1. Started with Blogger

Blogger is a good service, free and no costs.  You can’t ask for much more, however, there is no way to really back up your files, and limited customization.

2. Godaddy Shared Hosting

Shared hosting works fine and when I was getting about 10,000 page impressions per day it worked.  It was however a bit slow at times.  Cost of shared hosting is extremely cheap, only $6 a month usually.

3. 1 and 1 VPS 1 Hosting

This worked fine when my site started getting 20 -30,000 impressions per day, but randomly the server would just go extremely slow or even shut down. This was not fun.

4. 1 and 1 VPS 2 Hosting

Now I am down to paying around $40 per month for a faster server and more space.  So far this site seems to be loading faster and hasn’t had any problems so far.

When Asking Yourself What Kind of Server You Need the Answer is:

More than you can handle.  It’s not good to have a server that sometimes crashes or is just what you need to handle your blog.  Be safe and pay for more than you would ever consume.

My Experiences with VPS, a Virtual Private Server

I currently use VPS for hosting this website.   You don’t realize what you are getting into when suddenly you have to migrate to a server that is designed or someone who knows all about software like Plesk. Thankfully I had a brother who could get it setup, but for the basic user, they may need to hire help.

Another thing to watch out for is the lack of safeguards.  Shared hosting has almost anything anyone could dream of.  But, when you switch to a VPS your server can crash, things can go slow, and the optimal settings aren’t intially setup.  You need someone to install processes which will keep your server at top performance and able to come back online if it gets switched off.

With Dedicated Server you get more speed and control, but it’s even more pricey.

If you need to choose between the two, better to pay for more than less than you need.  Every second counts, and an hour of server time can be costly.

Keep in mind that any service like Yahoo offer a “sweet deal” usually has a catch later.  If you got stuck with Yahoo and discover the charge, they will cancel with no problem, as long as you don’t wait too long.

I’d also recommend turning off domain renewall, or better yet, changing your credit card so they can’t charge you again.

When exactly should you switch servers?

When you notice that your current server just doesn’t take the current traffic and load being sent to it.  You wouldn’t want to walk around with a glass filled to the top, and neither should you have a hosting plan that nearly filled to the top.  You’ll get downtime, errors, and server downtime which is going to cost you money.

My History of Servers

I started out with Blogger (dumb idea), switched to my own domain and used the free blogger hosting. This left me feeling unsatsified as blogger, though customizable, still leaves out a lot to be desired.

Switched to Godaddy, everything was running smooth until I tried added some scripts, that’s a big No Daddy as they immediately suspended my service leaving everything shut down (quite a lot of lost ad revenue.)

Needed to switch from Godaddy, shared hosting just wasn’t cutting it anymore.  Site was loading slow, getting too many connection errors, and occasional random downtime.

Settled with 1and1 VPS, a much faster more customizable server. Besides the pain of installing everything again, and loading incredible large mysql databases, everything is switched and running a lot faster.  Time to load some scripts up!

Before switching to VPS….

Keep in mind that this is no shared hosting.  Everything is going to get more complicated, and there is no basic instruction guide to get going.  You may need to hire someone to do it for you, but this also won’t be cheap.  But, it hopefully will be a one time deal, and once you get running your blog will run better than ever.

Free Domain Name with Uni.cc 
Uni.CC.  Uni.cc provides a free uni.cc with domain forwarding as well as dns control.  That means you can host your uni.cc on your own hosting and use it just like a .com name.  I’ve already setup a few names like free-tv-online.uni.cc and camera-review.uni.cc.  You can setup as many domains as you want, so you can only gain from their free service.

The Catch
In exchange for providing their free service, they want a small logo placed on your website. If you don’t send them 10 hits within the last 3 months, they might auto delete your domain.

Coupon Codes
$6.95 .com domain
Coupon Code: cjcdtaker2
Expires: 8/31/07

$1 off any order
Coupon Code: cjcdtaker4
Expires: 8/31/07

$10 off $50 order
Coupon Code: cjcdtaker6
Expires: 8/31/07

Why Go Daddy?
Go Daddy has a lot of free extras that most of the other Domain Registrys don’t offer. This includes free domain email address, email forwarding, free webpage hosting (with banner ads), domain forwarding

Free Web Hosting Options
Free Hostia – They offer free sql hosting without banner ads. One Wordpress SQL account can be hosted here.

Free Webs – This is an easy way to create a free website. This is better for a basic website then for using Wordpress. Also a good place to host pictures and videos.

Brave Net – Ad-supported free web hosting. Not recommended as a host since they use ads in order to make your hosting free. However, this is a good place to host pictures.

Free Picture Hosting Options
photos.yahoo.com – A reliable server and easy to upload picture system.
Webshots – This is where I host my photo album.
Picasa – Makes file sharing easy. A part of the google network.