Dubstepforum.com

Which is best for the following purpose?

Just want to build a simple little website for the pupils at my gf's music school. There's no big rush, and we don't have the cash to spare to pay someone to do it, so I'll have a bash myself and take the time to learn how to do it.

Basically we want something simple. A little news section, an about us section, contact us, a couple of videos & pictures, homepage and possibly a little login area for the downloadable teaching materials (like sheet music and music theory exercises).

I've been looking at web hosts, but have no idea which to use because I don't really trust the "reviews" on the web hosting review websites. Are the free/cheap ones any good? Cheaper the better, but it needs to be reliable, and be able to have a restricted access/login area.

Any recommendations?

You can do the restricted access login on pretty much any host by setting up the .htaccess files properly (most common method on web hosts these days), it's really simple. The hosts will have info on this, or a quick google has tutorials.

As for web hosts, I wouldn't go with a free one if you can help it, you can find really decent priced ones that offer reliable service.
We had a thread a while back in the production section with a lot of good info: http://dubstepforum.com/viewtopic.php?f ... 64&start=0
If you must go free, then I can recommend http://www.byethost.com as I've hosted stuff with them in the past. You can buy a .com or whatever and just point it to whatever IP/site you want. They offer advanced features like cpanel for admin and automatic installing of scripts/addons. What sucks about free ones is they will delete your website if you don't have any traffic for x amount of days. With a paid host, you can keep it up forever as long as you pay.

Also, look into a Content Management System (CMS) such as http://www.joomla.org (free)
I really recommend this for quick building and maintaining of websites. There's loads of great free themes for them, and some amazing commercial ones. It's not hard to customise it yourself either.

The drawback to working with software like Joomla is you need to have a webserver with things like PHP and MySQL in order to even start working on it, so you will need to get hosting first, or you can install a small server on your computer such as http://www.wampserver.com

That will allow you to create a "test" host on your computer so you can build your website offline and then when you're done, get yourself a real web host and simply upload all the folders and files you made, all located in the :\wamp\www directory and you're set.

http://www.register1.net

I've used them a lot. Bloke called Jamie and his team are safe and always helpful.

Do not use VidaHost - despite their 'unlimited' package, I had my site pulled twice in the space of 4months when one of my DJ mixes was downloaded a few 100 times as they "thought the hosting space was being used a file sharing hub

http://simplexwebs.com - been with them for time.

Providing you're not going to use tons of bandwidth (it doesn't sound like you are) I don't mind hosting it for you.

Cheers for the replies. Going to have a look into it today and see what's best. And thanks for the offer £10 bag, I'll let you know how it pans out!

Thanks all