Date: 05/18/06 (WebDesign)    Keywords: asp, web, hosting

So I have a question -- can you guys recommend to me a good Web host service and/or domain name registration service? I've been designing for awhile but I've never had my own domain, so I'm (somewhat) clueless as to what makes a good service and a good price. Right now, I'm looking Shieldhost.com to host the site and at IPower to register the domain.

I like the aspect of the free domain for life with Shieldhost's Webplus Year-long purchase, but I wonder if it is worth spending $20 extra for 3 GB of space and 50 GB bandwidth (over their beginner level). How many hits (give or take) is 100 GB bandwidth per month?

Also, a couple old imacs have come into my possession, and I was debating just hosting the Web site off my own ISP ... though I am wary about this idea because I do not know how reliable they are, and I'm also aware that my upload times are much, much slower than download times. Has anyone had a good/bad experience hosting their own Web site?

The site will be a portfolio site, so I don't anticipate high volumes of traffic but I do plan to post larger files on the site. Any advice you could give me is very much appreciated :).

Source: http://community.livejournal.com/webdesign/1110315.html