time. Furthermore, their support staff was one of the best I ever worked with, until they got more traffic than they could handle... Now no responses from support, emails don't get answered, and the whole organization is falling apart.
Trust me here, cyberwings is a bad choice ATM.

I think MCP gave up a bit too soon. Cyberwings has just added two more fulltime staff members who are exclusively devoted to account setup.

Yes, it is true that it takes longer to set up an account at Cyberwings than anywhere else. But this is in part because every single account gets personal attention from a Cyberwings staff member.

It is also true that someone coming into the support chat whining and complaining because his VERY inexpensive site is taking longer to set up than had originally been anticipated often DOES get flak from the happy customers.

And it is also true that of the 7500 or so cyberwings accounts, only a few... not even half a dozen... are dissatisfied. So I would recommend cyberwings in a heartbeat. I have several accounts there and while I have experienced the same set up delay everyone else has, once the accounts are set up, the service and reliability are unparalleled.

Blessings,
Apacapacas
I do not work for cyberwings... I'm just an innocent bystander.