I was hoping the tech-savvy Ws out there could help me with a question. I'm looking to set up a site for my family and friends to basically visit and check out pics and video of my family. I was previously a member on a site that specialized in hosting that kind of thing but it had bandwidth and design limitations and I want to start my own site and put a ton more video and images on it.
I saw a previous thread addressing web-hosting, but I was wondering: Can any of you recommend a host that would make it easy for a novice like me to build a site like the one I described above?
Any and all advice is welcome. Thanks!
EDIT: Whoa, I totally posted this in the wrong section. If a mod could move this to Internet & Computers, I would greatly appreciate it.
N.B. There are plants, rocks and simians that are more tech-savvy than me. (Shakes fist at the resident PWG intern-ape)
Wouldn't it make the most sense to just start a blog on blogger or livejournal?
You might have to also start a youtube account to host your videos and embed them in the blog. (With blogger uploading pictures automatically creates a Picasa web-album for your photos and other images.)
That option sets certain constraints in terms of format, but there is a lot to choose from. I suppose there are also privacy concerns.
If you want to have a url that doesn't mention blogger or livejournal, you can always buy a domain name and have it point at the blog.
I half agree with Llakor. It seems to me that your best bet would be to use YouTube for hosting your videos and one of the various photo hosting sites for the pictures (I'm fond of PhotoBucket, myself) and then setup an account on a free or cheap web host and link to the content on the other sites, then you don't have to be concerned about bandwidth at all.
Alternatively, you could get space from a hosting provider that offers a control panel of some such (which is probably 95% of all hosting providers these days.) This will allow you to install various scripts without really knowing what you're doing.
While I've seen several complaints about them, I've had really good service from 1and1. Their cheapest account is $3.99/month (which requires a 1 year contract and quarterly payments.) They have built in photo gallery software that would allow you to post your pictures with minimal effort, as well as website building software. You also get a free domain name (for the first year) as part of your hosting package, so you don't have to deal with the initial registration. (They even provide free private domain registration so your address & phone # isn't being broadcast to the entire Internet.)
There are several other companies that provide similar packages (DreamHost is one of the most popular, though I personally have a grudge against them) so you shouldn't have any problems finding a host.
Even if you go this route, though, I would still recommend uploading your videos to YouTube and then embedding them on your site, as streaming video will suck up far more bandwidth than photos, even if you're only expecting a small number of people to ever view them.
If you go the control panel hosting route, you may or may not need some help with the initial setup but once you have your software installed, I'm sure you'd be able to administer it just fine.
If you are even remotely tech-inclined, I would strongly suggest purchasing a Nook Color, and following a guide to putting Android 2.3 on it (in particular a custom version of CyanogenMod called PhireMod, but those are details for later).