Who is a good hosting company

[eaglepi]

I have had bad luck with web hosting comapnies and would like a good reliable comapany who offers good service,prices,support. Does anyone have any suggestions?

[kevinpate]

I have absolutely no complaints about the hosting company
I use, but I think naming the name is against the TOS (to
avoid the forums here resembling a rolling ad bin.)

[wkitty42]

i believe that stickymail works, though :)

[cmmdtp]

I have two or three different hosting companies that I use and have had no complaints. I will sticky mail you names.

[JamesR]

Thanks for keeping the hosting company names out of the threads and in sticky mail instead - perfect!

[rahmuss]

Uhhmmm... I would like some sticky notes on good hosts as well if anyone has them.

Also, if I'm just starting up, what should I be looking for in a web host? I'm trying to learn all the web development skills so that I can create and run a page and use all of it's controls myself; but I'm not sure what features I should look for, or what I should avoid. Any suggestions?

[too much information]

Well, I have three sites with one host and have had reliability problems with only one site so I'm only 1/3 mad at them. :)

rahmuss-
Before you choose a host you need to decide what you need to run your site. Are you going to use ASP, PHP, .NET, Cold Fusion, etc. They need to support what you plan to do.

Also, check online there are a few sites that have user ratings on hosting services. I'm sure you can find one of these in a search. You want to find one that has a great customer service record. (Mine does, that's why I keep them.)

What you don't want is the "Only Premium subscribers can call our number for service." That's just dumb. Get a service that you can call with your questions even before you sign up.

You also want a good 'up time' rating. Somewhere above 90% in my opinion. (I would love a 100% guarantee, but things happen) You want e-mail addresses for your domain, I think it makes your site seem more 'real' to visitors. You also want features available that you may not be ready for. (Like database support, upload components, e-mail components) This will allow you to expand later as your site grows.

Lastly you want plenty of space for what you plan to do. I deal with images, I have 500 Megs, that's plenty for me. And price. Compare services, you may find a great price for the same service after a few searches.

Good luck.

[rahmuss]

Thanks everybody for the e-mails and posts here. And for the info.

I still hav a couple of questions... ok... a LOT of questions, to be answered for two different situations: A) If I'm just building a page for myself. Or B) If I'm building a page for a business

1 - What's a good Platform? ( VDS, VPS ...etc... )
2 - How much Bandwidth transfer should I look for?
3 - Dedicated IP, Yes or No?
4 - FTP accounts, how many and what are they for?
5 - Are web based control panels what I want?
6 - What does the "Hits/Month" supposed to mean?
7 - What is "Domain Forwarding"?
8 - POP3 Mail vs. Web Mail... or both?
9 - Host software ... Frontpage... Linux... what and why?
10 - Server Side Includes (SSI), and what are they?
11 - MySQL Database?
12 - Cronjobs? And what are they?
13 - Access to raw log files? Why?
14 - Real/Audio Video...? Does that mean I can't do flash or other things if the host does not support this?
15 - Secure Server Layer (SSL). Why would this be important?
16 - PHP vs. ASP vs. etc...
17 - TCL ... What is this and should I have it?
18 - What's a postgres database?
19 - What do they mean by "Instant Setup"? Does that just mean I can dig right in after I sign up instead of waiting?
20 - What does the full redundancy do?
21 - Should I make sure I have Forums, or Auctions, or Merchant software, or Training, or Guestbook, or Bulletin Board or any other software in particular?

Anything else I'm missing?