08-02-2009, 12:29 PM

Hi! So, I have a blog on blogspot.com and I was thinking about turning it into my own website. I checked out godaddy.com to see if my preferred domain name was available, and then I was looking into web hosting as well. However, when I went to look at web hosting packages, it listed Windows and Linux, but not the Mac OS. Does this mean I need windows or linux to have web hosting? Or are there other places that do web hosting for macs?

08-02-2009, 01:04 PM

Web hosting is web hosting. It doesn't matter. My dad uses Godaddy and he's still on OS/2 WARP. But the hosting is separate from building the site itself. If you're really new, I suggest you start with RapidWeaver (or something similar). Then, you can switch to HTML codes later when you're more comfortable. The problem with RapidWeaver is it constructs multiple directories when only one is needed and it puts lots of crap into the codes that is not needed. In short: you end up with a huge website. So you can start with a WYSIWYG editor. In the meantime, study up on HTML and look at the source codes of websites to see how they work. Then when you are confident, you can start writing codes by hand.

08-02-2009, 01:13 PM

The windows and linux you mentioned are what OSes the servers are running, not what OS you must use. It doesn't really matter, as such, what the server is running, but a Linux server may be better

08-02-2009, 01:22 PM

Windows and Linux are the OSes on their servers and have nothing to do with you. The major difference between the two is that certain things are available on one and not the other. As someone new to web design, I would recommend Linux hosting simply because, when new, you won't notice a difference between the two plans but if you get more involved and skilled, you will probably enjoy the benefits of a Linux hosting plan more.

08-02-2009, 02:01 PM

the os doesnt really matter

08-02-2009, 02:47 PM

Originally Posted by kalevine102

the os doesnt really matter

Yes it does. For someone new to web design/development, perhaps not. It does matter when you get serious. You can't get ASP with Linux hosting and PHP is known to have sub par performance with IIS, which some Windows hosting plans use as their http server. There are other differences which I will not elaborate on here but my point remains.

08-02-2009, 04:38 PM

GoDaddy has terrible support and their domain manager is garbage. I prefer name.com, their "Unbelievable" hosting for $25 a month is a pretty good deal.

08-02-2009, 05:47 PM

if your intentions are to take your blog from blogspot and self-host it. You first need to choose a software. Assuming you want to stick with your website being a blog, you might want to use Wordpress, or any other blogging software. Once you choose that, you can determine whether a Linux or Windows host will suit you the best.

In most cases, most of the blogging platforms use PHP as the language and Linux is a good option there. You can, however, choose a blogging platform that uses ASPX or other .NET technologies requiring you to go with a Windows hosting option.

I've been using a variety of hosts for hosting numerous blogs for a while now and have finally landed on (MT)Media Temple right now and am very happy. Realize that most of the shared web hosting solutions will provide adequate services for a small blog for the $5-$10/month price. But if your traffic should increase, these sites will not scale at all..

So it's good to start with these sites and then ramp up to something more robust once you get going.

Regards

08-03-2009, 07:02 PM

Thanks for all the great advice. This clears up some of my questions. I knew I would find the answers here!

08-05-2009, 12:21 PM

Originally Posted by Unibody

GoDaddy has terrible support and their domain manager is garbage. I prefer name.com, their "Unbelievable" hosting for $25 a month is a pretty good deal.

$25/month? That's ridiculous. For someone just starting out, a simple $5/month or less plan is more than enough.

08-05-2009, 02:39 PM

^Indeed. Plus, my dad has used GoDaddy and had no problem. It's pretty good, really! What do you get for those extra $20? A zillion extra email addresses?:lol:

08-05-2009, 03:28 PM

I would choose a Linux hosting plan. Also if your going to do a blog through Moveable Type or Wordpress, I would make sure your package includes the setup of MySQL databases. You will need those for Wordpress and probably Moveable Type too. Most of those cheap packages will give you up to 5 or 10 MySQL databases, which is enough. You will only need one for your blog.

08-07-2009, 05:57 PM

Personally, I prefer Linux hosting. It is simple to use but has the guts to handle big sites. My host of choice is called eukhost.com. £30 a year got me all the space and bandwidth I needed for several websites, fantasico deluxe to install software such as Joomla, Wordpress etc automatically, unlimited mysql databases and generally a good service. I don't mean this to sound like an advert, but for the benefit of other users I want people to know how good I've found them. I've been running my business site with them for getting on 2 years now (I'm a web developer, and host nearly 10 websites from one account). Of course many features of this hosting are standard to many Linux based hosting services.

Hope this helps!

08-07-2009, 06:21 PM

Originally Posted by miles01110

$25/month? That's ridiculous. For someone just starting out, a simple $5/month or less plan is more than enough.

You're probably right, but for an unlimited plan, I think its quite nice.

08-08-2009, 01:54 AM

choose the linux plan. I know nothing about webhosting, but both linux and OSX are unix based so it makes sense..