web hosting recommendation

[Ivor]

As I find I'm copying files into Flickr, dropbox and various other places I thought I'd look into hosting my own site instead. I want to use Joomla as it is quicker and easier than writing a site from scratch, I've googled and the price point is around £4 pm, however recommendations are everything so I'd be keen to hear from others.

Cheap is good, free is better, but realiability doesn't necessarily come with the latter.

[Carole]

I can only speak from my own experience.  I have a free website through my ISP (Virginmedia).  I created my domain address from there and the webspace is free, doesn't give much naming flexibility, but works fine.  I use Serif to design the website, I know some others use Dreamweaver.  Obviously if I changed ISP I'd have to change my webspace.

Carole

[Ivor]

Unfortunately BT no longer offer free webspace or a static IP address so I need an alternative.

Joomla is shareware product similar to Serif which provides template sites you simply adapt to your needs..

[Mike]

Check out GoDaddy. They are doing some deals at the moment.

http://uk.godaddy.com/hosting/web-hosting.aspx?ci=76393

[RobertM]

I use easily to manage my domain registration/redirection and justhost for the web site (creation in progress).

It's too early to see how good justhost are but I think you will find a lot of them very similar.

Robert

[Rick]

You could try this bunch.

[MarkS]

I use
http://www.ezpzhosting.co.uk/
I also use a very simple HTML editor to edit the HTML directly.

[Mac]

I use uk2.net to host my sites,

I also use Jalbum to create the galleries, simple and free.

two galleries created using Jalbum.

http://www.nyewoodphotos.co.uk/

http://www.belvedereconcertband.co.uk/gallery/index.html

and it is so user friendly, and so easy to customize,
although the two galleries are using the same template, there are 100's of different templates for the layouts.


Mac.

[julian]

I use clikpic to host my site.
Very simple to use.

Link for clikpic
http://www.clikpic.com/

Link for my site
http://www.juliantworekphotos.com

Julian

[Ivor]

Thanks for all the tips, I'll investigate and hopefully report back with a site.

Alas my telescope goes in for repairs on Friday so tonight is the last night of imaging for a while, I've been warned it could take up to 2 months to fix the focuser so I'll have time on my hands to develop a website. I'm also investigating pluggin development for AA5 but having not coded for 17 years it might be a task too much.

This is at least good news for the rest of you, two months of clear skies beckons.

[Kenny]

I use Siteground and Supanames/Just-Reg. Would recommend the former. Use self installed Drupal on both.

[Rocket Pooch]

If your going to do Drupal use Drupal Gardens.

[Ivor]

Still working on my PC on this but I did decided to go with Drupal instead of Joomla. Trying to find the correct way to link a content type to multiples other other content types but struggling to find the correct term for the search.

i.e. An image content type is linked to a selection of the image processing techniques content types, the idea being it will be a log of how I've created each image.

As I couldn't find an array field type, I'm struggling to identify the correct term, anyone know?

[Rocket Pooch]

Ivor, what you trying to do exactly, thats a little confusing.

[Ivor]

The plan for website is I'm going to group things together when they are related.  The groups will be Images, Astronomical objects and Articles. The image group is self explanatory. The Astronomical objects will act as a database (I've taken the SAO db and filtered out all the stuff I'm never likely to see or be interested in). The articles will be a few DIY projects and tutorials/instructions on the processes I use to make an image. Each object contains fields to describe it:

Image object's fields

• Image file
• Common name
• Catologue (NGC, IC, Barnard, Calwell, Messier)
• Location
• Filters RGBHOSL
• subs (per filter)
• duration per filter)
• imaging camera
• mount
• software (CduC, EQMOD, Astroart5, FIT libreator CS4)

Astronomical object

• OBJECT
• NGC
• MESSIER
• IC
• BERNARD
• ABELL
• LDN
• OTHER
• Type
• Constellation
• RA
• DEC
• MAG
• SUBR
• MAX_SIZE

I haven't sorted out the article object yet.

When I wrote the reply earlier I didn't know about relations in Drupal which I can use to solve my problem. Drupal enables you to create relationships (DB join) between objects and you can then do a faceted search against any of these fields and relations. e.g. I could search for all images with Mag of 7 in Leo I have taken. With the faceted search I will also be able to find what objects are available on a particular evening.

I'm currently using WAMP on my laptop to act as a localhost while I complete development.