Understanding hosting - introduction
You don't need to be technical to have your own hosting, nor do you have to be rich. Hosting comes in many different shapes and sizes and it's really understanding what you need that makes it difficult. In this series I'll be explaining what you need to look at, think about and some vendors to consider.
What I'll be covering in this series
Episode 1 - Understanding your needs
Episode 2 - Bandwidth, storage, usage limits and pricing
Episode 3 - Environments and other factors
Episode 4 - Domains and practicalities of having your own hosting
What you should be able to get from it
In episode one I'll be explaining how you can work out what you need and pointing you in the right direction for a couple of things. It might be that you just want to give blogging a try, so I'll point you towards some free solutions. However you might want to be the next Darren Rowse, in which case you need some more specialist solutions.
Episode two will explain some of the lingo used, what they mean and the importance of understanding the pricing structure of your hosting - cheap hosts can suddenly become very expensive if you're not careful.
Episode 3 will discuss environments (like PHP) and other factors (like installing Joomla/Drupal etc) and how to work out what you need/want and what each hosting package can provide.
Episode 4 will explain some of the less obvious aspects of having your own hosting that often get overlooked (especially if you're not technical).
Why?
It occured to me that there is quite a big barrier beween many users and having their own fully functioning website - technology. Many excellent writers may be put off and feel slightly insecure because they just don't know how to go about such a thing as hosting. I'm hoping this guide will help just 1 person start doing something they genuinely enjoy and share their experiences with the world.
So there you have it, 4 episodes on "hosting explained" which will start appearing in a day or so. If that sounds good to you then subscribe to my full RSS feed so that you don't miss out on my latest content. My content may be slightly biased towards my current hosts (Dreamhost) because I've been so happy with their service. Episode 1 should be up tomorrow.
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