As some of you may have noticed our site’s web hosting has had some troubles this month. Many thanks to Jack for working with godaddy.com of Scottsdale, AZ to bring it back online and to Michael for his support and investigation.
While it is by far the largest domain registrar it has had some bad press about it’s SOPA stance, detractors and scrutiny. Wikipedia’s Article gives some background.
I would like to start a discussion about web hosting options people have used. As open source advocates I hope we can find a solid hosting provider that contributes code back to the open source projects they and their customers rely on every day. I know our members have quite a bit of hard won wisdom based on their experiences. Sharing and comparing the services and quality levels of different providers can help us all now and casual readers alike.
We hope you join us for our meetings in Berkeley at Bobby G’s Pizzeria. We meet on the second and fourth Sundays of each month.
I am sure there are many useful comparisons of web hosting providers. Here are several I found that may be useful.
http://www.whoishostingthis.com/hosting-reviews/
http://web-hosting-review.toptenreviews.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog_hosting_services
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Web_hosting
As our site is using wordpress software then using http://automattic.com aka http://wordpress.com is a strong possibility. I am sorry I missed this event a few weeks ago. http://2013.sf.wordcamp.org
It may sound odd, but my experience is that setting up a machine and web site is almost problem free compared to using hosting services. This assumes people are willing and able to do the setup and take on content updates and security patches. It also requires continuity over time–I know of a couple of groups that remporarily lost control over their sites (“where’s our machine located?” “The guy who set up the hosting service has disappeared” …).
One big question: are complex features really necessary? If so, then add installation and configuration of the appropriate software (wordpress, mediawiki, django, or other…). As the (perceived) need for complexity increases I imagine the case for using a hosting provider improves.
Again: what are the real needs? In considering a hosting service, understand the learning curve involved with hosting-specific tools, being corner-cased into that provider, any limitations of tools, and the issue of continuity–be sure more than one person has administrative access, as the disappearance of a one-and-only admin might result in no access at all.
I like the prinicple of a static home page that links to other pages that may provide streaming media or dynamic behavior. The SF-LUG web site is pretty much an HTML 1.0 page, a static ad page that provides basic information and has a simple script that updates meeting times and dates. Maintenance and update work is a little more than nil. It’s also about as lean and portable as possible: a dozen or so lines of Apache configuration and a directory with an index.html file, a jpeg file, a PHP script, and one or two backup files.
If needed, we could add links to various internet-available services. I should note that we had set up a bulletin board that got little use, so we abandoned it. As people come and go, so do ideas–beware of getting excited about new ideas that lose support when the original enthusiast disappears.