VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

[nick reed]

Today, I decided to use GoDaddy to register a domain name and get some web hosting services. Everything was going splendiferously... all the way up to the point that I went to FTP my site. First, a little history...

Initially, I had signed up for Website Tonight which is a web based site creator. It was painfully slow and had a clunky interface. I called support and they graciously cancelled that web package. I told them that I noticed an available CD/downloadable web creation program called Website Complete. I asked them if I could get that instead of the other clunky piece of junk. They said, sure, and signed me up. I had noticed a price of $14.95 for the download. I downloaded it and everything was going well. I was happy with the results. Then I went to FTP it. A little window popped up saying that I had to pay a licensing fee, which turned out to be $35 to publish the site. This really burned me. I called support and told them so. It does say something about a licensing fee on the main page where the deal is offered but it is off to the side in another column (a small print kinda thing). It was there... but not conspicuously.

The tech was really nice and they were willing to refund my $14.95 but now I have a bad taste in my mouth for GoDaddy. Has anyone else felt "taken" by them? They seem to do a lot of "bait and switch" type stuff. Maybe I'm just in a mode right now and will see this differently tomorrow. I certainly hope so.

Maybe this is all my fault and not their's at all.

[billelder]

Hi Nick,

Let me be sure I understand. You have your domain with GoDaddy and you also bought their web hosting package? Is the issue creating and uploading your web pages to the GoDaddy site? If you bought domain there you are probably bound to keep it with them for so many months before being allowed to move it.

There are free programs that will help you create a simple but clean site. Open Office, which is free, will allow you to create web pages. There are also free FTP programs that will upload the pages to your web hosting site. GoDaddy should have sent you that information when/if you signed up for web hosting.

I believe you can have a domain with GoDaddy and not have web hosting. Most internet service providers (like Earthlink, BellSouth, Cox, AOL etc) all give you around 10MB of personal web space. Often, these ISP's have software or programs that will also help you to create a web site. That's enough space for a decent web site and audio sammples.

GoDaddy should allow you to "stealth re-direct" to any web site using your domain. For instance, let's say you're with Earthlink using the username "nickreed". So your web page with that ISP would be http://www.earthlink.net/~nickreed/ You would then point your domain to that site so that each time someone clicked on www.nickreed.com, they'd actually go to http://www.earthlink.net/~nickreed/
It's the same with e-mail too. You can point "nick@nickreed.com to your regular e-mail.

Please forgive mme if I'm oversimplifying this and you already knew this. Hope this helps.

[Spacegypsy]

Hi Nick - GoDaddy did the same to me, with the Web Site Complete thing - the $35 licensing fee was a surprise! I called them up and whined and whinged, telling them they could listen to the recording of my call to the guy who sold me the package to prove the fee was never mentioned, and they waived the fee for me Squeaky wheel, squeaky wheel.

However, uploading can be a real problem. If you're on a shared server the upload speed and availability is spotty at best, and when you call tech support they could give a hang - they just say I'm the only person who is having the problem, which I am sure is not the case. Uploading larger files is frustrating as it can drop the upload in mid-stream many times before a successful one happens.

All in all though, my website has only been "down" due to Go Daddy tech a couple of times in 18 months, so that's not bad.

I guess I'd rather be with GoDaddy who have some stability than with a smaller company which could go west taking my site with it.

[allensco]

Hey Nick, like Bill said, you can have the domain name registered with whomever you wish, but can point the name to wherever you want it. I registered my domain (voiceoverallen.com) with Domainsite.Com and use eDatarack as my webhost. I just pointed the domain to eDatarack's name servers and that was it. It started resolving in about 24-36 hours. On a side note, I used to use Domainsite, but they had some issues last year I couldn't live with, namely being blacklisted by a backbone provider due to the amount of virus infested/spam traffic coming from their servers, so I switched webhosts.

Coffeecup makes a simple to use HTML editor to build and upload your site. It's about $30 dollars or so (can't remember the exact price). There's Hotdog Pro from Sausage Software (Australian). I used to use it exclusively until I got hold of a copy of Macromedia's Dreamweaver. That and Bluefish (a Linux program) is about all I use to build/maintain my website. I use CuteFTP to send it all up to the server. There's also a free version of WS-FTP you can get. If you can't find it on Tucows, I can put up a copy of it on my server and let you download it. It's very easy to use and did I mention FREE?!?!

Hope you can get it worked out! If I can help, let me know

[nick reed]

[nick reed]

[kgenus]

There's no reason to use those products that rip you off....

www.WebMonkey.com - This site contains everything you'll ever need to learn everything web, from html, dynamic html, javascript, sql queries, etc. It's truly option overload, but you'll have a decent website developed with the appriopriate knowledge quicker than you think.

Also, Domain Name Service (DNS) is nothing more than a directory service that maps names to ip addresses. The domain you purchase, www.YourName.com is only ONE ip address. You could add additional hosts such as homebox01.YourName.com and homebox02.YourName.com setting up one as an ftp server and the other as an email server. The only thing you're paying for with DNS is the ability to have it HOSTED by that company....
_________________
Genus

[nick reed]

[CWToo]

Wow... I'm on my second web site with Godaddy and couldn't be happier. The first was for www.wagsdoggiedaycare.com and I liked the customer service so much--not to mention the price--I moved www.chrishwite.com to Godaddy from XO. The switch was smooth as silk.

Registered the Wags domain name through Godaddy but kept Network Solutions for my domain.

As far as web design software goes, you can't go wrong with Microsoft FrontPage, at least it's always been OK for me.

As always with any muddy verbal flow of mine, YMMV.

[Drew]

I've been pretty happy with GoDaddy myself. Two year domain registration and hosting for about $95, hard to beat that.
_________________
www.voiceoverdrew.com
Skype: andrew.hadwal1
Although I have a full head of hair, I'm quite ribald.

[Hart]

Throwing my hat in the ring,

I registered my domain name at godaddy, but have never used their hosting for anything. The day I registered my name with them, I signed up with my host. Everything transferred fine. There are so many good options out there, I see no reason to stay with a company that you personally are unhappy with.

I spent the cash and use Dreamweaver for my site for major changes. For minor stuff (mostly text based) I just go WYSIWYG and use notepad. Easy, clean, can do it from any computer, and it's free.

[Deirdre]

For the record: Nearly all my domain names are with GoDaddy-- including VO-BB.com. They also host this site.

but....
We have Scratch.
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DBCooperVO.com
IMDB

[billelder]

Sorry for the GoDaddy problem. My host is MileScape.com and I have other domains with MyDomain.com. I had a free account (when they offered them) with 1and1 and liked them a lot.

I enjoy reading about the different hosts and recommendations. I've suggested to many that if you don't know anything at all about the web, find a kid in your neighborhood/family friend/church/school and pay them to make a site you like. The "yoot" today know all the latest codes and tricks. You get a great site and they get some spending cash.

True story. I had just joined MileScape and was having problems with some php code. Someone with the nick "dark_lord_of_death" (or something like that) sent a private message and asked if they could help. They quickly solved the problem. I asked if they did this for a living. The reply was "No, I'm only 14". LOL

[Doc]

Hehehe...

"My Cousin Billy"

[Philip Banks]