They have seen the light.

[kickaha]

My family has FINALLY decided that golly, gee, maybe their bailing wire and spit mail and web system for the family business isn't worth the hassle. (Lesson learned: quality costs money. You don't get quality by piggybacking off of someone else's server, and relying on a friend of the family admin to let you use it.)

This is something I've been telling them for several years - usually any time they call to freak out that omgitsbrokenyouhavetofixit, nevermind that I have nothing to do with those servers, have access to them, or even really know how the whole thing is juryrigged. I'm the Computer Guy, so apparently I'm the one who has to call the friend of the family (who I don't even know), and pass along messages. What the fuck ever.

They've FINALLY decided that this isn't going to work. Apparently it was when Mother Dearest was told she had to use a webmail client as a workaround to a problem with the IMAP server. That simply WOULD not DO. Baby brother got tired of the shitstorm, and... called me.

They're looking for a cheap (duh), easy (er), simple (hm) way of hosting their mail and web. They know *NOTHING* about techie crap, and I'll be damned if I'm going to be their sysadmin.

So.

Recommendations on a either a dirt simple hosting setup or someone (preferably in the Seattle area - see, one less reason they have to call me) to handle the whole shebang. It's ridiculous, we're talking about half a dozen email addresses and a frighteningly primitive web site with maybe a dozen pages. No databases, no ordering, just static pages. They need registrar and basic hosting. I've been using dyndns.org for my stuff recently, but not for hosting, so I don't have any experience there. Dreamhost is of course the standard answer, but I have zero experience setting anything up there.

Gmail isn't likely to be acceptable due to the funky interaction between their version of IMAP and Mac Mail client that assumes an actual standard implementation. (See above for Mother Dearest's response to being asked to do anything new.) For that reason alone, I'm striking it from the list. (Otherwise this would be pretty bloody simple. Gmail for mail, frickin' MobileMe for their web site, domain mapped to both, and done.)

Any and all recommendations welcome, my webby peeps. A word of advice though... don't volunteer yourself. Find some other poor bastard to take this one.

Comments

[georgmi]

ObPedant: It's "baling" wire. You know, for tying up bales of hay? Not so much for getting excess water out of your boat.

[badger.livejournal.com]

Avoid Dreamhost.

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

'k, thanks.

[meep.livejournal.com]

We've done fine with dreamhost, but mainly because Stu is the computer person.

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

Yeah, see, that's the problem I keep running into - these are two completely non-techie people. My brother has the capability, but not the interest, while my mother... let's just leave her out of the equation except as a highly demanding user from hell.

Reliable is good, inexpensive is good, but what would be BEST is "Call this number and have this person set it up for you."

[meep.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you've got to do a lot of the work with dreamhost. They're not newb-friendly.

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

Yeah. :/

[ginkgo.livejournal.com]

Submitted for your consideration: S** B***. He seems to have figured out how to wrangle your family. :D I keed! I keed!

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

LOL As if! :D

[tealynx.livejournal.com]

We were fine with dreamhost, until we suddenly weren't. In a massive, site and email was down for a month with little compensation and no real help. I would recommend staying away from them, highly.

Unfortunately we don't have a great recommendation now. Liode is who L is using now, but they are more than a bit over the top tech for most. It's who he's using when he develops sites for others, but probably isn't want you are looking for.

But really, not Dreamhost.

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

*nod* Noted. This seems to be what I hear from others - it's fantastic, right up until the point it's not, and then it's tragically atrocious.

[georgmi.livejournal.com]

it's tragically atrocious

Great. Now I have cartoon leprechauns singing in my head.

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

Always glad to be of service. :D

[jinasphinx.livejournal.com]

On the DigitalEve Seattle mailing list, last time this came up it seemed like Pair.com was the hosting provider of choice. I have not used them personally for hosting, just as a registrar (PairNIC.com), and they're fine at that.

[kickaha.livejournal.com]

Cool, thanks.