Cicero

I’m a member of an Italian American social club, and today a couple of the members approached me and asked for my help to put up a web page for their club. I think they chose me because a couple years ago I put up a small web page detailing information and photos of the hometown that most of the club members are from. After talking this over with the members right now they want to try and put something up at minimal cost.

So my first step is to decide which free web space provider should I go with? I prefer to do all my uploading via FTP so anything that is exclusively done via a web page interface will not be my first choice. I’m afraid that most free web servers don’t offer FTP access anymore in an effort to cut down on file sharing. Any suggestions? Or am I just stuck with the web space my ISP has given me if I want free FTP access.

And on a side note, if this free web page seems promising for them, they’d like to put up their own web page in their own domain. I’d like your opinions on who to register with, and who to use as the host.

Please keep in mind that although these club members think I’m some guy with mad skills, really I’m just more informed, but my experience has not been well applied.

ixion

Web1000.com provides 50MB free webspace with goodies, and FTP access. I've used them before and they are decent.

Aside from my ISP's webspace, this is the only good free online hosting site I have come across, but I'm sure others have more.

Mephisto2

You get what you pay for.




Mr Mephisto

BulletCatcher

www.doteasy.com

I've used Doteasy quite a bit over the last 2 years for small projects and have been quite happy with them. The big selling point for me was no ads of any kind. You don't get a lot of space (20MB) and only have 1GB/month transfer but for small sites it's usually enough.

Cicero

You make a good point. Ultimately I probably won’t be satisfied with any free service. I already know what to expect, I guess I’m just holding out for some hidden gem out there that I haven’t seen before.

To put things in better perspective, there are approximately 75 members to the club. At this point the only content they want to put up is a calendar for the year listing scheduled events, and some .jpg images of past events. I can’t imagine that the calendar would take up more than 50kb and for the .jpg files… I suppose I can tool around with the compression and limit the content. Unfortunately I made the suggestion that they could scan all their old hand written documents from when the club first opened 55 years ago and upload that onto the website. Maybe I’ll put off that idea in the meantime.

One of the guys who had approached me had a lot of crazy ideas. First he wanted to talk with me about the potential of selling advertising space on their website. Like pay per click ads. I told him straight out, “you’re not going to be able to supplement the club’s income with online ads.” Secondly I made it clear to him that I would not create a moneymaking web page without consulting a tax attorney first.

Then this guy’s second idea was to setup a server where you would need to enter your name/password to access exclusive club content. Again I had to set this guy straight and explain, “you need to register a domain and sign up with a host because you’re not going to be able to do that effectively with a free service.”

I hope that I didn’t give these guys the wrong advice, it really caught me by surprise how far they got carried away with the idea of a web page for the club. Sure I’m a bit flattered that they approached me, but I’m really concerned with doing something and getting in over my head with a level of responsibility that I cannot handle.

Caranthir

Their sign up link doesn't seem to be working right now though....I'll have to try again later.

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I.