Hi, I went with 5star for the domain name registration and then got an account with afraid.org for dynamic DNS requirements. All I had to do is email the admin guy at 5star and get them to change the nameserver to ns*.afraid.org and that was about it.
I spent a few days back when I set this up looking around and afraid offered the best option (aside from being FREE of course!). They include unlimited subdomanis (I think) and have a pretty flexible set of scripts for updating dynamic DNS too. Cheers, Ben -----Original Message----- From: Andrew Errington [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, 28 August 2006 12:16 p.m. To: [email protected] Subject: OT: Domain names and hosting (again) Hi, Well, I've been away for the weekend, and I see that Alan is still soldiering on with his modem. As I caught up with the thread I was hoping to read "...so I tried it and it worked!", but no such luck. Anyway, I want to set up a domain for a small company belonging to a friend of mine. He has a home page with his ISP, and obviously from that position we can take two further steps toward internet nirvana: 1) Get domain and redirect it to home page 2) Get domain and independent hosting I came across an ad for iSERVE Ltd. (NZ's most popular web hosting company, apparently). For $38/yr I can get a domain name, and I can have web traffic and email redirected (presumably to my ISP home page and email) for free. $38 for a domain and free redirection seems cheap enough not to have to think too hard about it. Has anyone used/is anyone using iSERVE? How tightly tied are 'having a domain' and 'hosting a domain'? For example, do I need to care who I register my domain with, and who I host a domain with? I have no idea what to advise my friend, or where to get help from, hence asking here. My friend's website is tiny. 10Mb provided by his current ISP is more than adequate. No server-side interaction is needed (no PHP or databases), although an email form would be handy. Finally, only one email address is required, but three would be nice. If I make a mistake in choosing hosting companies, what are the likely problems unravelling the mess? Is it simply a matter of waiting for the domain to expire and re-registering with a new company? I think that registering a domain name and redirecting it to the ISP homepage would be fine, but maybe it's worth going all the way? The major reason not to would be the $20 per 28 days hosting fee (which is iSERVE's current basic price). Off-list replies are fine for this, or replies to the list if you think the information will help others. I have searched the CLUG archives and found Carl Cerecke's thread regarding a similar situation for Toastmasters, but it didn't seem to reach a conclusion. Thanks, Andrew
