Most Mondays I usually start classes off with a bit of online news and since this is the first week of the new semester I will pointing students to two links this morning.

The first is Australia Council activities in Second Life and the second is the Craft ACT’s latest exhibitions. Since this semester I am going to be talking a lot about Web2.0 technologies including using flickr, YouTube and blogging as visual artists and how using these sites help develop your professional practice, pay particular attention to the Knit1 Blog1 exhibit

Choosing a web host

OK after chatting about these two newsy items I will talking about choosing a web host.

What should you look for when choosing a web host?
Artists and designer have lightly different needs to regular commercial web hosting solutions.

A note about free web hosting
There are loads of free web hosts which impose advertising on your website. The revenue raised from adverts covers their costs. Some of the free web hosts require you to place a banner on your pages, others display a pop up window every time a page on your site loads (shudder, horrible things!).

I honestly don’t understand why people go to the trouble of building a site then hosting it on one these free sites. It simply downgrades your site and your work. It does nothing to enhance your professional status as a designer. Simply put don’t do it! It is personal opinion but you might like to check What not to do when creating a portfolio site

Amount of web space
Gone are the days of 10Mb hosting plans, but ask yourself does the package you are looking at have enough space for your needs? As your professional life develops you will expand your site. So think of that now. Many web hosting companies have a number of different packages available and as you grow you can upgrade your plan. Check and see if there are there upgrade packages available? How big is your site? What space do you need? Needs will vary a photographer may have a hundred or so images, you may want sound files, or if you work in sculpture, ceramics, wood, 3D you may want video clips on your site. Think about these issues and check out How To Determine How Much Space And Bandwidth You Need For Your Website

File type and size limitations
Also make sure there is no maximum size on the files you upload. I have also seen hosts restrict the file types you can upload to HTML and GIF/JPG files. This is obviously no good if you have used flash, want to load music files and video. Cross them off your list if restrictions like this apply as they are not providing a true hosting service.

Data Transfer Traffic/Bandwidth allotment
Data transfer (sometimes referred to as “traffic” or “bandwidth”) is the amount of bytes transferred from your site to visitors when they browse your site. Look at your bandwidth allotment. 2-3 GB traffic allowance per month is usually adequate for new site just starting out.

Don’t believe web hosts that advertises “unlimited bandwidth” usually the bandwidth allotment is hidden in the fine print and if your site uses a lot of it, you will suddenly receive a bill for having “exceeded” the “unlimited bandwidth”. (Not nice when its not in the budget)
You may like to read Web Hosting: The Bandwidth Connection on this topic.

Reliability and speed of access
You need a host that will house your site on reliable servers as a site that is frequently down will lose visitors. Slow access is equally frustrating. It is false economy to make a decision based on price alone. Cheap hosting often comes at the expense of server reliability and performance. Not only should the web host be reliable and fast, it should guarantee its uptime (the time when it is functional). Look for a minimum uptime of 99% or 99.5%.

Backup
Look for a host who can provide a regular, daily back up of your data
Good hosts will have back up systems in place to guard against network or power failure. The last thing you want is to lose your data or to have your web-site go down for a long period. Find out if they have more than one connection to the internet, in case one of their connections goes down.

Email, Autoresponders, POP3, Mail Forwarding
Email addresses at your own domain, like artistname@yourdomain.com, is something most people want. Does the host provide this? Can you set an email address to automatically reply to the sender with a preset message should you be away (called an autoresponder)? Can it be automatically forwarded to your current email address? Can you access it via a web browser if need be?

A Control Panel
This service is called various names by different hosts. A control panel will allow you to manage different aspects of your web account yourself such as setting up an autoresponder. Smaller hosting firms often require that you contact their support staff to this type of task. A control panel allows you to do it yourself as the need arises.

Technical support
Does its technical support function 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (often abbreviated 24/7), all year around? Just because a host advertises 24/7 support does not necessarily mean is is so. Test them out by emailing at midnight and on Saturday nights, Sunday mornings, in their local time. See how long they take to respond.

FTP, PHP, MySQL Perl CGI-BIN access, SSL, .htaccess

If you are paying for a site, you really should make sure you have all of these. Some hosts do not allow you to install PHP or CGI scripts without their approval. Since this means you have to wait around for them to do it this is not good service.

PHP and MySQL: In this class I will be suggesting students start out blogging using WordPresswhich is run by using PHP and MySQL. (I will be talking about Worpress next week) Apart from being able to do a ton of things using PHP and MySQL if ever you want to host your own blog on your own server you will need PHP and MySQL. Also it is important that hosting companies update their software installations. For instance, if you are developing in PHP 5 then obviously you will need a host that has PHP 5 installed, whereas a large number of hosts still only offer PHP 4.(take note that the current version of WordPress requires PHP 4.3 or higher, MySQL 4.0 or higher) Most web hosts will specify somewhere on their company website what software versions they run.

“.htaccess” is needed if you are to customise your error pages or to protect your site against bandwidth theft and hotlinking, etc

You will need FTP access if the hosting providers only allow you to design your page with their online builder rule them out.

CGI (Common Gateway Interface)BIN access is not as important as it used to be as there are many free CGI hosting services available that provide counters, search engines, forms, polls, mailing lists, etc. Many of these things are now done automatically as part of your plan. Do check and see.

SSL (Secure Socket Layer) encryption: You will definitely need SSL if you plan to have a shopping cart and collect credit card information on your site so if you are planning on doing any sort of business through your website, see if the host provides these facilities. Note that this service normally involves a higher priced package or additional charges.

Subdomains and virtual hosting
This is for those who are thinking of selling web space or having multiple domains or subdomains hosted on one account. This could be an advantage to a group of artists who want a common site with individual sites and domains for each artist like a virtual artists co-operative. Look to see if the host can provide this, and how much extra that they charge as you never know what direction your creative life may take you in.

Server
Initially you will be looking for a shared server not a dedicated hosting service. If you want information on this read All About Dedicated Hosting Providers

As to the server itself there are a few practical reasons for looking out for the type of server. Most web hosting plans offer one of two categories. These are determined by which operating system they run: Windows or Linux. Take notice of this as the operating system they run as this dictates the programming languages, databases, and software packages available. For this reason, the choice of platform is a fundamental one when deciding on a hosting solution.

Microsoft’s Internet Information Server (IIS) is also a hosting option. IIS is usually coupled with the ASP.NET programming framework and MS SQL database management. Some hosting firms with Windows servers often offer PHP and MySQL support too.

According to the July 2007 Web Server Survey Apache is the most popular web server. A common web server configuration, comprising the Linux operating system, Apache web server, PHP programming language, and MySQL for database management is what I would recommend. Linux hosting plans often offer support for the Ruby and Perl programming languages. These servers allow you to configure a lot of things that you typically need on your site (error pages, protecting your images, blocking email harvesters, blocking IP addresses, etc) without having to ask your web host to implement them for you.

Domain name
Usually you can register your domain name with your webhost. You can always move it afterwards if you shift web hosts. Choosing a domain name is tricky too. Domain name tools is a round up of tutorials and tools on the subject

Price
Do some comparison shopping and look at the advantages and disadvantages of various hosting packages. Look at the Monthly/Quarterly/Annual Payment Plans. My advice is that to begin with pay monthly until you are sure of their reliability and honesty as you can change hosts easily. When you have found a host that you are happy with take advantage of the discounted annual plans.

There are plenty of good hosting companies that have no set up costs. Don’t be taken in by those that do.

Many providers offer a 30-Day money back guarantee so that you can try their service risk free. Look for this option so you don’t get stuck with a service that doesn’t suit your needs.

Check out reviews of various sites like CNET and do some comparison shopping at Top rated: best hosting top 10

Blogflux has published a good Webhosting FAQ

Web Hosting Guides help you find the type of hosting you need and the section of user reviews is helpful. And there is another Web hosting guide here

This Webhosting Forum hosts discussions on aspects of web hosting including choosing a host, and positive and negative past experiences.