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DIY web site: Signing up for a web host

September 25th, 2006

In my previous post, I discussed starting your own blog/site (registering a domain, and getting hosting).

In this article, I want to show you how to sign up for a web hosting account (From a FREE web host)

Preface:

A web host is a company who gives you space to host your content on their web servers (computers which are always connected to the internet).

Aside from hosting your content, some webhosts offer domain name registration. They also connect domains to hosting accounts (such that yourdomain.com points to the web hosting space you purchased).

OK, Let’s get started… 

Step 1: Signing up for a hosting account

Regardless of which web host you choose, you usually have to sign up. This involves visiting their web site, and following a sign up procedure and paying something. You will need an international credit card, and an email address (where they can send you login information.

For this example, I will demonstrate how to sign up for a FREE web host (ProHosting).

So let’s take a look at prohosting’s sign up procedure:

1. Visit the web site (http://free.prohosting.com/): ProHosting has a convenient sign up button on the top left. Click that [a]
   Next, you will see a page that shows their various packages. Select the FREE package [b]. 
   
2. ProHosting will ask you to enter domain name: Select “free vanity name” - this will give us a chance to get an address like http://something.prohosting.com/. For this example, I will enter “nsharp” as the name (so my site will be http://nsharp.prohosting.com/).
3. Next, prohosting will ask you which ‘package’ you want: This is a question specific to prohosting (they offer web builder packages at an added cost. We DONT want this, since we intend to use FTP. At this point, please select NONE
   
4. Personal information: you will then be asked to fill a form with your personal detains. Please make sure you fill in all the required details (in red) correctly, in particular, pay attention to the account login, password, and your email address - when you have finished filling the form, click get an account
5. Confirmation: If all went OK, you will see a page that lists all your details. In my case, I get the following info:
   Web Site Address: http://nsharp.odin.prohosting.com/.
   Account User Name: nsharp
   Account Password: ********
   Account Control Panel: http://freeadmin.prohosting.com/       
6. FTP INFO: Scroll down a bit further, to find the FTP Information. This is what we need to log in. In particular, you are looking for the FTP url, which, in my case, is ftp://nsharp.odin.prohosting.com/.
7. Summary: note down the basic information you need for FTP. This information includes: [a] The FTP server name. In this case, as shown above, it is ftp://nsharp.odin.prohosting.com/ [b] The login (nsharp) and [c] the password.

That concludes the first step of setting up the hosting account. In my next article, I will show you how to upload content using FTP

As always, if you have any questions, please post them here as comments..

Entry Filed under: Guides, IT