From HoverCloud

Web Hosting For Friends

What is the Deal?

I like providing free/cheap web space for my friends, family, and non-profit organizations (such as orienteering clubs) and I'd be happy to set you up with an account on the Floating Edge (http://floatingedge.com) web server. It's free if you can fit your web site within 100 MB and you don't mind using a sub-domain, such as yourname.hovercloud.com. If you want more than that, I ask you to pay what it costs me to aquire a domain name for you and secure additional disk space. You can jazz up you account with these paid options:

• your own domain name (such as fabulousrocklobster.com) for $40 for 5 years
• more disk space, $5/month (for 1 GB), or $10/month (for 2.5GB), I'll give you two months free every year if you pay for a whole year at a time (naturally you can get a pro-rated refund if you decide to move or cancel your site early.)

Web Site Software

I would be happy to install the following web site software for you:

• Gallery (for images)
• mediaWiki (for easy to edit pages)
• Serendipity (blogging software)

Doug (http://bewarethegroove.com), Trevor (http://warbelflabergagical.com), and Phillip (http://fellupon.com) are all using some combination of these for their sites on the server and I'm trying to learn these and help people use and customize them for their sites.

Picking a Domain Name

If you are interested in picking a domain name, you can either buy it yourself, or I'll be happy to take care of it for you (I just pass on the cost, for example, Trevor's (http://warbelflabergagical.com) domain name was $37.50 for 5 years when I did it in early May 2005). To get your own, try Go Daddy (http://godaddy.com), where you can see what names are available. It's about $8 a year for a .com, just follow the instructions for the domain name registration as they give them, but when you get to the point of setting the "name servers" for your domain name, use these:

• ns1.floatingedge.com
• ns2.floatingedge.com

If they don't ask you, then once your domain is registered, go around looking for a way to set your name servers. When you set the name servers it will warn you that godaddy.com optional services or email forwarding won't work. That's ok. You don't need to sign up for any of their optional domain forwarding or parking services (even the free ones), that will just slow things down for you.

If you already have a domain name and get web hosting from somewhere else, I can help you move it here. Essentially you login to your registrar's site and change your domain name's name servers to the above. It will take about 2 days for the change to propagate around the net, but if you set up your email forwarders on your new account here ahead of time, there should be no interruption of forwarded email during the transition.

3 days after you've set the name servers, I will set up our server to recognize your new domain name and it should work right away at that point.

Stats

Here are the particulars of the free account:

• supports 1 domain name (which you provide yourself), on a shared IP address
• 100 MB disk space
• 1 GB monthly bandwidth
• up to 10 email accounts (POP3)
• up to 10 email lists
• unlimited email forwarders
• web mail readers (NeoMail, Horde, or SquirrelMail)
• Spam Assassin
• up to 10 ftp accounts
• up to 10 MySQL databases
• cgi and php are supported
• shell access (ssh)
• popular "cPanel" control panel and "Fantastico" script installer
• daily backups

Why Do I Do It?

I provide these free accounts from Floating Edge:

• as a way to keep my personal and business contacts close (i.e. networking)
• because the incremental cost of providing each account is small (I buy disk space in bulk)
• to make a little bit of recurring income if/when people decide to upgrade for more disk space and build a small web hosting business
• so that I can eventually amass enough accounts to justify renting a dedicated server (more speed and space!)

What If You Don't Want To Get Web Hosting From Me?

How could you!  :-) But, if you are not comfortable getting web hosting from me, but would rather do it all on your own, I recommend HostForWeb (http://hostforweb.com), (which is who I buy this space from). I spent a lot of time researching before I decided. From them you can get an account that is substantially the same as the free one I offer for $4.95/mo. - see their pricing (http://hostforweb.com/hosting_budget.html).

Update: lately I've been thinking that hostforweb.com is a bit slow for my taste. They seem to load up their servers heavily enough that the responsiveness is not what I would like. I'm looking around for a new host to try out new accounts on to see if I can get a better performing server from someone else. My current favorite is Site5.com (http://site5.com), because these guys really seem to have the technical know how it takes, and I've read many good reviews.

How to Get Started

So, just let me know what you want to do about the domain name, and I can get you started. You can wait to upgrade your disk space till later when/if you need. Phillip and Trevor's web sites are both fitting in under 100MB at the moment even with all that stuff installed. Once you have an account, here's How To Login and Floating Edge Web Site FAQs.