So I'm thinking of getting the domain www.mn-underground.net just to fool around with and build a mini site for college kids and such in the Twin Cities area, nothing real serious. Can someone point me in the right direction as to how to do this? I mean, I know how to write the pages and such, but I dont know about how to connect the name: "mn-underground.net" to my files that are hosted via webspace I have here at the University. Anyone have a good how-to or recommendations?

You first need to register the domain with someone like GoDaddy or NameSecure.
Then you will need to setup a re-direct via their control panels to direct the URL to whatever your URL is at the university. For instance, if you can get to your website by going to http://university.edu/dreyco you would need to setup a redirect to that URL.

What DickNervous suggests would work great, be cheap, may be all you need as you start up. The only downside would be that the name www.mn-underground.com would just be a redirect -- someone would type that name in their browser, but once the site loads, the address bar would say http://university.edu/dreyco from there on out.

Later on down the line as your site grows, you'll want to move to a web host where your site's true address can be www.mn-underground.com. As a professional web developer, my two favorite web hosts are:

• HostMySite.com: For around $100 a year (with their current promotion), you get a domain name, 20GB of storage, support for PHP 5 (and Ruby, Perl, Python, etc.), a database back-end, SSL, and other standard goodies (like 500 email addresses). You could build a heckuva website with that if you have the time and skills. In my experience, nobody's tech support is better than theirs, either.
  
  
• Register4Less.com: For $15 a year, you get a domain name, 5MB of storage, and unlimited email aliases. There's no server-side scripting, so it's pretty much HTML, Flash, and Javascript only. I've used them a lot for things like friends' weddings and small nonprofits -- it's great for small, static, near-zero-budget websites.

Anyway, if you do go with a webhost, they generally take care of registering (or transferring) the domain name you want, and they provide all the the info you need to FTP your files over (same as you probably do with your university account). Most have some control panel built into your site that lets you administer your domain and site settings, too.

If you think its going to last you could also go with site5. I have a site on it and its great hosting.

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hmm register4less may work... I'll just store the HTML pages there and link all photos and forum type stuff back to my u account.

I know GoDaddy has a feature where when you redirect it does not change the URL, I forget the name of it, but it is there.

The reason I like the re-direct is that you don't know how long this is going to last or how big it will get. The re-direct requires the least investment (the domain name) and no contracts for hosting or anything like that.

If it grows, then I would go with a host. But hey, you can buy a hosting account and host many domains with it so it might be worthwhile investment anyway.

Ya I'm in the same boat.
w3schools is very helpful if your looking for a tutorial about the creation and how things work.

Alrighty, I think I've got more than enough space as of right now.

5Mb with Register4Less
20Mb with the U of M (Upgradable to 1GB for $40 a year)
20Mb with Charter Communications

I know its a bit silly but I'm going to basically stitch all the web space together. Aka HTML pages on the 5MB with the scripted stuff like Xnews and phpBB on one of the 20MB and all the pictures on another 20MB.

What generally happens:

You set up one of the hosting accounts and tell it "I'm hosting abcdef.com".

They say "set your nameservers to nsxx.ourcompany.com and nsyy.ourcompany.com"

You edit the setting for the domain as they said; it propagates in 24-48 hours.

This also ensures that the other services (read: mail) for the domain can be handled by their setup.

You have to be careful about some of those "redirect" systems-- sometimes they use things like HTML frames to effect the redirect, so things act weird (i. e. trying to favourite a page). With other techniques, search engines might record the pages under both the "spoofed" URL and the "real" URL.

Ok, so I'm quickly becoming aware that all the free hosting I get doesn't allow CGI scripts... which sucks since I want to post news clips and have POTD's etc... Sigh... Register4less seems ideal except they dont allow CGI on their space either...

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hmm I read through their TOS and it looks pretty simple...

I guess I'm a bit confused on how I would host on the above yet use my domain name that I register at say register4less or godaddy

If you got a spare computer you may want to host it yourself. For 9 bucks a year you register the domain then point it to your own computer then set it up.

You can then have to freedom to do what ever you want with the site.
Space is unlimited just add hard drives.
band width may become an issue depending on the type of site, if it gets a pile of traffic your ISP may get pissed.

I currently have a web page through lunarpages.com for about $70/year, I just wanted to learn how to do it and have an FTP server for my friends to access.

Quote: Originally Posted by Spatha If you got a spare computer you may want to host it yourself. For 9 bucks a year you register the domain then point it to your own computer then set it up. You can then have to freedom to do what ever you want with the site. Space is unlimited just add hard drives. band width may become an issue depending on the type of site, if it gets a pile of traffic your ISP may get pissed. I currently have a web page through lunarpages.com for about $70/year, I just wanted to learn how to do it and have an FTP server for my friends to access.

unless you have a static IP address assigned by your ISP, or plan on updating your domain name to resolve to your new ip every time it changes, this option may not be realistic, however, purchasing a static ip through your ISP is usually an inexpensive and painless affair, i have hosted websites on my home computer before, and it worked out really well. (HTML based sites with virtually no content, just quick download pages for projects, most of you know what i mean). your upload speed will be the big determining factor on how successful running a home webserver for your site will be, anything less than 256k up is probably not ideal, and 256k translates into about a 20-30kbs download rate for your end users, and thats if theres only one or two users loading a page, or downloading content....if thats ok with you, then godspeed.

one thing to consider, hosting the site on your home computer, you will be running mucho server and gateway applications. you will need to configure IIS (included in xp pro) or Apache (windows, linux, Solaris, atari jaguar, speak-n-spell), and install and configure things such as MySQL, PHP, and possibly email server. if you have never done any of this, i will warn you now, it is not for the faint of heart (especially with apache). to top it off, you will notice the performance hit.

your best option, as stated before, is to get some cheap shared hosting from godaddy, a domain name, create your database and install some CMS to handle your content. the ends will justify the means, even if your free hosting is a casualty.

100WebSpace - Free Web Hosting Service and Web Space

If you want a free host with PHP, forwarding, ect. I use it and it was pretty good for temp sites.

Quote: Originally Posted by Fu3lman unless you have a static IP address assigned by your ISP, or plan on updating your domain name to resolve to your new ip every time it changes, this option may not be realistic, however, purchasing a static ip through your ISP is usually an inexpensive and painless affair, i have hosted websites on my home computer before, and it worked out really well. (HTML based sites with virtually no content, just quick download pages for projects, most of you know what i mean). your upload speed will be the big determining factor on how successful running a home webserver for your site will be, anything less than 256k up is probably not ideal, and 256k translates into about a 20-30kbs download rate for your end users, and thats if theres only one or two users loading a page, or downloading content....if thats ok with you, then godspeed. one thing to consider, hosting the site on your home computer, you will be running mucho server and gateway applications. you will need to configure IIS (included in xp pro) or Apache (windows, linux, Solaris, atari jaguar, speak-n-spell), and install and configure things such as MySQL, PHP, and possibly email server. if you have never done any of this, i will warn you now, it is not for the faint of heart (especially with apache). to top it off, you will notice the performance hit. your best option, as stated before, is to get some cheap shared hosting from godaddy, a domain name, create your database and install some CMS to handle your content. the ends will justify the means, even if your free hosting is a casualty.

I didn't say it was easy

Without meaning to shamelessly plug my own design/hosting business too much, I can do you a very good deal on whatever hosting package you need

Quote: Originally Posted by Spatha I didn't say it was easy

not sure i get your point...

"however, purchasing a static ip through your ISP is usually an inexpensive and painless affair, i have hosted websites on my home computer before, and it worked out really well."

i never said it was "hard", just impractical without a couple of adjustments to your service.

did you read the first sentence and assume the rest of my post was me trying to shoot you down or something?

...which fair play to you Spatha is a mistake many a member could have made, Fu3l being the resident fire starter

hmm UM-underground is a bit long now I'm think along something more loungey like
www.phoenixperch.net
www.phoenix-nest.net

or something along those lines and im working on the banner its gonna be something along these lines... Although I'd like a glass type overlay like its a LCD screen but i cant figure out how to.

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Quote: Originally Posted by Fu3lman not sure i get your point... "however, purchasing a static ip through your ISP is usually an inexpensive and painless affair, i have hosted websites on my home computer before, and it worked out really well." i never said it was "hard", just impractical without a couple of adjustments to your service. did you read the first sentence and assume the rest of my post was me trying to shoot you down or something?

Ya I did read the first sentence and know I didn't assume you where trying to shoot me down, its just that after about the 5th technical term I add difficulty in my perception of the process. I actually didn't know you need to purchase a static IP I though they just gave you one, maybe its just my ISPs I don't know. I know all I had to do to get my FTP server to function was to change my router to static IP and then check a few boxes in XP's control panel. From my understanding you can host a web page off a FTP server if you do it right but don't take my word for it.
It's just that the little guy that sit on my shoulder, whoms sole purpose in this reality is to tell my the given hottie rating for every girl he sees; said "dam thats allot to bight off and chew, better take it one nibble at a time." after I finished reading your post.

Dex: I'm aware of Fu3lman's earned reputation I have read a tread with some posts where arguments have gotten pretty heated and he said/typed some things that scared the liven sh*t out of me. "Dam I'm never gonna mess with him."