OK, a few questions, which will probably seem like something an infant should know, much less an eighteen year old. OK.

What is a sub domain?

Does the X amount of MB you initially pay for include everything on the website? I mean pictures, extra pages, backgrounds, etc. I imagine that it would, but hey . . . my guesses do not equal fact.

Do all websites require you have some kind of FTP server to upload files?

When you are provided with email accounts, where exactly do you go to check email sent to it? I mean, I use yahoo, right now, and I go and log in, and it already has a place set up from which I can send and recieve emails, yap yap yap. If I buy a domain, and have an account, will I have to write a page like that myself or what?

You know, maybe I should just tell you what I have experienced and what I need. I dont want to post this in the request forum, as everyone who has a server they want me to use will automatically try to make theirs sound good, and as of yet, I dont know what I really need. I can tell you what I want though, in laymans terms. OK.

My old host was Outfoxed.net, previously Lonefox.org. After they changed their name, I couldn't upload anything, as SmartFTP wasnt recognizing the new name, or something . . . not too clear on that pasrt, I never heard back from them when I inquired about it. Support took up to a week to get back to me on several cases. The thing is though, it was absolutely free, with no popups, no ads anywhere, and unlimited space . . . I could upload as much as I wanted, whenever I wanted, a privilege which I was careful not to abuse. My site name was www.lonefox.org/~terzyfur. I never even considered any of this PHP, Perl, Linux, GB stuff I have been reading about here, and am like a babe in the proverbial woods here, trying to find a good host.

Now here is what I plan on doing. It is going to be a personal site where I can showcase my art. I will probably uploading several pictures a week. I dont need my own email account. I will probably be using coffeecupHTML editor to write the website, as it is just what a lazy girl like myself needs to make an entire site. I would like it to be www.myownname.com, not www.xyzhost.net/blahblahblah/myownname. I dont have a very large budget, but since I dont THINK I am asking for alot, and dont need or want any of all the extra things alot of money would be going towards, I am hoping that there will be something that wont empty my wallet.

Anyway. I am barely coherent right now, which is why this email will prbably be very unclear to many of you helpful people. If in order to answer any of my questions you need clarification on some point, go ahead and ask. Blah. I am sure I have left out alot of info necessary to help you, and I am sorry. VERY new at all this, y'see ^^

What is a sub domain?


subdomain1.yourdomain.com

would be an example of a subdomain, basically it usually points to another website or web content.

For instance a webhost may have their website

www.agenerichost.com

and for customer support they have

help.agenerichost.com

which loads the customer forums and so on.


Does the X amount of MB you initially pay for include everything on the website? I mean pictures, extra pages, backgrounds, etc. I imagine that it would, but hey . . . my guesses do not equal fact.


Generally you can put what ever (legal) content you want in the space you have with your hosting plan. Pictures, pages, backgrounds etc. The host won't make the page for you though.



When you are provided with email accounts, where exactly do you go to check email sent to it? I mean, I use yahoo, right now, and I go and log in, and it already has a place set up from which I can send and recieve emails, yap yap yap. If I buy a domain, and have an account, will I have to write a page like that myself or what?


These type of e-mail addresses are pop3 addresses. They require you to use a program like outlook express or Eudora to send and recieve mail. Many companies also include a webmail feature that lets you check your mail online as well (like yahoo). For instance, my customers go to webmail.theirdomain.com and they can login and check their email (yes that's another subdomain!)



My old host was Outfoxed.net, previously Lonefox.org. After they changed their name, I couldn't upload anything, as SmartFTP wasnt recognizing the new name, or something . . . not too clear on that pasrt, I never heard back from them when I inquired about it. Support took up to a week to get back to me on several cases. The thing is though, it was absolutely free, with no popups, no ads anywhere, and unlimited space . . . I could upload as much as I wanted, whenever I wanted, a privilege which I was careful not to abuse. My site name was www.lonefox.org/~terzyfur. I never even considered any of this PHP, Perl, Linux, GB stuff I have been reading about here, and am like a babe in the proverbial woods here, trying to find a good host.


Most modern hosts offer domain name hosting. This provides an easier address for your visitors to use. Domain names can be purchased for as little as $8 a year, maybe cheaper. So it's a sound investment (you could try to get www.yourname.com for instance)


Now here is what I plan on doing. It is going to be a personal site where I can showcase my art. I will probably uploading several pictures a week. I dont need my own email account. I will probably be using coffeecupHTML editor to write the website, as it is just what a lazy girl like myself needs to make an entire site. I would like it to be www.myownname.com, not www.xyzhost.net/blahblahblah/myownname. I dont have a very large budget, but since I dont THINK I am asking for alot, and dont need or want any of all the extra things alot of money would be going towards, I am hoping that there will be something that wont empty my wallet.


See above, don't hesitate to ask if you have anymore questoins :)


Anyway. I am barely coherent right now, which is why this email will prbably be very unclear to many of you helpful people. If in order to answer any of my questions you need clarification on some point, go ahead and ask. Blah. I am sure I have left out alot of info necessary to help you, and I am sorry. VERY new at all this, y'see ^^


Don't worry, everyone starts somewhere!

Hello,

A sub domain is a sub section of your domain name. Say you buy Ilovedogs.com, a sub domain would look like cat.Ilovedogs.com. Usually with a shared hosting account you can get up to 4 sub domain accounts. It is just another place to put more info/files but they are generally used for main sections or big loads.

When you buy a certain amount of MB, you are limited to how much MB you bought worth of materials. Meaning if you bought 60mb/month, you can only upload 60mb/month. It wont let you upload more than 60mb in other words unless you pay for it. Same goes for bandwidth.

You need an FTP to upload files yes. Cuteftp works very well. THere is another way. Say if you have FP (Front page) there is an option in there that allows you to directly upload to your site. Although this is based on FTP technology, it makes it easy and simple. Sometimes however when you upload FTP using FP it can hurt the FP extensions on the server that allow you to post.

When you are given an email feature, the server usually uses pop3 tech to make it work. To check it you can either use the online based program. With this you login and check email, pretty standard. Or you can use outlook/express. This is a program that you enter your smpt usually mailbox.domain.com, and from there you check your mail like any other program.

As for the hosting account, if you can tell me what you want to use your account for (personal) (art)? I can better guess your needs. Once you get an account you will have to upload web pages to it. Do you know html? Hope this has helped have a good one.

LOL, we must have posted same time :)

Dang! You guys both beat me. I just got an email from google and I had to edit one of my ads :D

I might also add that there are "alias subdomains", where a completely different domain name can be hosted from a directory of your main domain, so you don't have to purchase a separate account.

Oh yeah, you like them? alias subdomains that is? If you have a dedicated server you dont have to worry about numbers at all :D :D :D

Hi Terzy,

I'm come to this thread a bit late...but like the others have said, everyone is a newbie at some point. (Actually, if you work with technology, you're a newbieeach and every month. It used to be 'week', but the rate of emerging program languages and protocols has slowed a bit.)

Space / Bandwidth:
However much space and bandwidth you pay for is the maximum that you're allowed to use. With disk space, that's an absolute figure. With bandwidth, that's usually how much you're allowed to use in a given month.

FTP:
Some web hosts will have a "File Manager" included on their control panel. A file manager often includes the ability to upload files from your hard drive to the server, all using your browser. At some point, you'll want to learn how to use an FTP program - they can just be faster, as well as provide you with more flexibility. (File Managers do not usually include any kind of EZ page builder, though. They will allow you to create, edit, and delete files, but that's usually working with the raw HTML. Not as difficult as it seems, but not something you can pick up in a day.)

Feel free to ask us any questions you'd like! The absolute worst you'll get is someone giving you, instead of an answer, a link to a subcategory in Google.

Here's some extra information, which I would have dearly loved to have when I was moving from Geocities to a paid hosting account:

* free accounts on a place like Geocities or Tripod, which had a space limit of 20 mb, can hold over 1,000 text-only pages. Even if you're showcasing your art, you might not initially use more than 25 mb.

(and now everyone will kill me: "Don't tell her how little she needs! D'oh!!!")

* initially, you may not need much bandwidth - so start with a smaller plan, and then upgrade as you need the resources. Most hosts have no problem with that.

* almost all hosting accounts will come with the ability to have your own email - even if it's only one or two. You don't have to use them if you don't wish; or you could use something called "email forwarders" and have any email sent to you@yourdomain.com forwarded to any email account you wish...including your Yahoo account.

* if you don't completely understand what a certain feature does, either email the host and ask, or don't get a plan just to have that feature. Once you start with the host and read the support forums, you may hear other people talking about ways that they've used X-Y-Z to get something done...and you'll be interested enough to ask them questions, or read up on the thing, or what have you. Again, sometimes (not always) a less-expensive plan will be less expensive because it does not include things like access to a database (often MySQL), or multiple subdomains, or parked or pointed domains.

And I'm going to stop before I throw out too much terminology too quickly. I can be dangerous once I get going. I can give you quick definitions of any of the terms you mentioned, though (PHP, Perl, Linux)...though so could many people here. The good part? In most cases, you don't have to know a thing about Linux, Perl, or PHP to have your own very nice looking web site that will showcase your art. You can afford to learn about them at your own pace. (Though once you do, you may wonder how you did without them...but that's later ;-> )

Ask away! (And if any of our replies don't make sense, feel free to ask for more information.)

- Lesli

I;d like to say thanks to everyone who replied! I was told that this is a helpful, great forum, but you know what they say: seeing is believing, and now I do!

When I had my other site, everything had to be first written in HTML (like I said, I cheated and used an editor), then uploaded through FTP, which we had to download ourself. The host pretty much just gave us a chunk of their own space and wrote our name on the end, then left us to our own devices. I still have SmartFTP and am familiar with it, so I hope that is wind up getting. Unless, of course, these file managers and whatnot turn out to be amazingly preferable. But, I did have a very nice little website in the works, and I did it all without using anything like l" . . .access to a database (often MySQL), or multiple subdomains, or parked or pointed domains", so I really dont think I will need ANYTHING like that; not now. And if I ever DO (once I figure out what all that shtuff actually DOES, that is) need to use it, like Lesli mentioned, I can ask for an upgrade. I am going to go ahead and post some links to websites which are very similar to how I want mine to be set up . . . not in style or design, but really the way they are divided and organized. If any of you are into art, I suggest you go ahead and check out the galleries while you're at it. Beautiful stuff.

http://www.kyoht.com/index2.html

http://www.thinktankstudios.com/

http://www.darknatasha.com

http://www.foxprints.com/tracy/

As you can see, these are all fairly simply put together sites. The most important feature is the gallery, with thumbnails which are linked to the actual image. I think that the first one is closest to how mine will be put together. If you took a few minures to just skim through her site, do you think you could give me an estimate on how much space it might require, in terms of MB? I hope I am not asking too much, and don't trouble yourselves on my part unless you really want to ^^

Thanks again!

Hi again Terzy,

In terms of MB, really - it's difficult to judge (or at least it is for me). I would need to go through, check the file size of each and every page and all dependent files, and hope that not too many of the dependent files (images, usually) weren't re-used on many different pages. Not the answer you were hoping for - sorry!

Depending on how the page is constructed, how tables-intensive the HTML coding is, and how well the images are optimized for the web will all change the final total file size.

I've had one site that was 140 mostly-text pages, a largeish database (older Berkeley database - that's just another type, don't worry), and a few graphics; and that used about 10 MB of web space. Even 25 megabytes of space turns out to hold quite a lot, though - both more and less than you might think.

This rule doesn't always hold, but in most cases, images will be larger than HTML pages. A single-color image, such as might be used for a very very simple background or border, will be as large as two or three HTML pages. The more complex an image, the larger the file size. Images with multiple colors, shading, gradients, or any photorealistic effects will be quite large. (You probably already know that. Apologies.)

The best way to check it out is to have all your site files in a directory on your hard drive. Assuming you have a Windows machine, open the Windows Explorer, and select that folder. Now look at the bottom of the Windows Explorer, and you'll see two figures: one, listing how many objects (files) are in that folder; and another, listing how many kilobytes, megabytes, or gigabytes the combined files are.
(1,000 megabytes = 1 gigabyte) That will give you a rough idea of how much web space you will need to start out. If you enable FrontPage extensions on the account, you may need a bit more.

Oh - and by the way - I have never personally used SmartFTP, but I am assuming that like the two other standalone FTP programs I have used (WS_FTP and CuteFTP), it will work with any Internet connection and upload to any web space just fine.

- Lesli

Hiya,

This page:

http://www.kyoht.com/Art/index.html

has about 30 photos on it. Each photo is between 19-60k. At an average of 39.5k per photo you are looking at around 1200k or 1.2mb which isnt too much. So with 20mbs of space you could safely get about 15 complete pages of photos and then some. If you want to get into the whole "web deal" buy yourself some web space and a domain name. A domain costs anywhere from 7 to 30 bucks, you just have to look around. For hosting I would look for around 100-350mb of space and anywhere from 10-30 gigs of transfer. Hosting will cost you around 200 bucks a year. So when all is said around 220 for everything for a year and your set to go. All you have to do next is learn :cough: is the web languages. This can be a fun experience, just take it easy. As always, Intigret

Woah, woah. $200 a year? When all I want is just the space to have my site, with no control panel or uploader or email account or scripterthingys or ANYTHING?? 0.0!!! And I am close to positive that I wont be needing 15 pages. Not now, anyway. I think I may go post on the request thread, using the knowledge I have recieved here.

Yes, that was a solution if you had to have control over your site, 100 percent ownership. It isnt for all, up to you what you want. But you might want to try it down the road. you learn alot and it is fun. Have a good one, Intigret