Reporting space - soliciting advice

[xenikos]

I'm finding that my reports for these adventures are getting bigger and bigger - and posting it directly in the forum doesn't work as well when you have some 50+ pictures and huge blocks of text.

So I decided that I had better get a website to put my reports; I started working on a geocities one, but unless I get a paid account my max space is only 15megs - which doesn't seem like a lasting solution. Despite working in the search engine industry for a few years before returning to school I, sadly enough, know next to nothing about website creation/hosting/etc. etc. I guess I'd be willing to pay a small amount per month if need be, I just don't know if it is a better deal to go with a mass provider, or get my own domain and find someone to host it, or...what.

Thanks, and sorry for the dumb questions
-Xenikos

[Qwack]

Heres some free hosting companies.. Sorry if some of the links dont work, I just copied this from another forum

http://www.atspace.com/
50 MB space

http://www.100webspace.com/
100 MB space

http://www.dalir.net/
50 MB space

http://www.fateback.com/
60 MB space

http://www.dhost.info/
100 MB space

About creation, its really simple if you have dreamweaver, if you dont just google up "css tutorial" or "html tutorial" and it will give you a general guide to create a simple webpage.

[Threepwood]

Hi!

Having the same problem as xenikos I just tried the offer of http://www.100webspace.com/ to upload my report of adventure 4 (don't worry, I won't tell you the adress till reporting is open ). Seems quite nice. The only problm is: The size of files is limited to 500kB. Too bad for me who created one 2MB pdf via LaTeX . Well, I think I'll split it to some smaller pdfs. Not a perfect solution, but it should work and it's free...


Threepwood

[Sirian]

Webspace, managing HTML, etc, is the "high threshold" that folks have to cross on their own to have a high-production-values report. A few of our old timers and better players never made this move, though, so it's not mandatory. If you play well and/or write and analyze well, people will still read your stuff.

Some of us, including me, have benefactors. That's not very helpful to someone who isn't position to get free help, though. (You have to have made some connections, impressed the right people, or just been in the right place at the right time.)

Geocities tends not to be a good solution, because not only are the files limited, but so is bandwidth. You're better off posting to our forum than going that route, because their site will close down your report for the day if too many people read your stuff. The more pics, the fewer readers before you are shut down. ... That's not good! Some other sites have similiar issues.

Your own ISP may provide free webspace for your own account, with a much more reasonable/workable limit on bandwidth spikes/consumption. Check there first; you may already have enough to get started. A small extra fee may get you plenty more. It's the first place to ask!

Or you can try for, hope for, ask for a benefactor.

As for other free solutions, or other low cost solutions, I don't have a lot to offer because I've been hosted since 1997. My god, that's going on nine years now! One gets comfy and lazy when blessed with that kind of stability.


You'll have to pay something to somebody in some form, though. Even benefactors have their limits/needs. Free stuff may cost little or no money but suck up time or impose burdens. You have to figure out what is the right kind of price and right kind of service for you. There really aren't any free lunches, no matter which route you end up taking!


- Sirian

[xenikos]

Thanks all, I'll try a few of those options. I might not have enough time to get that worked out, and my adv3 report will be in the forums...which is a pain, but viable, and Sirian rightfully points out! thanks for the advice

-xenikos

[pindicator]

I don't know how well it will look, but you can always host the images on free image site, like ImageShack (and there are others, but I don't know them off hand).

[Blake]

I decided to try the free plan at http://www.100webspace.com/, I'm impressed by the features and ease of use, and the 3GB of bandwidth.

Altough I've never created a website before (never felt the need ), it's proving easy enough, I could probably code it manually with an hours learning, but decided to be lazy and use Nvu. Since I only want (nay, demand) a very simply layout it's proving extremely easy to use. I'm using it to both write and publish my report via FTP (I had a bit of trouble with the FTP upload thing in NVu but after trying random stuff for a bit it started working).

It's definitely a good idea because I think my report will hit at least 75 screenshots and weigh in at about 4-5mb, I'm a bit loathe to stuff that much in one thread to load all at once!

edit: For those who don't know, Nvu is the successor to mozilla composer, divorcered from the suite and greatly enhanced (it's like Firefox in this regard). It's very nice and has a spellchecker and stuff. I can't compare it with the non-free programs because I've never used one. I can say it's easy to use and has generally favorable reviews.

[zilchy]

I have my own Linux server on which I run a web server and I have plenty of disk space free at the moment. I would be happy to host some reports for those that don't have thier own webspace.
As the server sits behind my home broadband access there are no limits on bandwith other than the 512k upload rate.
To start with it will have to work by people sending me zipped up versions of thier pages and I'll put them up. In the future if there is a demand, I'll look into getting ftp set up so that people could upload thier own web pages.

[xenikos]

Zilchy - Ooh, what a cool offer! that might be nice for future events - would we need to send them to you the day reporting opens, or would you be able to put them up without seeing them?

[zilchy]

You would have to send me them on the day if I was playing, otherwise you could send them to me earlier.