>I'm currently working on an article that may or may not ever be published. It's more of a therapeutic exercise for me due to recent events with one of the host I have used.
>
>If he does not plan on scheduling his time or selling any thing then a shared host will be your cheapest alternative. The up side of shared is that it is cheap. The downside is that your site is on a server with LOTS of other sites. Other people may be using lots of the bandwidth of the box your on or lots of the cpu. This makes you site appear slow.
>
>You can also look at dedicated hosting. That’s where they, (the host), provide you a connection to the web and a box. You’re the only one using it and they will normally give you complete control. PCANYWHERE or some other type of remote control. The upsides are obvious and the downside is expense.
>
>From what you have said I would think shared is all you need.
>
>Things to keep in mind when looking for shared hosting:
>

>     1.	Support.
>        a. If they provide some sort of control panel so you can do some
>           of the needed server stuff.
>             i. Like Add/Edit user rights to DIRs
>            ii. Set up FTP users
>           iii.	Request WebTrends or other reporting type stuff
>        b. Do they have 24 Hr Support
>             i.	Phone
>            ii.	Email
>     2.	How long have they been in biz
>     3.	Do they have a satisfactory rating on the different Rate a host sites.
>     4.	If in the US are they listed with the BBB and their rating
>     5.	Are they an IPP (Internet Presence Provider)
>        or a VAR (Value Added Reseller)
>        a. I’d tend to stick with IPPs
>

>
>I’ve had several provides from BIG names to No Name and can tell you that you won’t be 100% satisfied with either. If you do shared, you are the least moneymaker they have and will get treated as such. Dedicated may make a difference there but you’ll be paying a lot more. If they have phone support the first line people will be worthless for any real problem. Understand that going in and be patience with them. If this is a mission critical site for your client then dedicated will probably be your best option, until the sites starts generating enough profit to pay for his own server and connection. Remember when you start moving this direction servers need to be maintained/upgrades/patches and someone to do that in a timely manor.
>
>I’ll try and post a couple of links when I get home tonight where you can check pricing and services offered. Once you find the ones that meet your needs, I’d check them out 40 ways from Sunday. Action Jackson and other sites have reviews from users.
>
>HTH
>Jeff
>

Jeff;

It was a dark and windy night… well almost. After having the same ISP for several years they got bought out. My brother called to announce “Your site is off the air”! After checking into it I got an e-mail “Congratulations we have purchased your ISP and have just converted from Windows 4.0 to Linux”. After a call to the new “techie”, the solution was simple – I should convert all my code to lower case, because “this is Linux”. This guy could not say “ODBC”. No more SQL Server, etc. Off to a new ISP – the fun of the Internet!

You can have the best or worst ISP but one thing is sure - they will go out of business or be bought out and replaced with "Ivan the Terrible Techie"! Press 1 to...

Tom