Manage your sites and domains with a browser
If you want to gain more power over your website, build more complex sites beyond the few pages you have recently created with your WYSIWYG editor, there are some things to consider!
1. The features
What should your new site do? Do you need a weblog? A counter? Or even an embedded MP3 player?
The best thing is, to write down all the features you need and request from a hosting company. I personally prefer a complete open setup with a full administration account on shell level. But that involves Linux knowledge.
For computer beginners, or just people who do not want to dig deeper into technology, is IMHO the following important: a hosting account with MySQL, PHP and CGI access you can upload to via FTP.
2. The tools
If your account has the features mentioned, you can start installing a few tools. First: on your computer you should have a professional FTP client to upload your stuff.
Second: you might want to run your own blog or guestbook online. Those tools can be installed normally via FTP (like wordpress), but you need to unpack them locally on your computer first (given you have an UNZIP program!).
Here you always need to read the documentation of the tools you like. For the beginning I suggest just a weblog and a different start page, which you have to create with an HTML editor.
3. The domain
Registering a domain is not very hard nor very expensive. You can use GoDaddy or NameCheap. Both are OK and come with integrated nameserver features.
You could even let your domain point to your subdomain here on tradebit.
Mail me, if you have questions!
