Hello everyone who is reading, yes it is that time of the year again where I post this question.
I need to find a web site host provider for my smallish personal transgender fiction website...
To sum it up in key points:
I do not need a pre-built blog.
I do not need a pre-built forum.
I do not need a yahoo group.
I need a server with open space where I can load my own site based off my own code.
I need this server to support PHP.
Am more then willing to pay.
My site was never big or popular when it ran so it should not need much bandwidth.
I need this server to be friendly to transgender fiction.
That last key point is the main one strangely, I know of many paid for hosts that do support adult sites, but some of them for some reason are more then skitterish about hosting TG related sites. This is why I am asking at this site, for help, because there has to be some of you that at one time or even now, have or do run a TG site and there for know of a friendly server where I might rebuild?
Thank you for any help you might be able to provide.
P.S. I do note that once I had a lead but the person who said they knew something vanished before they gave me anything, so if they are around, so am I.
Comments
iPage isn't bad ...
... in my experience.
Cheers
Di
Okay, thank you. I have added
Okay, thank you. I have added iPage to my list of things to look into.
The Do it yourself option?
I run a small server at home. The DNS routing is handled by DYNdns via my router which is also setup to port forward all port 80 requests to my server.
The server is an EEEBOX. This is pretty well the same hardware as the eeeBook netbook. I run CentOS Linux on it and things like HTTP, mySQL and PHP are all in the distro repository. An old laptop would do the job just as well... :)
If you are IT Literate then it is not too hard to set all this up. The plus is that you don't have to pay a hosting site.
My site runs wordpress and is here.
http://samanthamichelle.blogsite.org/
It requires little or no maintenance. I just backup the mySQL DB when I upload a new story.
Running servers at home
Depending what package you have, and where in the world you are of course, what you are doing may violate your terms and conditions with your provider.
I would check your ToS very carefully if you plan to do this. If you haven't previously agreed such use, with acceptable limits for upload/download, then your provider could (i) block incoming port 80 (plus many others), (ii) charge you business rates for your connection or (iii) just refuse you service. Ouch!
You may get away with this if your usage is personal and low-level. What happens when the rest of the internet comes to call is another matter.
Penny
Yes, while the idea of
Yes, while the idea of hosting from home is a great one. It is beyond me, not because I do not have the skill to do so but because my ISP just would not allow such a thing. Also I am on a limited bandwidth deal so it makes it hard as well. But that being said, thank you for taking the time to raise such an idea.
You might want to ask Erin
I do believe she has some server space, I am not sure of the details, so shoot her a tell ^^
Sephrena
Go to "A Small Orange"
Go to "A Small Orange" http://www.asmallorange.com and get their smallest package. Should only be about $36 a year. I have all my sites with them, two pagan sites and one transgender site, and would have had a whole website for the T-Vals (the local Trans group). Their prices are reasonable, they give the best price for space (they actually give you all the space you pay for, not overselling the servers counting you not to use all the space you pay for), their perks are top notch, and it's really REALLY ridiculously easy to get with their customer service.
The owner of my former webhost (Drak.net) sold her hosting company to them, and she had the highest standards for hosting I have ever seen, and the best work ethic too. She had been offered lots more money to sell to others, but she wanted a company who was just as ethical and service oriented as she was, and she found it in A Small Orange. I've never had any kinds of problems with any of them, and when I accidentally deleted my website in trying to update it, I had it entirely restored in about an hour from the server backup, and I was told how to restore it myself in the future. It was fantastic. And I've been very happy with them.
Yes, praise. you won't be sorry.
"A Small Orange"
Thank you, "A Small Orange" looks rather promising as well (and cheaper then most of the others), I will add it to my list of things to do more research into.
Private TG web page.
For several years I had a page hosted I Tripod. It featured my personal profile and my own stories and adventures as well as links to other story sites. However recently I grew lax in maintaining the site and they shut it down. :o( My bad. It was everything I wanted, I just got lazy because I started posting here and at FM instead. Before that, FortuneCity, now Dotster hosted a mirror site to the one above, but they were even less tolerant regarding lack of maintenance and shut it down long before Tripod.
The watch word is maintenance. I got lazy and lost the sites. Both were free, but I understand that Dotster does charge now.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
My site was hosted on Tripod
My site was hosted on Tripod UK for many, many years with no problems... well I stand corrected with lots of problems, but it was not lack of maintenance at my end that finally killed my site, the Tripod UK servers or what ever they are known as have fallen into disrepair.
The problem with free sites, which I do not mind using seeing a I am on a very low income, is in the clause about "No adult content." I mean really, what does that even mean...
Ops sorry about that little rant.
Hosting with BigCloset
Roundtree Dawn,
I sent this reply to you last year, via a PM here at BigCloset after you requested more info, but you never replied. Just in case, I thought I would post it here as a comment on this blog.
What are the costs/fees?
What are the terms of service?
How much space and bandwidth?
What is forbidden?
Can I use my own code?
Does the server try to claim any right to or of reuse over user content?
.
What guarantees does the end user (E.G me) have to do with the termination of access?
What guarantees are there against tempering with above mentioned code?
All payments are done via PayPal preferably, but the ability to send a check, or use Amazon Checkout can be setup on a case by case basis.
We use an IP Tables based firewall on all servers, and do both inbound and outbound blocking. If for some reason you need a non-standard port open, you will have to request that via our ticket system, with justification and I/We will decide based on justification provided.
-Piper
Re:
Hello.
Sorry I must have missed this last year or else forgotten, it is sort of easy to forget things when you are at doctors or hospital every other week trying to work out if you will live another day... Anyway!
When it comes to hosting all I am looking to host is a small scale fiction site with three to five-hundred illustrated stories written by me, also a small forum and some other stuff. So that would be a personal site right?
Maybe a better question would be to ask, how do you define personal from Business?
Having just read the terms of service on the host site, there are something that I am not 100% sure about so that is something I will need to look into in more detail.
When it comes to the thing about "Also any processes which hinder others access to the server, impair the server in any way, or in any which way or reason, causes any kind of hindrance to our network or any other network." would this result in the site being disabled until the error can be fixed or out right termination of the account?
I ask this because I have noticed in all my years of coding with php, different servers can cause the same code to act very differently and then there is the fact that no matter how well you code a script a user with ill intent or who just does not know what they are doing can hinder a server doing the most simple things. I know of one example where a user running a search on a phpbb2 board was able to crash a whole server, which as I under stand would surely be a hindrance to your network.
When it comes to my own code I do not use any of these symlink,shell_exec,exec,proc_close,proc_open,popen,system,dl,passthru,escapeshellarg,escapeshellcmd but I do use the php file commands like fopen, fclose, fread, fwrite, however those will not be an issue correct?
When it comes down to billing that could be a fair amount of a problem as I do not have a credit card and instead when I can I happen to use pre-paid debit cards, so that is something else I will need to look into.
I have to say right now, asides from the things I need to look into, your server is looking like a very promising new home for my site.