How to set up a website?

I’m wanting to have me one of them thar website thingummies but I have a few questions. I have searched and looked at some previous threads but things change so I’d be grateful if anyone could give some advice/opinions. I’m a complete noob in these matters so please phrase your answers as if talking to complete idiot (I said ‘as if’!)

These are the sort of things I would like:
500 GB downloads per month minimum (edit: 50GB maybe - see discussion below)
Edit: Must allow download of large files - i.e. games
Support for PHP
Support for mySQL (not essential atm)

I think I need two things – a webhost and a domain name registrar. Is that correct?

Am I right in thinking that my domain name and my webhost are unrelated – i.e. if I want to move webhosts I can take my domain name with me?

I’m in the UK – does it matter in any way where the webhost or domain name registrar is based? I usually try to deal with British companies (e.g. when shopping online) as I figure it would be easier to deal with any problems.

Do webhosts and DNR’s tend to have minimum contract periods? What is usual? What would be unacceptable?

So – recommendations please?! Rough indication of costs would be good too.

Also I want to hone (start from scratch!) my web design skills before I start paying out money so that I have a reasonable standard of content. Any recommendations for free webhosts to get me started? I do have a WAMP server set up on my laptop but I’d like a free host on the web for testing purposes.

I can recommend OnSmart - www.onsmart.com

Correct. You're domain name is set up on a whole different server on their systems. You could probably just ask your webhost to transfer that name to another webhost.

Your ISP might offer webhosting, so you might want to give a call in to see what they can do.

If you're just starting out with web design, what could you possibly be doing that requires 500GB of monthly bandwidth?

www.one.com -very cheap and has built in web editor and blog editor so if you don't want build a site yourself, you can just built and maintain it all on-line using a template

Unless it's porny videos you're thinking of hosting, 500GB monthly bandwidth is an astronomical figure.

500gb per month download? Are you hosting full game downloads on it?

I'm happy to take advice - what do you consider a reasonable figure?

I based it on reading other threads such as:

http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=71073#794607

--quote--

As a general guide, I got this from Netfirms Plus, Advantage and Business hosting plans.

- 500 GB data transfer for light to moderate visitor traffic.
- 2,000 GB data transfer for a busy website.
- 3,000 GB data transfer for busy websites with multimedia.

--unquote--

If a game is 50MB then 500GB = 10,000 downloads

Ha hum er .... ok well maybe not .... I reckon I might get by with a little less .... say 50GB? That sound a bit more realistic? Basically, if I manage to stir up a little interest in a game I don't want to be stymied by bandwidth limits.

have a look at www.one.com

unlimited bandwidth. and although most of the 'unlimited bandwidth' strategies are false, I have never had any problems with download limits.

one.com say in their FAQ that you can't have any single file that is over 1MB in size.

There is always Prime Hosting
or Mediatemple


No, it's about 1250 downloads (excluding web page transfer and your ftp'ing up) since bandwidth is measured in GigaBITS not bytes (even when they say gigabytes, they really mean gigabits, I've often wondered if you could take someone to court over this (just to force people to get it right)).

OK thanks Perturbatio - I'll amend my OP accordingly

Thats silly, I have massive files in my hosting and mail accounts with one.com

Can you link me the page?

I use Site5 for my web hosting, Drupal for my CMS(the core of the web site), and NameCheap.com for my domain registration. I've been happy with all these services and their prices are very reasonable. Drupals actually free.

I'm assuming that was said to me?

http://www.one.com/en_GB/info/pre-sales-faq#6howunlimitedtraffic

These guys have always been good to me http://www.netpivotal.co.uk

Also, learn PHP+HTML (if you want easy to learn languages and efficient website and want to do more complex stuff).

If you are not fussed about programming properly or website efficiency then use a "wysiwyg editor" like frontpage/word/openoffice (although they bulk your final code to hell slowing the site down and are very restrictive) Personally i can create stuff faster in code than i ever could with an editor.

hmmm, maybe they just don't monitor it?

It does look very good though, especially as they give you mysql and php too.

I like my provider to be in the local region, so when there's something wrong I'll be able to visit him personally. :)