Today I purchased webhosting from A Small Orange. When I started this website a month or so ago, I told myself that I would host it on my own laptop for a while until I convinced myself that it wasn’t just a pet project that would get abandoned after a few weeks. But I’ve decided that I really enjoy blogging; the process of writing a good mini-essay and seeing my words actually in print is very cathartic for me. I also enjoy learning all of the little things that go into making one’s own website. (Side note: I’m not really happy with the theme I’m using, yet. I hate the green color, and I’m still not sure I know what the picture in the header is. I’m working on it). I realize the limits of my upload bandwith on a University campus (download, however, is quite unlimited!) and I really don’t like the fact that I can’t take my laptop out of my room unless I want my website to be down. So…hosting it is.
I had one criteria for a webhost – cheap. I found one that is extremely cheap – you can read all about their well-priced plans. In addition, they came well recommended from many forums. I had searched for cheap hosting before, but hadn’t managed to find anything that looked less confusing than this. The difference was in Googling for “cheap hosting mac” rather than “cheap hosting.” Mac users have good taste.
Here’s the back story (this is the “related particulars” section): I was all set to buy hosting from ExtendMac, a software company run by a young guy named Brian that I happened to come across one day. Being a student myself, I like to support things run by other students, and Brian’s prices were the cheapest I’ve seen (remember the only criteria). I went back to the site yesterday, credit-card in hand, only to find out that he had actually stopped offering hosting that day! He has discontinued his hosting services in order to concentrate on developing Edge, an app that he bills as “set to take on Transmit, MarsEdit, and even Ecto–in one, beautifully integrated application.” For those of you who aren’t up on Mac software, that means that Edge is basically going to be a combined FTP client/weblog editor/site builder application. I’m pretty excited to see it, and possibly use it now that I have a need for FTP. So far Brian is keeping mum on a release date, though.
One last thing – I sent Brian a note to let him know how close I was to buying his hosting, and also how much I agree with his reasons not to offer hosting anymore. He says on his website “there’s a limited amount of time in this great big world of ours, and we’ve got to spend it wisely,” something that I can definitely agree with after taking a 23-credit course load. I have wanted for a while to write some kind of training log program. It is an app that I would like to use, because there isn’t a good program of its kind (for the Mac) that I’ve seen, and I’m sure other people might get some use out of it as well. I also have dreams of running a web business eventually. No time right now, but maybe it will become more of a priority than it is currently, and then, watch out. The final point of this long, rambling story, is that, to my delight, my email was blogged. Even more awesome is the fact that I was referred to as “Mister Tyler” in the post! When Edge comes out I’ll be sure to write about it here…
Anywhoo, as for Edge…a bit has actually changed since that interview with Glenn. As I slowly added functionality into the app, I realized that to combine both blogging and FTP ability would be a bit of a mess (there’s a LONG story on why I had that idea in the first place, which dabbles into my original web venture, Macin-Talk). But, the bottom line is that, yes, Edge is (definitely) set to take on every single FTP client that exists on the mac platform, in addition to a few pretty large (and expensive!) add-ons which most people fine almost necessary to run a site.. BBEdit, anyone?
Heh..so, that’s the story on that. More info as it arrives