Question:
I'm a total novice regarding all this stuff, although pretty computer literate. Anyhow here's what I need to know; I'm planning to apply for broadband soon as my local exchange is to be 'unbundled', and will have to leave my dial-up email adresses behind (boooo), I'm also looking at starting up a small business so ...
who are the best providers for broadband, when it's a newly unbundled exchange and I'll want to have access for two pc's and a laptop? How do | go about everything? And would I be better using BT for the initial set-up or can I get the same service better/cheaper elsewhere. (reliability before cost).
Who should I register a domain name with at a reasonable cost, and know that I can keep that email address where-ever I go, even if abroad? And will these charges rocket after a year?
Can I build a website cheaply myself?
Is there somewhere I can get good independent information - (apart from MSE forums?)
I've done a search through these forums - but lots of stuff seems quite old, and I know how quickly things change - so any advise greatly appreciated.
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You could do worse than to start with a look at
JoshM
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Can answer on what I did just before Xmas when I shut down my business and wanted to cut costs if it helps:
1. went with adsl4less at 15 quid a month, 512k unlimited. Still have 3 xp machines plus laptop plus a W2k server accessing my now small network via wires i.e. switch and router so all have access.
2. Registered a .com with www.123-reg.co.uk which think was about 35 quid for 2 years, and you get an email address**
3. Opened an ** email service with Nildram's v2net system, 5 email address and they av mail in and out as well - think it's about 19 quid/year.
4. Run my hobby "island walks" website from home on the W2K server, it's not flashy but has loads of data in the form of walks and (1000s) of photos hence getting unlimited was relevant for me. Scribbled the site out using Frontpage, and have protected it all with Sygate soft firewall and hard firewall via the router.
hope above helps you maybe.
rgds FangKat
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Some ISP's will give you some free webspace as part of their package, but it is still preferable to have you own independant space especially for a business website. After all, you don't know whether you will still be using this ISP in 1 or 2 years time.
If your site is just a basic website with a few pages and photographs then you wont need much webspace. try they offer a decent size package for a small business website for £20.00 a year!, they can even register your choice of domain name for you and set up it all up for you. Don't be put off by how cheap they are, I was hosted with them for 3 years and in that time only had 2 periods of downtime, the only reason I left was because my site outgrew their largest package. Purplecloud are helpful, UK based and unlike some hosts they reply quickly to questions and don't hide their contact information.
If you choose to host with them, you will also get webmail for your domain name, which means you can read and send emails from your domain name account from any internet connected computer anywhere in the world simply by accessing a www page and entering in your username and password. This means that you can effectively be sitting in an internet cafe in Australia and be reading and sending emails as if you were at home.
Its' always advisable to have 2 email addresses in any case. One which is used for business and family contacts etc and a 'throw-away' free web based one such as hotmail. This cuts down on spam, since you can use the free email address for filling in online forms, requesting information, taking part in competitions etc and reserve the domain email address purely for business and family use.
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get your broadband from and they comes with a FREE .co.uk domain and webspace.
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get your broadband from and they comes with a FREE .co.uk domain and webspace.
Can I do that when an exchange is just being enabled for broadband? And will they supply all the stuff I'll need (I'm assumimg I'll need something)?
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Just be careful when taking up any webspace or free domain offers that this will remain independant even if you leave them. The last thing you want is to set up a business website and get good search engine rankings, but in 12 months time your ISP is dire or increases their prices and you want to move. When you move ISP's you may find your webspace gets cancelled as well meaning you have to start up all over again.
The same applies to domain names, if you get offered a domain for free as part of another 'deal' then make sure it is registered in your name, so that you have full ownership over it if you fall out with your host / ISP. Hosts have been known to hold domains to ransom if you decide to leave, also make sure that you have access to the domain control panel. You don't want to be emailing them everytime you need to update your DNS settings or add an additional email alias.
I'm not saying that this will happen with E7even, all I am saying is 'Buyer Beware' - ask the question before making the decision, because I got caught out when I moved from dial up to Broadband.
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I'm planning to apply for broadband soon as my local exchange is to be 'unbundled', and will have to leave my dial-up email adresses behind (boooo
Are you sure? I left Blueyonder 5 years ago and still get all my email sent to that address.
Who is your current ISP?
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Are you sure? I left Blueyonder 5 years ago and still get all my email sent to that address.
Who is your current ISP?
NTL - I use their freedom package which gives me 24/7 internet access for £15 per month, I'm pretty sure I'll lose their email addresses when I leave them.
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NTL - I use their freedom package which gives me 24/7 internet access for £15 per month, I'm pretty sure I'll lose their email addresses when I leave them.
Might be worth checking if you can configure your email client to download your email from a POP3 server.
I've heard of problems doing this with NTL, so I'm not sure. But worth checking.
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Might be worth checking if you can configure your email client to download your email from a POP3 server.
I've heard of problems doing this with NTL, so I'm not sure. But worth checking.
Yeh - I've just tried to contact them - but customer services has gone home until Monday morning. Thanks though
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Most ISP based email requires you to be using their service in order to access the SMTP service to send mail from their servers. This also cuts down on servers being 'hijacked' in order to send spam, very few, if any ISP's will allow you to relay mail from their service when using another ISP. Of course, this doesn't mean that you wouldn't be able to access the POP3 to recieve mail. But either way, although you won't lose any email from your old address, you still won't be able to send from it, unless you use their dial up service.
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Most ISP based email requires you to be using their service in order to access the SMTP service to send mail from their servers. This also cuts down on servers being 'hijacked' in order to send spam, very few, if any ISP's will allow you to relay mail from their service when using another ISP. Of course, this doesn't mean that you wouldn't be able to access the POP3 to recieve mail. But either way, although you won't lose any email from your old address, you still won't be able to send from it, unless you use their dial up service.
But it doesn't matter. I send my email from my Blueyonder address and used to re-route it via the Freeserve SMTP server, when Freeserve was my ISP.
Now on BT Yahoo broadband, and I now route it via that server.
In both cases, the recipient sees a message from . They click "reply" and I get the reply.
Seriously, I've been doing this with my blueyonder address for five years now and it makes no difference to the way I compose, send and recieve email. You just need to configure your email correctly (I'm using Outlook).
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Having spoken to NTL, they say I have to have an active account to be able to keep my email addresses - so I have the option of signing up for a pay-as-you-go dial-up and using this every few weeks to keep it active. If true this would solve the problem as I just want to keep the addresses until everyone has updated to my new ones - however long that takes. I've no intention of using NTL as my ISP any longer than I am forced to - they've made my life hell over the last couple of months!
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i guessed the best is to register a domain name, and then use the domain with an email address (eg, ). therefore whenever you move ISP, you address can remain the same.
you will need to keep renewing the domain to keep the same email address. also you can forward emails from your domain to your (or another) email address.
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i guessed the best is to register a domain name, and then use the domain with an email address (eg, ). therefore whenever you move ISP, you address can remain the same.
you will need to keep renewing the domain to keep the same email address. also you can forward emails from your domain to your (or another) email address.
that's exactly what I had been planning, and why I had asked who was best etc etc - I've a domain name in mind which is available in all forms - I just have no experience of any of this, and like a good 'reseracher' wanted to pick the brains of all the MSE's who know better.
Thanks to all have helped
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researcher - it is possible to set up an easy straighforward website which has some pages, pictures and links
But if you want to do something more complicated which has for example an online product catalogue, log-ins, forms to request information etc, that is obviously more tricky.
It will also impact on your choice of ISP.
"Webspace" doesn't necesarliy mean you can use it for whatever you want. A lot of the time it is just literally a hard drive area on a server that is accessable via the internet.
You MAY very well need more than this, for example some ISPs offer PHP script hosting (allows you to do more complicated websites) and mySQL databses (so you can store customer details, and make a product catalogue). Using these functions is relatively straightforward if you are , as you say, computer literate, and there are many good books on how to D-I-Y. However there may be a bit of programming and design involved!
To avoid this i head that frontpage can do a lot of the work for you, if you have access to a copy of this then use it to see how far you can go in creating your own website.
Before you plunge, I suggest you do a bit of research youself, and think about what your technical requirements are with respect to the site you are intending to host.
In my opinion PLUSNET is a good provider that offers these options in a very basic form all packaged up with their boradband packages.
They have very good customer service too, with some real experts on the other en of the phone.
I rate their staff - I used to work in IT and networking is not always a straightforward thing, but they know their stuff.
They also provide frontpage support which you may very well decide to use.
NB - these bells and whistles aren't on all of their products so read the fine print and check out the details. If in doubt - phone them!
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thanks badgerino - I've got a copy of Front page, and have done some study of design. Also, I'd only need a fairly simple website, containing information rather than products or cataloges - so I think I'd be able to copy with that side of things. To be honest it's more to do with who to go to to register a domain name, and then continue using the name over the coming years without it costing me a fortune. Who to choose to host the site - who to use for broadband and how to network all the computers in the house so as they can all take advantage of the broadband access. Working from home has advantages - but the disadvantage is that there isn't anyone else to tell you the things you don't know!
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for domain name, have a look at or . they dont cost an arm and an leg. with the domain, you get emails as well. if you get free webspace from your ISP, you can point the domain to use the webspace.
to connect up all the PCs for broadband, get a wireless router. they are very easy to configure. as for support? post your problems in MSE Techie Stuff forum and i am sure someone will answer
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for domain name, have a look at or . they dont cost an arm and an leg. with the domain, you get emails as well. if you get free webspace from your ISP, you can point the domain to use the webspace.
I don't know if 1and1 have changed they way they operate but I bought a domain through them a couple of years ago, only to find that I was tied into their hosting package - which I didn't want as I already had loads of space on another hosting package that I already had set up. Had to pay an extra £5 to transfer to 123-reg (whom I've never had a problem with) in order to release myself.
1and1's hosting isn't expensive but the problem is that you CAN'T change the DNS settings to host your site anywhere else - or at least that was the case a couple of years ago.