hosting question for ol' ultra

[kotatsuneko]

um, how are you finding FG's new host?

if you have time, could you post which one you went for, and what package you chose [and if its working out as well as you expected?], as i'm in the market for a site host with a phbb forum, that will attract a fair amount of traffic, but if possible, i'd like to pay for a flexible service which wont cost me an arm and a leg. was also thinking about having a .jp domain name, but there are thousands of places, some of the prices are crazy.. could you or anyone else reccomend a decent, fair priced vendor to register a .jp address.

also, if someone links an off site file or image [a la photodump], does loading that image in the forum/page count towards the sites bandwidth usage?

finally, if i have several parts of a phbb forum accessible to privaleged users only, can i control their accounts so they are able to view/post in say folder A but not folder B etc?

erm, cheers, i know you are busy and all, but clueless here sure would appreciate a bit of help

[FG Lurker]

if you have time, could you post which one you went for

Well, FG's IP is owned by Pegasus Web Technologies, but the DNS servers are registered to Sonataweb. From this info I would guess that Sonataweb is reselling Pegasus' hosting and that FG is on a plan with Sonataweb.

, and what package you chose [and if its working out as well as you expected?],

I don't know which package FG is on, but you can see Sonataweb's packages at http://www.sonataweb.net

was also thinking about having a .jp domain name, but there are thousands of places, some of the prices are crazy.. could you or anyone else reccomend a decent, fair priced vendor to register a .jp address.

I can't help here except to say that jp domains are very overpriced in general. Unless you are using it for business or can find a killer deal with a *reputable* registrar then I would avoid jp.

also, if someone links an off site file or image [a la photodump], does loading that image in the forum/page count towards the sites bandwidth usage?

No, if someone links to offsite images then it does not count towards your bandwidth quotas. Many sites forbid deep linking like this because it kills their bandwidth without giving them an actual visitor. (Some image hosting sites like imageshack encourage it, but I'm not sure why.)

finally, if i have several parts of a phbb forum accessible to privaleged users only, can i control their accounts so they are able to view/post in say folder A but not folder B etc?

Yes this is supported in phpBB.

erm, cheers, i know you are busy and all, but clueless here sure would appreciate a bit of help

Well, I'm not Ultra, but hopefully this has been a bit helpful anyway.

[kotatsuneko]

very much so, thank you for taking the time and trouble to post mate! XXX

[katakori]

.jp domain names are available at http://www.z-names.com for $88.99 per year. that includes everything (dns, mail, and so on). it is kinda expensive (compared to a $9.99 .com for instance) but the .jp is expensive to resellers to start with, so you won't be able to find a cheap option.

by the way, Z-names is powered by eNom, so the service is top (as good as Register.com's, better actually), but the prices are much lower than eNom's and GoDaddy's ($99.95 for the .jp)

[FG Lurker]

.jp domain names are available at http://www.z-names.com for $88.99 per year. that includes everything (dns, mail, and so on). it is kinda expensive (compared to a $9.99 .com for instance) but the .jp is expensive to resellers to start with, so you won't be able to find a cheap option.

by the way, Z-names is powered by eNom, so the service is top (as good as Register.com's, better actually), but the prices are much lower than eNom's and GoDaddy's ($99.95 for the .jp)

Register.com offers .jp for US$100/year. For a business the ten bucks/year saved is peanuts. For an end user .jp is a ripoff no matter how you slice it.

[kotatsuneko]

ta for those links, Kakatori, will look into them, along with the host FGL posted, very nice of you.

looking at those prices, its obvious that .jp domain names are a rip off, but i really don't see why they should be any more expensive than others..

hmm, guess i'll go for .org or .net instead then [annoyingly, someone who uses the same tag as me but for nowhere nearly as long has already got a site called kotatsuneko's page or something.. shame you cant register tags as well as domain names ]

cheers again guys! XXX