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From the beginning...

K

KeithPratt

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 6, 2007
804
3
I've searched and read through a number of threads, but I think the best advice will come from posting a fresh question. I'm totally new to all this and finding it a pain to find concise answers without knowing the nomenclature or exactly what I'm looking for. And I'm worried if I try to do this on my own by visiting all the websites I've seen recommended here, I'll be taken in by their flashy presentation and clever terms, and not know what the hell I've ended up signing up to.

Anyway... It's probably best if I describe my situation and you can chime in however you see fit.

So:

I'm about to purchase two domains. Ultimately I intend for them to both navigate to the same website, but for the next few months I want to put up a very basic site as a sort of placeholder. We're talking one sentence and a JPEG. Then over the coming few months I'll try to learn the web design basics and find a host to go with long-term.

What I'm looking for is a hosting service that's very cheap (ideally free, but I'm not holding my breath) to use for a few months. As I've said, there will be practically nothing on the site, and I'm expecting very few visitors, so bandwidth will be very low. I want to put the site(s) up now for various reasons — but not least because it would give me opportunity to try a few things out as I learn.

So any recommendations/advice on a very cheap and simple hosting service with no long-term contract?

Oh, and I'm thinking of using Zen to buy the domains (I'm UK-based). Anyone have any comment to make on that? And I'm currently using RapidWeaver, so any suggestions for plug-ins/add-ons to give me a little more customizability are also welcome.

Thanks in advance for any help. (And sorry it was so long.)
 
Try fast2host for your hosting, if in the meantime your just learning how to build the site i recommend you download MAMP and build your website on your local computer in its sandbox then when it is ready then go out and buy your domains and hosting rather than leave a essentially empty page up costing you money.
 
You may want to consider just running a site on your machine unless you're needing others to be able to visit it. By running a web server on your machine you get a better feel for how to work with it and you can test anything you want on it. MAMP is a common way to set everything up that you'll need on your Mac. It's what I use to test my site locally before posting it for the world to see. Doing this will give you more time to learn about hosts and such while still getting a site put together and gaining experience.
 
Thanks for the replies.

I'm eager to buy the URLs now — I'm paranoid they'll be snapped up by someone else if I leave it several months. Would there be any issue with buying them but not signing up to a hosting plan until I had a website to put up?

I'm looking into MAMP as I type. At the moment I'm after the simplest way of doing this. In the long-term I may try to advance myself a bit, but in the coming months my concern is only getting a decently-looking and properly functioning website up and running, with as little hassle as possible. From what I've picked up so far I was of the opinion RapidWeaver kept the whole process, from design to publishing (as they call it), simple. A sort of iWeb for adults.

Also, if I have two URLs and want to point them to the one website, is '301 redirect' the best/correct way to do it?

And what are Amazon EC2 and S3? Am I right in thinking whatever they are, they're not for the likes of me?
 
When you purchase your domains, the registrar will automatically "park" them for you. You really don't need to choose a host until you're ready to put up your site.

Once you've purchased the domain you can start using it whenever you like.
 
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