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Ask HuSi: Website stuff

By toxicfur (Fri May 11, 2012 at 08:30:17 PM EST) (all tags)

So I've been thinking more and more about trying to sell (or at least publish) stuff under my own name. And the more I think about it, the more I realize it might be helpful if I had a place where I could post samples of my writing, etc. under my own name.

After doing a bit of research on what this would entail, I have more questions than I do answers.

One day, I hope, there will be visitors to this site, so whatever I do, I'd like it to be at least somewhat scalable.

I'm guessing that wordpress is a reasonable and relatively robust blogging and content management system, and would do anything I'd need and lots I didn't.

But what about hosting? Any suggestions? Everything I read has people saying good things and not-so-good things about every hosting company I've seen. So what are your experiences or anecdotal knowledge?

What about domain registering companies? It seems that $my_real_name.com is available. It'd be kind of cool to register it, but I'd rather not use GoDaddy (I hate their superbowl commercials and their original stance on SOPA).

What else should I know? I've only ever used this site and one other that was a similar community-type place to post stuff (aside from a geocities site I threw together many years ago, just so I could post my NaNo for ana to read). Suggestions, things to beware of, and all that would be most helpful.

And now back to kitten cam. Mama Cat is meowing and going around giving the babies unwanted baths. I CANNOT STOP WATCHING.

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Ask HuSi: Website stuff | 16 comments (16 topical, 0 hidden) | Trackback

Here's what I did: by technician (4.00 / 2) #1 Fri May 11, 2012 at 08:44:47 PM EST

at least in my top secret other persona. I used tumblr, and pointed my domain at it.

Easy peasy. Tumblr is decent.

: Ken M's secret identity revealed! by the mariner (4.00 / 2) #2 Fri May 11, 2012 at 08:56:32 PM EST

[ Parent ]
: I agree with this. by yankeehack (4.00 / 1) #6 Sat May 12, 2012 at 01:39:16 PM EST

Go for simple & tumblr takes care of the rest - tf just wants to write and host.
I deploy WordPress sites professionally and manage two hobby ones, and while I love WP - it is a learning curve for those who aren't familiar with it.
"...she dares to indulge in the secret sport. You can't be a MILF with the F, at least in part because the M is predicated upon it."-CBB
[ Parent ]
: That's a good idea by toxicfur (4.00 / 1) #7 Sat May 12, 2012 at 06:36:42 PM EST

I'd forgotten that you did that until you mentioned it. I think I'll give that a try. Thanks!
--
The amount of suck that you can put up with can be mind-boggling, but it only really hits you when it then ceases to suck. -- Kellnerin
[ Parent ]

random thoughts by clover kicker (2.00 / 0) #3 Sat May 12, 2012 at 06:45:55 AM EST

Wordpress endorses a few hosting companies:

http://wordpress.org/hosting/

I suggest buying your domain ASAP even if you don't actually host it anywhere right now. I've had %LASTNAME%.org parked for years now and never really done anything with it, but I'm sure it wouldn't be available now if I hadn't locked it in.

Not sure about which company to use to register, the guys I dealt with have been out of business for years.

use enomcentral by yankeehack (4.00 / 1) #5 Sat May 12, 2012 at 01:37:27 PM EST

It's been around for a very long time, it isn't crappy and exploitative and even I have almost 10 year old domain name hosted with a reseller.

http://www.enomcentral.com/Default.aspx?SourceID=referrer_enomHomePage

If only registering one domain, I wouldn't worry about the price between a dollar or not.

Also, she might want to look at privacy registration, for if anything, she'll be able to control how her name/address is shown on the public DNS registration.

"...she dares to indulge in the secret sport. You can't be a MILF with the F, at least in part because the M is predicated upon it."-CBB
[ Parent ]

Thanks! by toxicfur (2.00 / 0) #8 Sat May 12, 2012 at 06:40:50 PM EST

Everything I was reading on the web about various domain registration companies was part 5-star and part "OMG teh suck." It was really hard to filter the signal from the noise.

Privacy registration was something I was looking at, too. I'm guessing that the ID Protect product that enomcentral.com offers is sufficient? It's pretty cheap, too. I really appreciate the advice.
--
The amount of suck that you can put up with can be mind-boggling, but it only really hits you when it then ceases to suck. -- Kellnerin
[ Parent ]

: Yeah by yankeehack (2.00 / 0) #12 Sun May 13, 2012 at 03:42:17 AM EST

the privacy protect just uses the registrar's address as the tech/admin contact rather than yours. If anyone does write to that address, it gets forwarded to you. It's worth it.
"...she dares to indulge in the secret sport. You can't be a MILF with the F, at least in part because the M is predicated upon it."-CBB
[ Parent ]

Kitten Cam by anonimouse (2.00 / 0) #4 Sat May 12, 2012 at 09:28:00 AM EST

Our kitteh has little tufts on her ears which act as wind direction indicators.

Girls come and go but a mortgage is for 25 years -- JtL

wordpress by Kellnerin

(2.00 / 0) #9 Sat May 12, 2012 at 06:41:09 PM EST

Wetmachine uses WordPress, and although its particular configuration for that site is a bit convoluted (since it's a group blog and trying to bend WP into something more like Husi), I find the basic task of posting stuff fairly straightforward. I am, of course, not the person who admins the site so it could be more of a headache from that perspective, but I suspect that if you're looking for something fairly vanilla it would be manageable.

Here's a good post (via johnny) on how to make your WordPress site look more like a site and less like a neglected blog. You might post regularly so the "neglected" part may not apply, but it doesn't hurt to make the blog feel like part of a larger site in case you ever want to do more with it than that.

--
"Plans aren't check lists, they are loose frameworks for what's going to go wrong." -- technician

: Really useful post by toxicfur (2.00 / 0) #10 Sat May 12, 2012 at 06:58:54 PM EST

And that's kind of what I was hoping to do with a site - have it as a place that's not necessarily blog-focused, but if people wanted to see samples of my writing or - assuming I get anything published - links to published stories, etc. or other info. I'd probably have a blog, because everyone needs a blog, right? But I doubt I'll spend a huge amount of time blogging somewhere besides here (most of the stuff I have to write about I'd want outside the google indexing bots).
--
The amount of suck that you can put up with can be mind-boggling, but it only really hits you when it then ceases to suck. -- Kellnerin
[ Parent ]

For hosting I like Dreamhost by fluffy (2.00 / 0) #11 Sat May 12, 2012 at 10:52:47 PM EST

They have a one-click install of wordpress that they keep current with all the security patches (and with wordpress you NEED to stay current!) and they also have a domain name registrar that works really nicely. I host everything but my email with them (I host email on a LiNode VPS, and they also make it easy to set up GMail for Domains), and use them for all my domain registrations of which I have... way more than I can remember offhand.

Which is to say that even if you end up going the Tumblr route (which isn't a bad idea!) I still recommend Dreamhost for their domain registration stuff, at least.

busy bees buzz | sockpuppet revolution

Thank you! by toxicfur (2.00 / 0) #13 Sun May 13, 2012 at 08:20:20 AM EST

This is really useful advice. Every time I googled for one of the hosting companies that wordpress lists, I had the same problem I did with domain registration companies - either people were exuberantly happy (which made me question the reviews' authenticity) or really, really unhappy. It wasn't clear to me what the actual truth was, so I'm grateful for your experience!
--
The amount of suck that you can put up with can be mind-boggling, but it only really hits you when it then ceases to suck. -- Kellnerin
[ Parent ]

Registrars generally fall into two categories by fluffy (2.00 / 0) #14 Sun May 13, 2012 at 07:02:32 PM EST

There are the scummy registrars which do shitty things to their customers and are clearly in it to make a quick buck (and often try to force you to use their crappy overpriced shitty web hosting), and there are the registrars which are only there for big-volume professionals. There's a few outliers like gandi.net but they're pretty rare, and tend to not reallyc ome with much in the way of support or frills or whatever.

Dreamhost is nice in that they are primarily a web hosting company and they provide domain registration as a service to make web hosting easier to deal with, but they don't care if you do your hosting with someone else. Although they do give you one free registration per year if you do host with them. Dreamhost's registrar is actually just a frontend service to various big-volume professional services, so you get the benefits of direct bulk registration without having to be a bulk user.

Usually I shy away from using the same provider for both domain registration and hosting (and I used to use a mishmash of registrars for my various domains), but Dreamhost has proven time and again that they actually want my business and want to do the things that keep me using them. Obviously they're not perfect, but for what I use them for they're great, and for the places that they don't satisfy my needs I have other options anyway.

busy bees buzz | sockpuppet revolution
[ Parent ]

Turns out... by toxicfur (2.00 / 0) #15 Sun May 13, 2012 at 08:45:12 PM EST

that it was as cheap for me to get shared server space at Dreamhost (with their one domain free deal) as it was for me to register the domain elsewhere and add WHOIS privacy and whatnot. So that's what I did. If I decide that I don't want to screw around with Wordpress, I can still forward to tumblr, but I have options now at least.
--
The amount of suck that you can put up with can be mind-boggling, but it only really hits you when it then ceases to suck. -- Kellnerin
[ Parent ]

: we use Dreamhost by StackyMcRacky (2.00 / 0) #16 Sun May 13, 2012 at 10:16:33 PM EST

they were rec'd by a friend of mine who uses them for her e-commerce biz. they even host our email. i think we've had maybe 1 or 2 issues over the last 6 years, but they were always resolved in a few hours. I think they even have a twitter account that tracks downtime, etc, so you can always see what's going on.

[ Parent ]

Ask HuSi: Website stuff | 16 comments (16 topical, 0 hidden) | Trackback