The
analogies :
If
you already have an ISP you're happy with, net access,
personal
web space and a dial-up account then the following
web
design and programming rates apply to you:
1)The
site:
I design, construct, program and implement at the following rates :
|
$100
|
Standard
Site.
2
pages - a "Welcome" page and a "Main" page
Counter
included.
Popular
plan for simple one page on-line resumes are artists who only want to list
their bio. |
$100
+
$20/page
|
Full
Site.
First
2 pages - a "Welcome" page and a "Main" page inclusive + $20
per page for each additional page.
Fully
navigatable, frames compliant, photo gallery, list the gear you use, favorite
CDs, scan of a lead sheet, Gig Schedule, personal soapbox, etc…
SPECIAL
- if your site exceeds 10 pages, you pay only $15/page. |
|
$1000/yr
|
Webmaster.
Maintain
site on a weekly basis over the course of a year. Full site features
plus Gig schedule updates, downloadable CD tracks, etc… |
(NOTE
- all plans are site design only - not www.yoursitename.com service)
This
is what I do - built the car. We meet, we discuss what it is you're
looking for on each page of the site and what graphics and pictures you'd
like to use. I then go off and code the site and provide it to you
on diskette in HTML format or for an additional
$15
I’ll
upload it directly from my computer to your ISP (your parking spot) or
webhost and test each link.
If
you DO not have an ISP, then you need to get one.
The
ISP should provide you with some limited web space.
This
will make your website address something like :
http://www.easynet.ca/~username/
2a)
The
ISP:
Some of the local Toronto ISPs are Sprint.ca, AccessV.com, iDirect.com,
Easynet.ca, NetINC.com. All you have to do to get an account is call
them up... they're all usually more than happy to help you in any way you
need to get your browser configured. In my research of ISPs, the
best complete deal for the user who needs Dialup access, Webspace &
email accounts is the iDirect BRONZE webhosting package… it’s the most
expensive, but they will handle ALL the DNS registration/transferring and
routing.
|
Sprint
|
$25
/mth
|
Unlimited
dialup, 1 email account, No personal webspace |
|
AccessV
|
$17
/mth
|
Unlimited
dialup, 5 email accounts, 10 meg personal webspace
http://www.accessv.com/~username/ |
|
NetINC
|
$25
/mth
|
Unlimited
dialup, 3 email accounts, 2 meg personal webspace
http://www.netinc.com/~username/ |
|
iDirect
|
$30
/mth
|
Unlimited
dialup, 5 email accounts, 20 meg webspace
http://www.username.com |
2b)
There
are also places that provide space on their machines for you to "park"
your website for a monthly fee... called WEBHOSTs.
Their rates vary depending on what they're providing - some provide only
a couple of megs of space, but unlimited "transfers" (also called "bandwidth
restrictions") from your site. A "transfer" refers to the amount
of information transferred out of your site when someone visits it.
Let's say you have an audio clip that's ONE meg big and 50 people download
it that month... then your transfers that month would be 50 megs.
Some webhosts have very strict bandwidth policies and may limit you to
only 50 megs of transfers a month. If your just starting out and
don't anticipate a huge number of hits on your site initially, then you're
unlikely to exceed this type of restriction, UNLESS you have large files
on your site -- like high-resolution pictures or audio files larger than
a meg.
In my research
many commerical Canadian Webhosts seem to start at about $15 a month.
If anyone knows of a Webhost that provides webspace and DNS service
for under $15 a month - please let me know, and I will post that information
here.
 I
now have a means and method of providing both DNS resolution (see
next
section for definitions) and limited Webhosting facilities for
those without a WEBHOST or ISP, but who want a www.yoursitename.com
address. I do this by making use of many free resources available
on the internet. It's a complex procedure and I thus charge a $100
one-time set-up fee... but this means no monthly costs like an ISP
or commercial Webhost would have to charge you. Ask me about
it!
If
you want your website address to look like this :
http://www.username.com
3)Domain-names
and DNS:
Now it gets complicated and expensive for the average joe (and this fact
has nothing to do with me!!). The .com suffix is the most popular
and is highly used by businesses, thus ISPs who engage in Webhosting (ie
- providing your car with the parking spot it needs AND a license plate)
charge big bucks. Here’s why -- domain names are provided by a registrar,
like InterNIC. The registrar assigns these names to an owner for
a fee of $70U.S. (this covers year 1 and 2… after that it’s $35 a year).
But the internet doesn’t understand these domain-names… it deals exclusively
in a world of numbers - called IP addresses (ie. - www.easynet.ca = 124.35.543.12).
So here’s the kick in the pants - even though you can register the domain-name
with InterNIC and are now it’s "owner", it is still the responsibility
of the owner to find the DNS servers to translate the name into an IP address.
And generally, the ISP will want to charge you for their generous DNS services
(if anyone knows of an ISP who doesn’t charge, I’d like to know about them).
If you want some in-depth reading material on the subject you can
take a look at the book 'DNS and BIND'
by O'Reily and Associates. The first few chapters will give you a
good idea of how DNS works.
So
here’s the total costs you’re looking at if you’re absolutely hell bent
on having a website with a .com name :
1) Website design fee (build the car)
2) Webhosting fee (pay
by the month for your parking spot)
3) InterNIC fee
(buy a license plate written in english)
4) DNS server fee
(pay to have your license plate converted from english to numbers)
This
is why I say iDirect is a good deal… though it’s $30 a month + the InterNIC
fee, they’ll do everything for you, provide you with lots of webspace for
all your nekked gig pictures and give you 5 email addresses so you can
receive email at bookings@username.com or gigschedule@username.com.
If
you choose not to go with a pre-arranged package, I can :
......
.- Contact your ISP to configure your account
for webhosting
- Deal with InterNIC registration and configuration (you must provide me
with the fee, or I can bill you later)
- Consult with your ISP about setting up the DNS servers
- Configure the InterNIC registration to reflect your ISP's DNS servers.
- Upload the HTML files which represent your site from my computer to your
ISP
- Test all links
- $70
(I’m
currently researching a possible way to avoid the DNS costs… click here
to see more)
The MAHOGANY solution : One time fee - lifetime hosting!
I
can now offer a cheap solution for webhosting - FreeYellow.com :
FreeYellow
offers 10megs of webhost space for free in exchange for putting ads on
your site BUT with a little manipulation of the programming I can put the
ads at the bottom of your pages so they aren't obtrusive. 95% of
my current clients are using this option... check the Client
Site List to see examples.
- Register and configure a FreeYellow account for FTP upload and prepare
it to host your site.
- Deal with InterNIC registration and configuration (you must provide me
with the fee, or I can bill you later)
- Configure the InterNIC registration to reflect my DNS servers.
- Configure and program my DNS servers to repoint and map to your FreeYellow
account.
- Upload the HTML files which represent your site from my computer to FreeYellow.
- Test all links
- $100
Why is this a good option? It means a one time fee for lifetime hosting.
Dig that.
Still
too much money? There’s another free option if you
don’t
mind having a website address like :
http://hello.to/username
or
http://i.am/username
or
http://username.iscool.net
There
are places called "URL Providers" or "URL Redirectors" that own their own
wacky domain names and will let you tack your username to their silly domain
names for free. I have a list of a large number of these. It’s
not quite www.username.com, but it’s free. If you want to use this
option I’ll set this up at no charge.
It’s not such a bad idea, if you can stomach the goofy name… you get a
pernament domain name that you can re-point to anywhere on the net… making
your site as portable as you need it to be. Ie. - you get sick of
your current ISP and move, you can redirect your address to point at the
new site location and your patrons will never know you moved. They
will still be putting http://i.am/username into their browsers. You
can put it on business cards and never have to worry about "what happens
when we move the site?". It’s a toss-up… the same portability as
a REAL domain-name without the cost…. but you have to pick from the names
provided.
.
.
If
you'd like to have a
Website
designed by
click
here
.
.
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